Lahat ng Kabanata ng HE REJECTED ME, SO I TOOK HIS CROWN: Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 53

VALERIA.The suffocating silence of my private study had become my only reliable ally, but tonight, the quiet felt dangerously fragile.I sat hunched over my heavy mahogany desk, the flickering, golden glow of a single tallow candle illuminating the complex, encrypted transmission codes I was meticulously preparing for the Vanguard border spies I had bought earlier that day.My heavy iron pen scratched rhythmically against the thick parchment, each sharp stroke locking down a new, lethal node in my growing Shadow Court.BANG.The heavy oak doors exploded inward, the iron hinges groaning violently in protest as they slammed against the stone walls.I didn't flinch.I didn't gasp.My hand simply, fluidly slid over the parchment, seamlessly shifting a thick, leather-bound ledger over my encrypted treason to completely hide my work.I raised my chin slowly, my facial features instantly freezing into a familiar, unbothered scowl as Kaelen stormed into the room like a localized, bloodthirst

VALERIA.The dawn of the Pan-Continental Alpha Summit finally broke, bleeding a freezing, winter-gold light across the jagged eastern horizon.The heavy morning air carried the sharp, biting scent of impending snow and frostbitten pine.I had already been awake for hours, sitting in the dark. The brutal, calculated blueprint of my retaliation was entirely laid out in my mind, meticulously memorized down to the absolute last millisecond.There was absolutely zero room for error today. I was willingly walking straight into the open, bloody mouth of a geopolitical slaughterhouse. And I fully intended to be the only one who walked out covered in my enemy’s blood.Early in the morning, while the sprawling Vanguard fortress was still deeply buried in the dark slumber of the third watch, I slipped silently into my ruined, reinforced greenhouse.The humid, heavy air of the glass pavilion wrapped around my skin, thick with the intoxicatin