Chapter : 279

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The corridor went completely silent. Even the building seemed to hold its breath, the ancient walls waiting for the revelation that would change everything they thought they knew.

Sayma swallowed hard and looked at each of them. "Carrion was researching a botanical ingredient. An incredibly rare, highly volatile substance known only as Devil Flour."

Laxmi burst out laughing, the sound echoing off the grim walls like a cannon blast. "Devil Flour? That sounds like something you bake a cursed cake with! Is there Devil Sugar too? Maybe Devil Frosting?"

"It's not funny!" Sayma snapped, her glasses flashing in the dim light. "This substance is the absolute key to understanding why he was killed. Everything in this journal points back to Devil Flour."

"Every encrypted note, every hidden sample in that chamber, every layer of protection Carrion built around his research, it all comes back to this one substance," she continued, her voice rising.

Iris stared at the journal in Sayma's hands. The name alone sent a chill down her spine. Devil Flour. It sounded absurd, like a child's nightmare or a bad joke told at a tavern.

But Carrion had hidden an entire chamber, encrypted three layers of code, and paid with his life to protect his research on it. That was not the behavior of a man chasing a joke or a fancy name.

"Then we find out what Devil Flour is," Iris said firmly, her violet eyes burning with resolve. "And we find out who was willing to kill for it."

Ken, who had been quietly listening from his spot on the floor, snapped his mystery novel shut with a satisfying thump. "Chapter twelve also had a secret ingredient," he said lightly.

"Turned out to be the most important one in the whole book."

Nobody laughed. But nobody disagreed either. The corridor fell silent again, and the darkness of the hidden chamber seemed to pulse behind them, as if it had secrets of its own still waiting to be told.

---

Deep underneath the bustling capital city, far below the gleaming streets and cheerful market squares where ordinary citizens went about their daily lives, a different kind of world existed. A world of shadows and secrets, where power was measured not in gold but in fear.

The entrance to this hidden realm was disguised as a wine cellar beneath an expensive restaurant that catered exclusively to the capital's elite. The restaurant's owner was a loyal member of the Anti-Empire faction, and every bottle that passed through his cellar was cataloged and reported.

But the real treasure lay deeper. Behind a false wall, past a corridor lined with sound-dampening runes carved into the stone by master enchanters, and through a door that required three separate magical signatures to open, the vault opened into a chamber of startling luxury.

Inside this soundproofed subterranean vault, a clandestine assembly of the Anti-Empire faction was holding an emergency meeting. The room was vast and opulent, its walls lined with dark velvet curtains that absorbed every whisper and echo like hungry mouths devouring sound.

A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting cold white light across the faces of the most dangerous people in Belmontia. The floor was covered in a thick carpet that muffled footsteps, and the air smelled of expensive cigar smoke and barely contained rage.

Around a dark mahogany table that could seat twenty, the wealthy politicians and rogue military commanders sat in expensive suits and dress uniforms. Their faces were hard, their eyes sharp, and their voices low with fury that had been building for months.

Each person at this table had devoted years, sometimes decades, to the grand plan of overthrowing the current regime. Each had sacrificed morality, loyalty, and thousands of innocent lives to build the network that now spanned the Empire like a cancer beneath the skin.

The network was not just a criminal enterprise. It was a shadow government, a parallel power structure that controlled everything from the price of medicine to the outcome of military appointments. And it existed for one purpose: to place Lord Voss on the throne.

Servants moved silently between the chairs, refilling glasses and replacing ashtrays with practiced efficiency. They had been carefully selected for their inability to speak, a gruesome precaution that ensured the meeting's secrets would never leave the room alive.

At the head of the table sat Lord Aldric Voss, a thin man with silver hair and a face like a blade. His dark eyes swept across the assembled conspirators with the patience of a predator watching trapped prey. He did not speak immediately.

He let the silence build. He let the tension thicken until it was almost suffocating. He let every person in the room feel the weight of his gaze before he finally acknowledged their presence with the slightest nod of his silver head.

A heavyset nobleman in a gold-trimmed coat could take it no longer. He slammed his fist on the mahogany table, making the crystal glasses jump and the wine slosh over the rims. "The Emperor is making fools of us all!" he bellowed.

"He's weaponizing the Succession War! Using his own children as expendable detectives to investigate cold cases and expose our syndicates! It's monstrous! It's unprecedented! No Emperor has ever done something so brazen in the entire history of Belmontia!"

Several heads nodded vigorously around the table. The nobleman's outrage was shared by every person in the room. The Emperor's strategy had been devastatingly effective, and they were only now beginning to understand its full, terrible scope.

"First the 3rd Prince uncovered the smuggling ring in the Eastern Province," a woman in a dark green dress added, her jewelry glittering like ice under the chandelier. "Then the 5th Princess exposed the corruption in the Mining Bureau."

"The 7th Prince shut down our arms dealing operation in the Northern Frontier," the general added through gritted teeth. "Three princes, three princesses, and now the 13th Unit is digging into Carrion's murder like dogs with a bone."

The woman in green nodded grimly. "Princess Iris has already connected it to the pharmaceutical network. If she traces Devil Flour back to us, the entire operation collapses. Decades of work. Billions of Bel. All gone in a single investigation."

Murmurs of alarm rippled around the table like wind through dry grass. The pharmaceutical network was one of their most profitable and carefully guarded operations. It had taken decades to build and perfect, layer upon layer of corporate shells and legal protections.

Billions of Bel flowed through that network every year, funneling directly into their war chest through controlled medical monopolies, suppressed cures, and inflated drug prices that bled the common citizens dry while enriching the conspirators beyond imagination.

Losing it would not just cripple their ability to fund the revolution. It would expose decades of financial crimes, implicate half the nobles at this table, and provide the Emperor with enough evidence to execute every last one of them for high treason.

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