The Discarded Husband: Lucian Vale - The sovereign Collector

Chapter 7

"Clean up these shards of glass, and no one is allowed to make a sound."

Aldric Stormbane spoke in a very calm and controlled tone.

A servant bowed trembling and immediately picked up the broken glass pieces scattered across the red carpet of the study. "Y-yes, Young Master."

Aldric gazed out the large window of his study, overlooking the glittering academy bathed in moonlight.

"That crippled man is apparently clever enough to dig up my old secrets."

"Do you want me to send the academy’s elite forces to kill him tonight?" his shadow commander asked from the dark corner of the room.

"No, ordinary forces would only waste my time and leave dirty traces," Aldric replied coldly.

"Zephyr Ironveil has surely placed his tracking hounds to protect that outcast in every corner of the city."

"Then what is your next order to silence him, Master?"

Aldric opened a hidden drawer in his wooden desk.

"Lucian Ravencroft knows the history of my crimes far too clearly. That sensitive information must not reach the ears of the academy elders tomorrow morning."

He took out an ancient wooden token engraved with a cracked skull motif.

"Send The Hollowed assassin group to him tonight," Aldric ordered flatly.

"Make sure Lucian Ravencroft’s head is placed on my table before the morning sun rises."

Elsewhere, the night wind blew fiercely, carrying a thick scent of death.

Lucian walked slowly through the long corridor of the academy’s sealed botanical laboratory.

"Zephyr said the healing potion is stored on the farthest shelf in this room," he muttered to himself.

The vast room was filled with hundreds of racks of rare and valuable herbal plants.

Moonlight pierced through the glass ceiling of the laboratory, now thick with dust from age.

Suddenly, the temperature in the entire room dropped drastically.

Lucian’s survival instincts screamed.

Five dark silhouettes dropped from the glass ceiling without making a single sound.

They wore thick iron masks with no openings for eyes.

"Was it that hypocritical young master who sent you?" Lucian asked bluntly.

The voice that answered sounded strange—distorted, hollow, as if it did not come from any human throat.

A voice-masking spell.

"We were not sent to talk," one of them murmured, his voice like metal scraping against stone.

A sharp dagger sliced through the air, nearly cutting Lucian’s throat.

The curved blade shattered the wooden table in front of him into splinters.

"Those lapdogs came too fast," Lucian chuckled coldly.

The five elite assassins landed smoothly and immediately surrounded him.

Lucian stared at them with his glowing golden eyes—and something unexpected struck him instantly.

No record.

Not a single trace of karma remained on any of them.

There should have been.

A karma ledger above every person’s head.

Even if only one or two.

There should have been something.

Unless—

They were already dead in the record of life.

Lucian narrowed his eyes.

"It’s time for you to repay your life debt to me."

Black karma chains exploded out from the laboratory floor.

They shot forward at lightning speed, aiming straight at the assassins’ necks.

But the moment the chains touched their bodies, they rebounded violently as if striking an invisible steel wall.

"Arghhh!"

The force of his own karma law rebounded and struck his chest.

The backlash hurled his body far into the air.

Lucian crashed into a botanical storage rack, which shattered and collapsed over him.

"Cough! Cough!"

He coughed violently, spitting fresh blood. His ribs cracked from within.

"Quite surprising," one of the assassins said in that metallic, emotionless voice.

"You dare attack The Hollowed with a life artifact? Magic meant for the living?"

"The dead are unaffected by life magic, Ravencroft," another added.

Lucian did not reply.

He rolled quickly to avoid a barrage of incoming daggers.

Three blades embedded themselves into the stone floor right beside his ear.

He kicked a broken wooden plank toward them.

Their daggers sliced through it like thin paper.

Blood flowed again, staining his shirt from a fresh cut on his left arm.

"They deceive life," Lucian muttered.

"They are dead, yet they live."

Lucian forced his golden eyes to work harder, piercing through the void surrounding them.

And there, he found it.

Not from their bodies.

Not from their souls.

A dense crimson glow emanated from the weapons in their hands.

He stopped running.

"Giving up?" one of them asked, the distorted voice almost sounding like laughter. "Wise choice."

Lucian did not respond. His eyes remained fixed on the blades—reading every layer of debt attached to them.

"Thousands of lives."

"Centuries of slaughter. All stored within that steel."

A faint, deadly smile formed on Lucian’s pale lips.

"You may be dead," he finally said, his voice low and calm. "But your weapons are not."

He spread his arms.

"It’s time to pay."

The black karma chains shot out—not toward the assassins’ bodies, but directly into the five daggers.

"What—"

Instantly, the blades trembled violently, emitting a terrifying crimson glow.

The five Hollowed assassins froze mid-motion.

The dagger handles seemed to fuse permanently with their palms as they struggled.

Their bodies jerked violently as they tried to let go—but could not.

"Damn it, what is this?"

For the first time, the metallic voice cracked.

"Execute them," Lucian ordered flatly.

The blades turned forcefully, defying the will of the hands holding them.

Slowly, precisely, they aimed at their owners’ necks.

The assassins used their left hands to resist their right arms in desperation.

It was useless.

The unseen force guiding the blades far exceeded any human strength.

Hundreds of invisible hands guided the steel to tear through The Hollowed’s final defense.

Slash!

Thick blood sprayed across the stone walls and glass surfaces of the laboratory.

The five bodies collapsed onto the cold floor with a heavy, final thud.

"The absolute law of the universe does not care whether you are alive or already dead in its records," Lucian whispered, staring at the pooling blood.

"What matters is—you owed something."

Lucian staggered to his feet.

His legs lost all remaining strength.

He collapsed to the ground, clutching his shattered chest.

***

Aldric Stormbane stood calmly before a projection table displaying energy flow recordings.

"This projection cannot lie," Aldric said with a rational smile.

The high-faction heir had just finished analyzing the energy data from the brutal fight.

"So, The Hollowed’s weapons truly turned against their owners without physical contact?" he concluded.

"That lowly man did not use death magic or high-level soul curses as others assumed."

Aldric tapped his index finger on the oak table in a steady rhythm.

"He only has the ability to redirect the trajectory of lethal objects back to their original owners."

The academy heir smirked in satisfaction after reaching a crucial conclusion.

"That foolish man only possesses an ability akin to Energy Magnet manipulation," he muttered with absolute confidence.

"Such simple reflective physical magic must have strict usage limits and is very easy to counter."