# Chapter 46
“He resembles someone I know.”
“Someone you know?”
“…”
Levi couldn’t bring himself to speak readily.
The image of Grand Duke Ion Verdit kept overlapping with the man from earlier in his mind. Though he couldn’t see his face properly because of the mask, their builds were similar, and both had the same golden hair and golden eyes. It was such a fleeting moment and he was so disoriented that he couldn’t scrutinize in detail, but Kalvern had said when describing Grand Duke Verdit’s appearance that people with both golden hair and golden eyes were extremely rare.
Levi looked down at his black hand.
Having consumed too much nourishment at once, the red pattern on his palm was still rippling like flowing blood. The energy had ripened to such a potent degree that even without touching fingertips, just grazing sharp fingernails would transfer the energy of death, enough to instantly take someone’s breath away.
Yet that person remained unharmed despite touching this hand. He was too calm, as if he knew he wouldn’t be affected by the touch.
“Ugh…”
A small groan escaped from Raziel. Looking over, Levi saw him struggling to remove the dagger that had completely pierced through his palm.
“Does it hurt? Are you alright?”
While Levi fidgeted, not knowing what to do, Raziel took a deep breath as he completely pulled out the dagger. Levi hurriedly tore a long strip from the hem of his bedsheet and tightly wrapped it around Raziel’s palm. He clumsily imitated what he’d seen one of Kalvern’s subordinates do when bandaging his own deeply cut arm while they were together.
The sheet strip substituting as a bandage quickly turned bright red. Raziel silently watched Levi’s anxious face as he wrapped the cloth around his hand, then held out the dagger to show him.
“You recognize this too, don’t you?”
Levi couldn’t answer. He knew why the pattern engraved on that dagger was familiar, yet he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
His confused mind had already completed the image of one person. It was telling him that the assassin was someone he knew, the very person he remembered, but it was too difficult to accept.
Levi stroked his left wrist with his black hand. He gently rubbed the inside of his wrist where the pulse could be felt with his thumb. In his mind, the kind words of Grand Duke Verdit that he knew floated around.
“Did it hurt a lot?”
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
After breaking his wrist, he had apologized. He had sincerely apologized to someone who had tried to assassinate him and even kissed the place he had broken.
“Your name is Levi, right? Isn’t it?”
A remarkable person who knew his name without being told.
“Call me Ion.”
A gentle person who wanted to be called by his name, “Ion,” rather than the grandiose title of Grand Duke Verdit.
Levi’s hands clenched tightly.
“That day, who ordered you to kill me?”
The words that he hadn’t given much thought to or considered deeply at the time now overlapped with today’s events. The man had been kind to him not because he genuinely cared, but because he wanted to find out who was behind Levi. And now he had tried to kill both Raziel and himself. Without the slightest hesitation.
Though he felt this wasn’t the kind of person Ion was, the evidence was too clear. It was hard to believe that someone of the Grand Duke’s stature would personally undertake an assassination, but conversely, there was no one more qualified. He could counteract the power of Levi’s black hand, possessed high combat skills, and supposedly had the ability to heal any wound or poison.
Perhaps he had taken action personally to ensure the target’s elimination.
Levi couldn’t take his eyes off the dagger Raziel showed him for a long time.
After sending Levi back to his bedroom and posting new guards in front of the door, Raziel gazed at the window while receiving treatment from the imperial physician. The window through which the blonde assailant had escaped earlier was still wide open.
“I’m finished.”
The imperial physician, having completed bandaging Raziel’s shoulder and hand wounds, stood up.
“You were lucky. There’s no bone damage at all, and the wounds are clean, so you should recover quickly. Considering Your Majesty’s self-healing ability, they should be completely healed in about three days.”
Though not as remarkable as Levi’s, Raziel also possessed “self-healing abilities” far beyond those of ordinary humans. That’s why these wounds weren’t a major concern.
After dismissing the imperial physician, Raziel approached the open window and tapped the frame, as if knocking. Then he went to the table, poured himself a glass of water, and turned around to find a blond man standing silently by the window.
The masked blond man who had tried to kill Raziel moments ago carefully surveyed outside the window with his eyes, then closed it and spoke.
“How was his reaction?”
The blond man turned toward Raziel and removed his mask. The face revealed was completely different from what Levi had expected.
Raziel downed a glass of cold water in one go. His Adam’s apple moved several times, and the glass of ice-cold water quickly disappeared.
“Not bad.”
“That’s good.”
The blond man approached Raziel as he set the empty cup down on the table. Looking at the bandaged palm, he wore an extremely apologetic expression.
“I tried to be careful not to damage the bone, but I still ended up creating too deep a wound on Your Majesty’s body. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I ordered you to do it.”
Raziel sat down on a chair with an impassive face. A necklace strung with what looked like a fragment of a black bead was placed on his table.
“Should we try one more time?”
“No, if we use the same method again, he might try to remove the mask next time.”
Since there was no way to perfectly imitate the face, it would be problematic if the mask disappeared. It was best not to show the same cards if possible.
They had created golden hair by soaking Lurua flower petals in hot water all day and washing the hair with it, and golden eyes that lasted about an hour by exploiting the effect of overconsumption of Kent berries, which enhanced vision. The build and movements of Grand Duke Verdit had been closely observed by the subordinate who performed the assassination play for quite some time.
Raziel looked at the dagger beside the necklace with the black bead fragment. It was originally one of the weapons that had been provided to support Kalvern. Levi didn’t know, but it was something commissioned from the blacksmith of the Merkia Duchy along with other weapons to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances. Since Levi had lost that dagger when he failed to assassinate Grand Duke Verdit, Raziel thought he would certainly be fooled if he prepared an identical one.
What made Levi decisively suspicious of Grand Duke Verdit was this dagger, and the black bead fragment that the blond subordinate had just placed down.
If someone possessed a fragment that had fallen from Levi’s core, his black bead, that owner would not be affected by his ability.
There were a total of three pieces, including the one found in the previous emperor’s bedroom, where Raziel had beheaded him.
Raziel’s black fingertip touched his collarbone area.
‘With mine, that would make four pieces.’
Raziel, with deepened eyes, tightly gripped the necklace with the black bead fragment.
The necklace with the black bead fragment, which he had temporarily given to Kalvern to use Levi, was back in his hands. It gave him the feeling of having briefly lent Levi’s leash to Kalvern before taking it back.
The memory of Kalvern momentarily making Levi bloody and treating him harshly flashed through his mind, causing his brow to furrow with displeasure.
Though he also needed Levi’s power and fully intended to use him, he didn’t want to handle him as disgustingly as Kalvern had.
If he was going to use him, he needed to make him depend on and follow him from the depths of his heart.
For that, he had to completely erase any place Levi could lean on.
‘Grand Duke Verdit…’
A young duke with golden hair and golden eyes. Having inherited all the abilities of the former empress who was called a saint, he was now known as the new “Saint.”
Until now, he was more renowned as the unique confidant and helper of Emperor Tis of Delos rather than for his own accomplishments.
But that would only be temporary.
Once war began and bloody battles broke out, his standing would surpass that of the emperor. In a war of life and death, the unit he was with would never be defeated.
Moreover, he was the only one capable of creating the “immortal army” from the record left by the former empress.
For Raziel, who knew all the contents inside, he could only be an absolute obstacle and a target to keep in check.
That’s why he had to use Levi.
Because he knew that Levi not only possessed the opposite ability but was also the very person Grand Duke Verdit had been absolutely waiting for during the past 15 years.
Raziel, fingering the black bead fragment in his hand, pictured the faces of both Grand Duke Verdit and Levi together.
