Chapter 95: A Letter From the Past, and a Mother's Secret

The magical hourglass on the ebony desk suddenly let out a series of sharp, brittle cracks.

Every grain of dark red sand inside it ignited at once, transforming into a roiling column of black arcane smoke. The smoke drifted through the glass fracture and condensed in midair into a shimmering silhouette — a stunningly beautiful woman with twelve enormous wings of shadow — the image of the Annihilation Knight Valeria at the peak of her power, ten thousand years ago.

Lucian sat back in his chair, hands folded together, his eyes locked on the flickering apparition.

Sylvia held the freshly translated ancient scroll and spread it out in front of him. Her silver ears drooped slightly as she spoke, her voice steady.

"Lucian... this dispatch records the source's memories from seven previous cycles of reincarnation."

She pointed to the third passage.

"In the source's memories, the Fourth Horseman Valeria, then a Knight of the Demon King, was meant to lead three hundred thousand beast troops through Sundering Sky Pass and devastate the Solaris Empire."

Sylvia looked up at Lucian.

"But this history had already diverged before your novels. The first recorded divergence came when Lady Valeria met, and dueled for three days and three nights with, a wandering swordsman named Regulus Vance at a border inn. She chose not to follow that apocalyptic route."

She turned to the next page.

"After that duel, the two of them... decided to run off together to the capital, open a wool trading shop, get married, and have you."

Lucian sat frozen in his chair.

His eyes went wide, staring at the historical record, mouth hanging open. He pressed both hands to his head, tilted his face up toward the ceiling, and let out a strangled groan.

"So... Solaris avoided that original war because my merchant dad charmed a former Knight of the Demon King with his good looks?!"

He buried his face in his hands, temples twitching.

"Merciful heavens... my dad is the actual true Savior of this entire world!"

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Ting!

A Unified System v2.0 notification appeared before him.

[WORLD HISTORY FRAGMENT DECODED: 01/05]

• Supreme Ancient Demonic comprehension: +20% (now at 45.0%)!
• 'Read the Fine Print' skill upgrade: initial activation of 'Causality Insight' ability.

[THREAT ASSESSMENT: LADY VALERIA VANCE]

• Combat Power when angered: Equivalent to 800 combined underground volcanic eruptions, with a risk of erasing 4 letters of the alphabet across the entire continent.

Sylvia sat down in the chair beside him and gently rested her slender hand over his.

"Lucian, even if her past was as a Knight of the Demon King... Lady Valeria is still the mother who loves you more than anyone else on this earth."

Lucian looked at Sylvia's hand, then let out a thin breath.

"I know that. My mom's only slightly violent. Like, on cold days, she'll casually snap Dad's three-thousand-gold sword in half just to start a fire in the hearth so I stay warm."

He looked down at the final line on the scroll.

Every petty argument about money, laziness, and the ordinary, mundane trading business his parents had bickered over for the past ten years had been real family life — a difficult, chosen peace rather than an elaborate front.

Sylvia pointed to a line of dark red ancient script at the bottom of the page.

"However, a remnant faction of the old Demon Lord's forces in the Demon Realm is preparing to reactivate the Bloodline Curse at the western border. They intend to force Lady Valeria to awaken her destructive nature and reclaim leadership of the Demon race."

"Is there a way to break the curse?" Lucian asked.

"There is," Sylvia nodded. "On Floor 20 of the World Tower, there's a mineral deposit called the Titan Purification Crystal. If Evelyn uses it to forge a mana-stabilizing bracelet, it could stabilize Lady Valeria's mana signature and suppress a specific curse activation for limited periods. It would need testing, recharge, and repairs; it cannot erase the curse outright."

Outside the research room's window, hidden in the shade of the old pines.

Lilia Ravencrest — a being carrying the memories of seven cycles of reincarnation — crouched on a tree branch, an arcane spyglass trained on Lucian through the glass.

Watching Lucian calmly hold the Demon Realm dispatch without a flicker of alarm, hands already sketching out Floor 20 mining diagrams, Lilia trembled and muttered in dread.

This Lucian kid... he's not just breaking the timeline... he's about to turn the entire Demon Realm into a Vance import-export subsidiary, just to protect his own mother!

Inside the research room, Lucian folded the scroll and tucked it deep into his spatial ring.

He looked up at the small family portrait sitting on his desk — his father, the Sword Emperor, grinning in an apron, his beautiful mother holding a plate of freshly peeled apples.

The corner of Lucian's mouth curled into a resolute smile.

"You want to blow up my family's peaceful life and start a war? Let's see if you Demon-race leftovers have enough money to cover the legal fees."

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

A rapid series of knocks echoed from outside.

A royal knight in ceremonial dress entered the room, dropped to one knee, and raised a gilded scroll of secret orders, sealed with Emperor Alaric's own fire-dragon seal.

"Reporting, Young Master Vance! By decree of His Majesty the Emperor: the Supreme Representative of Vance Commerce is summoned to appear at the Summer Palace tomorrow morning, to attend the Seven-Nation Diplomatic Summit!"