Chapter 112: Chapter 112

Two days later, Licarus presided over Kazzah and Timothy's trial.

Despite her disappointment with her son, Layca begged leniency for Kazzah.

She begged the Silverfangs to vouch for him.

Yet, despite someone so respected in the city humiliating herself beyond what any other wolf would do for their children, none of the Silverfangs, not even Kamal, did anything.

Timothy, in contrast, was left to beg for himself.

The absence of his parents during the trial was a crushing blow that plunged him deeper into despair.

At first, he tried to say Kazzah had forced him to do everything.

But when a recording showed him punching Luke after the kid refused to tell him what was talked about during the barbecue at the Dracnakrid’s estate, his lies crumbled to dust.

The recordings also showed that Kazzah was the one who stopped him and sent Luke away, afraid of what the Pavilion could do with them. Licarus received many of those anonymous recordings, but everyone knew those came from Purple Pavilion.

All showed Kazzah and Timothy in various compromising situations.

There were so many that Layca couldn’t find the strength to beg for her son any longer; she collapsed to her knees.

Her head hung low in shame, and wails echoed through the palace halls as her tears flowed down her cheeks, seemingly never-ending.

Her eyes, once vibrant and proud, were now hollow, reflecting nothing, as Karini's strong arm braced her trembling frame.

Seeing his mother, his only defender, losing her voice, and that even Timothy turned on him like that, was the last straw for Kazzah.

Despite it all, he’d believed Timothy was a true brother.

But in the face of death, what did brotherhood mean for those without honor?

Kazzah lost the will to fight.

It was at that moment he snapped.

A loud guttural shout, more animal than human, tore from Kazzah’s throat.

His eyes, previously clouded with despair, snapped open, burning with a frantic last wish:

“Mother! Stop humiliating yourself!”

Kazzah shouted at the desolate Layca, “This is not how a wolf should act. You always tried to show me how to be a true wolf of the north. Don’t betray the honorable image I have of you in my heart. Please stop degrading yourself for me.”

Layca looked at him at a loss for words.

All she felt was sadness and regret looking at her son.

But seeing the resignation in his eyes, a dreadful realization fell over her, and she panicked, “No, no, no, please don’t do it! Please!”

Kazzah, ignoring his mother's pleas, turned to Licarus without fear, confessing, “Yes… I did it. Out of jealousy and envy, I plotted to kill my teammate, that fucking lizard. I wanted him dead because of everything that I lost since he arrived. But the truth was none of that was ever mine, to begin with. I always felt the need to lick the boots of an overbearing alpha just because my useless father fled his responsibilities."

With a bitter chuckle, he found his grandfather in the crowd, and meeting his gaze, he continued, "As the saying goes, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. The son of a betrayer is a betrayer, too. But I will die unapologetically toward the Silverfangs! May Nazark drag my soul to the hunting grounds of the eternal night! But cursed be you and your family of domesticated dogs!”

Finding Sokram among the crowd, Kazzah spat on the ground and cursed him: “Ptah! And cursed be you as well, dragon! I wish I weren’t such a coward to trust your death to the hands of another and had killed you myself! Even with a blade on your back, then I wouldn’t be dying so unsatisfied!”

Consumed by the looming certainty of death, his lips curled into a creepy, maddening smirk. “And cursed be this damn city you love so much! Ptah! May the armies of Whiteland and Frostaxe trample over its ashes as they burn everything and everyone you love!”

Kazzah’s voice carried his confession and curses, ripping through the halls, igniting the crowd like dry wood.

As one, they roared: “Traitor!!” like a tide of furious shouts and growls.

Fists clenched, faces contorted into masks of pure hatred.

The younger warriors of the Silverfang family glared murderously at him, the same eyes that once looked up to him despite all his arrogance.

Their eyes blazing, they surged forward, a violent wave crashing against the line of guards, desperate to tear the traitor limb from limb before the executioner could finish his work, only to be imprisoned and dragged away while cursing him.

Kamal maintained his cold façade, but everyone could see the pain in his gaze.

In the end, Licarus gave both the maximum sentence for the crime of treason: Death by beheading.

The execution happened the same day in front of the Palace, before the eyes of the public, as demanded by law.

According to the Laws of Norwinter, traitors were to be beheaded in public to be made an example of.

The first to be executed was Timothy.

He thrashed, cried, begged, and even pissed himself.

When he saw Lucy among the crowd, standing beside Sokram and holding his hand, his cries of fear turned into curses of hatred, “You whore! You’re just another prostitute from the Pavilion! May your soul rot in the Nether! I hate you! All of this is your fault! WHORE! WHOORE! WHOR…”

The chopping sound of the axe was deafening, a final, abrupt punctuation to Timothy’s screams.

His head, still contorted in a mask of hatred, bounced once on the blood-slicked stone before rolling into the frenzied crowd, which promptly turned it into a gruesome plaything, kicking and spitting on it.

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As the executioner pushed Kazzah toward the block, his gaze remained glued on Savannah and Sokram.

The hatred and envy were undeniable in his eyes, yet he remained silent.

But when his gaze shifted to his mother, meeting her gaze one last time, tears shimmered in his eyes as he mouthed silently, ‘I'm sorry for being your biggest disappointment, mother.’

Kazzah’s head rolled down.

But with Layca’s pained shriek and cries, and Karini’s fierce glare, no one dared touch his head when it fell to the ground.

Layca collapsed, her repetitive cries shattering the silence, echoing in everyone’s ears: “My baby! Those domesticated dogs ruined my baby! Cursed be you, Silverfangs!”

Seeing him die brought Sokram no pleasure.

He wasn’t a kind savior who wanted to reform their nature, but if they had given him a chance, he wouldn’t have minded pushing them toward the right path.

Instead, they had chosen their path and its consequences.

Even with all the tragedies and hardships life brings, time never stops; it flows always forward in its unstoppable march.

A week passed in a flash, a week of grieving for some but of joy for others.

Savannah was the most affected by Kazzah’s death.

She couldn’t focus; in the night, when she tried to sleep, Kazzah's dying gaze, raw with hate, burned behind her eyelids, twisting her dreams into restless nightmares.

During her meditations, the image engraved itself onto her mind's eye, his pupils dilated, his lips a snarl of final defiance.

It was a brand on her soul, a wound deeper than any venomous word he could have spat upon her could inflict, a persistent shadow that clung to her vision, locking her into a stagnant grief.

Lucy, despite her Devotion connecting her feelings to Sokram, had shared history with Timothy, and his last words affected her.

But in her case, it only caused her to be unable to focus on her cultivation.

Since their team would have to wait until Kazzah and Timothy were replaced before receiving new missions, Savannah and Lucy asked Sokram for a few days off so they could put their minds at ease.

Lucy, of course, tried to reassure Sokram, but he understood her heart and intentions and ended up being the one to reassure her.

Sokram understood that because Lucy wasn’t in love with him before her Devotion triggered, connecting them for life.

And most of her feelings for Timothy, although overwritten, weren’t completely erased.

This was also their first experience dealing with people who were once so close, dying in front of their eyes, which added to their trauma.

Thus, Sokram, understanding that matters of the heart were as complex as they could be fickle and that the two of them needed to deal with those inner conflicts alone, gave them the space they needed.

But even if he missed their presence, which had become a new constant in his life, he couldn't halt his progress to wait for them.

And his routine finally returned to normal after the day of the executions.

In the morning, he would train his team, but since his team had already mastered most of what they needed, he left them to focus on cultivation for now. Official source ıs ⓝovelFire.net

He only offered them occasional guidance while most of his mornings were spent either studying or answering Amber’s questions about Magi.

But Sokram could see that his teammates were as apathetic as he was when it came to Timothy’s and Kazzah’s deaths.

When Sokram asked them about it, their answers were similar to Kan's: “Even though we were teammates, Kazzah’s selfishness kept us from becoming real friends.”

Kiana was more worried about how Layca was affected by Kazzah’s death.

As in the wolf tribe, Layca was very respected and admired.

But Leona assured them that they were taking good care of Layca.

By late morning, Sokram would send his team away and receive the hunting squads to guide them in cultivating one of the three fused energies of their choice.

This guidance session would last from late morning until Early noon.

Early noon, he would guide the Androny family guards in their Chaos Energy cultivation until the evening.

By the end of that week, Sokram's Grandmaster finally called for him.

In the evening, after the guards from the Androny family left, Sokram would go to the Palace’s training ground to help his Grandmaster and sword uncle convert their cores into Spirit Magic Cores.

That night, Sokram went to the Palace to start their training.

The guard who received him led Sokram to the underground training grounds.

With the appearance of a medieval underground arena, there was enough space to house a hundred warriors for battle exercises.

The underground training grounds of the City Lord's Palace were one of the best training grounds in Norwinter.

Built by the founders to ensure that their elite warriors would always be at peak condition.

Housing a variety of weight-lifting equipment, rooms for isolated cultivation, an array of training weapons, and five spacious stone arenas for sparing sessions.

He found Kamus in one of those stone arenas and wasn’t surprised to see Leia and the Twins there, as Kamus doted on his granddaughters a lot.

They seemed to be resting after exercising, sitting in a circle, with the twins talking excitedly to their grandfather, who listened tentatively with an amused smile.

And Leia, too, listened and laughed at her younger sisters' antics.

Kamus, hearing Sokram's approach, turned to him with a teasing smile, “You're walking right, but the rhythm of your steps is a little off. Are you tired, little lizard?”

Sokram knew why Kamus was asking that and what would follow, but he also knew that there was no use lying.

In resignation, Sokram only shook his head and greeted his Grandmaster, “This young dragon greets the Grandmaster, the Aether and Nether moons, and the little Lioness. But answering your question, no, I’m not tired.”

The twins blushed slightly, greeting him back, and Leia greeted him with a smile.

“Good.” Kamus grinned mischievously, and with a sudden move, his head snapped to the far end of the training grounds as he shouted, “Lymus! Come greet your future brother.”

“Grandpa!” The twins complained, blushing profusely, which only made them look cuter.

And Leia grinned flirtily, meeting Sokram with a daring gaze.

Ignoring her teasing glare, Sokram looked ahead and saw Lymus emerging from one of the cultivation rooms.

With his long, sleek black hair, pale ivory skin, green feral eyes, around 1.8 meters tall, and a lean athletic body.

Dressed like Kamus, in loose-legged pants tucked into shin-length boots and a wide-sleeved loose robe.

His face clearly showed his annoyance after his Master interrupted his cultivation.

Sokram wasn’t surprised by his annoyance.

Lymus always behaved aloof and cold, with a nonchalant and detached demeanor.

But he knew this was only a façade.

In fact, once his mask dropped, Lymus was a very passionate individual with some serious anger management issues.

“Why the long face, pup? Did I interrupt you or something?” Kamus flashed Lymus a teasing grin.

Yet Lymus would never complain, not just out of respect but also afraid of the hellish training session that would come after.

Like Sokram, Lymus was at the peak of the True Existence Level, so Sokram could guess his Grandmaster's intentions.

“Greetings, sword uncle.” Sokram greeted briefly and politely.

“Greetings, sword nephew,” Lymus replied, mirroring the same politeness and tone.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be calling each other brother?” Kamus teased, enjoying putting the two of them on the spot.

And seeing that Sokram was the most composed, he pushed further, looking straight into Sokram’s eyes, “Or are you saying you don’t want to marry my four beautiful granddaughters?”

“Master! Stop teasing them!” Leona shouted from the entrance of the arena.

“Father, behave!” Karini was just behind her, with Layca following them.

Once they were close enough, Sokram glanced at them briefly and confirmed something he had suspected during their brief encounters before today, but only now was he able to confirm as he sensed the shift in their energies.

“Aunties, you mastered Spirit Magic?”

“Yes, thank you, son.” Karini flashed him a teasing smile, calling him a son. But the reaction came from her daughters instead, who giggled and blushed even more.

Sokram ignored her teasing and focused on Layca.

He wanted to say something, but she was the one who spoke first, “You don’t have to worry. My heart is still broken by the loss of my son. But I don’t blame you. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know how. I can only blame myself for allowing the Silverfangs to spoil him into rottenness.”

Sokram nodded, seeing that she was holding herself well, having the support from Karini and Leona. So all he said was, “If there’s anything you ever need, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Layca offered him a brief nod and a shy smile in response, but Sokram could see the deep-rooted grief in her gaze.

That was a pain he knew very well, the pain of losing a child, of losing a loved one.

The pain of watching helplessly as they strayed from the Path of Evolution, losing themselves in their own darkness.

And the pain of blaming himself for their self-inflicted harm.

Sokram was broken out of his daze by Kamus's voice, “Alright, enough mopping. Let’s get started here.”

He stood up and turned to Leona, “Did you bring it?”

“Yes, here.” When Sokram saw what Leona gave to Kamus, his heart skipped a beat.

There was no escaping it.

Kamus truly wanted to see how far Sokram had mastered his Killing Blade Art.