"Good day, Mister Kang." Both Ethan and Hela stepped forward and dropped into a bow before the two men waiting, beads of sweat already rolling down the sides of their faces despite the cool air of the yard.
Neither of them had expected to feel this kind of pressure the moment they crossed into the open space, a weight settling over the yard that neither had felt since first entering the presence of the High Regent herself.
Kang could only sigh at the sight, flicking his hand forward in a small dismissive motion. The pressure bearing down on both their hearts eased instantly, the weight lifting as though it had never been there at all. He glanced sideways at the man beside him, something unreadable passing behind his eyes.
"Before we start, I’d like to ask you both a question." Kang turned toward the old man at his side first, exchanging a brief look, before shifting his attention fully onto Ethan and Hela.
"Of all your other summons, has there been one ranked S?"
The question sounded innocent enough on the surface, the kind of thing two elders might ask while quietly gauging the talent of the younger generation standing before them. And in truth, both of their summons were extraordinary by any measure.
Hela carried a proper black hell dragon as her third summon, and in the typical fashion of true dragonborn creatures, most sat comfortably at S rank or A. For her, the answer could reasonably go either way, and no one watching would have thought twice about it, given how common exceptional summons were among the truly gifted.
But her mother served directly under Mister Mysteries, which meant the topic wasn’t one either of the two men could press too hard without stepping somewhere they shouldn’t.
As for Ethan, his second summon was something else entirely, something far more unsettling once you understood what she actually was.
That innocent, delicate-looking humanoid fairy wasn’t simply a spellcaster. She could bend the will of dragons themselves to her command, folding creatures many times her size into quiet obedience without visible effort.
The Punishment Hall had taken careful note of her from a distance already, and privately, neither man could honestly categorize her as anything less than S rank.
"You flatter us, senior. An S rank is a rare beast of noble status. How could someone like us possibly hold such a thing? Please, don’t joke with our lives like that."
The two of them spoke the words together, nearly in unison, the timing so clean it might as well have been rehearsed. Kang and the man beside him both blinked, caught off guard by the synchronized denial.
"Haha, are these two twins or something?" The man beside Kang burst into a short, genuine laugh before shaking his head slowly, still smiling.
The message underneath their words was obvious enough to anyone from White Tower listening closely.
They were essentially saying, hands off. We already belong to someone.
"You two, don’t take this lightly. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. We can offer a great deal in exchange for honesty here." Kang, who rarely spoke without clear purpose behind it, pressed gently, trying to coax the truth out into the open.
But the old man beside him shook his head and tapped Kang’s shoulder once, a quiet signal to let the matter rest.
It wasn’t necessary to push further. Within the kingdom, White Tower stood as their greatest ally, more valuable and more trusted than even the nobility that surrounded the throne. Forcing the issue would gain them little and risk more than it was worth.
"You. We’ll start with you." The old man pointed directly at Ethan, his tone shifting into something more businesslike.
Besides, Ethan was about to summon another beast regardless of what he admitted to. If it turned out to be S rank, the truth would reveal itself plainly enough without anyone needing to ask twice.
"Okay." Ethan exhaled and reached into the folds of his coat, retrieving the box of materials he’d kept carefully hidden until now, the weight of it heavier than it should have been for something so small.
Inside it he found a sword bathed in a soft, steady holy light, a slab of stone with words carved deep into its surface, worn smooth at the edges by what looked like centuries of handling, and several smaller supplementary items packed tightly around them, each one wrapped in cloth to keep it from shifting.
He placed a torch into the ground and summoned a small lantern from his storage ring, the flame inside it burning with an unusual, pale intensity that cast no shadow no matter how he angled it.
Celestial dragon fire.
He used it to light the surrounding torches one by one, the flickering light gradually forming the outline of a ritual circle across the yard’s stone floor, the pattern more intricate than anything he had drawn before.
Minutes later, Ethan stepped into the completed circle and simply stood there, no longer bothering to fall to his knees the way he once had during his very first summoning. He had changed considerably since that day, in more ways than the physical.
"Here." The old man standing beside Kang pulled a crown from within his robes and threw it forward, the object landing with precise accuracy directly at the ritual’s center.
For a moment Ethan stood frozen, staring at it. He didn’t recognize this crown at all. It certainly didn’t belong to the Kingdom of Bark, its design and craftsmanship unlike anything native to this region. So where had it come from?
"Go ahead." Kang’s voice carried quiet assurance, a subtle reassurance that whatever this was, it was safe to proceed.
Ethan could only nod in response and begin the chant, the familiar words rising from memory.
"Spirit King Zarth..."
With every syllable, a reaction rippled outward through the circle. Each material shifted from a low resonance into brief pulses of light, responding to the spirit world in a way that felt different from anything Ethan had summoned before, as though they weren’t answering the call of Zarth alone, but something else entirely. Something far greater, something that felt closer to a presence than a passage.
For the first time in a long while, even the old man standing beside Kang felt an oppressive weight descend over the yard as the words materialized in the air before Ethan, the pressure settling into the stone beneath their feet.
[Congratulations. You have summoned a Legendary King.]
[The once and future king of war, the head of the Round Table, and the holder of the Sacred Sword Excalibur. The chief dragon and its slayer. Arthur Pendragon.]
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter