Free Web NovelChapter 766: Servant of Death?
Despite the involvement of such powerful beings, Julian was quite excited about all of this.
The pieces were slowly falling into place, even if the full picture remained shrouded in mystery.
He did not know exactly what was happening, but he was getting closer to the truth with every passing day.
All these threads were connected, and he stood at the center of the web.
For now, all he could do was sit back and play his plans out carefully.
He moved away from the window and sat down at the wooden desk in the corner of his room. The late afternoon light streamed through the glass, casting a warm glow across the surface.
***
It was only during the morning of the next day that something happened in the castle of Astran.
It was around six in the morning when a massive suffocating aura suddenly woke Julian up.
The pressure hit him like an invisible mountain, crashing heavily down on his chest. For a moment, he could not even register where he was and what was happening. His eyes snapped open and his body instinctively tensed as every nerve screamed in alarm. The air in the room had grown thick and heavy, as though the very atmosphere had turned into tar.
Breathing became difficult. His heart hammered violently against his ribs, and a cold, bone-deep chill spread through his limbs.
The aura was deadly.
It was suffocating.
Only one word escaped Julian’s mouth in a low, guttural whisper.
"Death..."
He knew what this was.
He had felt this exact energy before.
Moreover, this was the same merciless force that had killed him so effortlessly in his original life. He could still remember the moment with painful vividness.
That night in the castle of Marquis Ravenswood, everything had changed in an instant. Julian had been resting in his private chambers with Aryl, the Marquis’s daughter, after engaging in an intimate love making. Both of them were fast asleep, and the room had been quiet and still.
Then, without any warning, the temperature dropped sharply and a prickling sensation had overwhelmed Julian to wake up.
As he tried to make sense of what this weird feeling was, the unknown man had suddenly shown up in front of him.
Julian could still feel the fear and awe that had gripped him as he looked at the figure shrouded in darkness. The man had no distinguishable features. Only swirling black flames and an overwhelming aura of finality.
It was as if death itself had taken human form and stepped into his room. Every fiber of his being had known what was about to happen.
There was no escape.
The black flames had moved silently, almost gracefully, wrapping around him before he could even raise his hands to resist.
In those final moments, Julian had felt nothing but rage and helplessness.
Yet somehow, mysteriously, he had survived.
His soul had not been completely destroyed. Instead, it had been torn from his original body and reincarnated — transmigrated into a new world, into the body of a boy named Rael.
Now, standing in Kraven’s room, Julian’s hands trembled a little as he felt the same energy from back then. The suffocating aura spreading through the castle was unmistakable. It carried the exact same signature of black flames and soul-devouring corruption.
Is he here? Julian thought, a rare moment of uncertainty flashing through his mind.
He quickly closed his eyes and focused inwards, diving deep into his consciousness. He sank further and further, past the surface thoughts, past the memories of this borrowed body, until he reached the innermost region of Kraven’s sea of consciousness.
What he found there was a strange and unstable landscape.
The inner region was made of roughly twenty percent Julian’s own soul — a bright, golden core that stood firm against the surrounding chaos. The remaining eighty percent was dominated by the black flame. It rotated constantly like a never-ending storm, its dark tendrils swirling and crackling with destructive power.
The black flame had always been volatile, hungry, and difficult to control. It constantly tried to corrupt and consume Julian’s soul fragment, forcing him to maintain constant vigilance.
But as expected had Julian, after he felt that suffocating aura present in the castle, there was a certain change in the black flame.
It was somehow calmer now.
The violent storm had slowed. The dark tendrils moved with less aggression, almost as if they were resonating with the aura outside.
Instead of trying to devour Julian’s soul with renewed fury, the black flame seemed to be... listening.
Julian had thought it would go even wilder, becoming more unstable and harder to control. But this was a bit different from his expectation.
He observed the phenomenon carefully. The golden part of his soul remained untouched and glowed steadily. But the black flame had clearly reacted to the arrival of the Servant of Death’s aura.
Interesting, he thought. So the black flame inside Kraven is connected to the Servant. Or at least it recognizes it.
This revelation was very important. With this new understanding, many scattered pieces finally began to fit together.
The strange man from Kraven’s memory, the one the King of Hermes had personally introduced during that secretive meeting, was certainly the Servant of Death.
There was no longer any doubt in Julian’s mind.
The black flame inside this body had reacted to the aura outside exactly like a loyal subordinate recognizing its master. That meant the corruption had been planted deep within the Astran family long before Julian took over.
And the Crown Prince of Hermes was either a willing underling of the Servant of Death or already under its control through that same strange energy. Either possibility carried heavy consequences.
Julian had to figure this out quickly. He could not afford to walk blindly into whatever game was being played at the royal level.
He quickly got out of the bed and freshened up. He splashed cold water on his face from the basin, washing away the last traces of sleep and tension. His changed into fresh clothes - a simple yet elegant dark shirt and trousers. freewebnøvel.com
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