landbeastnovel Chapter 257: Tick, Tock Marcus[5]
Chapter 257: Tick, Tock Marcus[5]
The holding room of the combat stadium was entirely built of granite.
The heavy iron door was bolted shut from the outside, leaving Marcus Valen completely isolated in the dim, flickering light of a single mana crystal embedded in the ceiling.
Marcus was sitting on a hard wooden bench, his foot rapidly and nervously tapping against the stone floor. The rhythmic thud, thud, thud echoed loudly in the confined space, but it did nothing to drown out the panicked spiraling of his own thoughts.
What just happened? he thought, his chest tight with a suffocating, icy dread. What the hell was that?
He buried his face in his hands, his mind racing to make sense of the last ten minutes.
Yes, he had bought that artifact from the black market contact in the capital.
He wasn’t stupid; he knew it was technically against tournament regulations.
But it was supposed to be a simple, high-grade mana reservoir, just a minor, undetectable boost to ensure he crushed his opponent.
It was absolutely not supposed to be a demonic relic.
He had been drawing from the crystal since the bell rang, and it had felt perfectly normal.
Just an extra reserve of pure fire mana.
But then... right at the end, that sudden, terrifying surge?
That sickening, wrong pressure that had violently hijacked his spell? That wasn’t the artifact he bought.
Marcus slowly lowered his hands, shaking his head as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead.
"No," he whispered to the empty cell. "Something is definitely off. Someone tampered with it."
If the Royal Guard arrived and officially charged him with possessing demonic contraband, he wouldn’t just be expelled.
He would be executed, and the Valen family name would be permanently erased from the nobility. He couldn’t just sit here and wait for the executioner.
He stood up, pacing the small room until he heard the heavy, rhythmic footsteps of a stadium guard approaching the door.
Marcus instantly dropped back onto the wooden bench, clutching his stomach and letting out a loud, agonizing groan.
"Argh! Help!" Marcus yelled, doubling over and violently coughing.
"Please! The mana... it’s burning my core!"
The footsteps outside stopped. There was a moment of hesitation, followed by the heavy clack of the iron bolt sliding back. The heavy door swung open, revealing a burly stadium guard holding a standard-issue spear.
"Step back, boy!" the guard ordered, stepping cautiously into the cell.
Marcus didn’t step back. The moment the guard crossed the threshold, Marcus lunged.
He channeled a concentrated burst of heat directly into his palms and violently slammed both hands against the heavy iron breastplate of the guard.
The superheated metal instantly burned through the guard’s tunic. The man let out a shocked, agonizing yell, dropping his spear to clutch his scorching armor.
Marcus didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the wooden shaft of the fallen spear, swung it hard, and struck the distracted guard directly across the temple. The man’s eyes rolled back, and he crumpled heavily to the stone floor.
Marcus dropped the spear, his heart hammering against his ribs, and sprinted out the open door.
He completely bypassed the main stairwells, using the shadowy, labyrinthine maintenance corridors beneath the stadium to slip away.
He had to lay low. He had to find out who had access to his coat.
He crept out of a side exit, emerging behind the towering, temporary wooden structures of the vendor pavilions. It was quiet here, the roar of the festival crowds muffled by the thick canvas tents and heavy timber.
As he hurried down the narrow, shaded alleyway between two storage tents, he abruptly stopped.
Standing just a few yards away were his two lackeys. And standing between them, struggling to balance a massive, teetering stack of dirty cast-iron cooking sheets, was Emma.
She looked absolutely miserable, her uniform stained with grease and soot, clearly doing the grueling cleanup work the two boys had forced upon her while they lounged in the shade.
Marcus stared at her.
His paranoid, racing mind instantly connected the dots.
Who else had been near him all day? Who else had a motive to ruin his life? Who had he forced to manage his work and carry his belongings?
"It must be you..." Marcus hissed, stepping out of the shadows.
Emma froze.
She nearly dropped the heavy cast-iron sheets, her bright blue eyes widening in absolute terror as she looked at him. S
he knew he was supposed to be in a duel. Seeing him here, covered in sweat and radiating pure, unhinged malice, sent a violent chill down her spine.
"W-What?" Emma stammered, taking a trembling step backward.
Marcus exhaled a shaky, furious breath, his dark eyes burning with irrational hatred.
"Of course. Who else but you? You commoner rat."
The two lackeys immediately stood up, looking at Marcus in shock.
"My lord?" one of them asked, completely bewildered. "What happened? Weren’t you—"
"Grab her," Marcus ordered, his voice dripping with lethal venom.
The lackeys didn’t question the command. They lunged forward. Emma let out a terrified shriek as the heavy iron pans clattered loudly to the ground.
The two massive boys grabbed her by the arms, violently pinning her in place despite her desperate, frantic struggling.
Marcus slowly walked toward her, his jaw completely unhinged.
"You thought you could plant that on me?" Marcus snarled, stopping just inches from her face. "You thought you could destroy my family?"
Emma was sobbing now, shaking her head frantically.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about! Marcus, please, I swear I didn’t do anything!"
Marcus ignored her pleas.
He slowly raised his hands, deliberately and maliciously cracking his knuckles.
Then he drew his right arm back, fully intending to shatter her jaw and beat the shit out of her.
But before he could even begin to swing...
A hand shot out from the shadows.
Fingers locked onto Marcus’s shoulder with the absolute, crushing pressure of a steel vise.
"Enough."
The voice was terrifyingly calm, carrying a cold, absolute zero promise of violence.
Before Marcus could even turn his head to see who had grabbed him, the figure stepped perfectly into his guard.
WHAM!
A devastating, perfectly aimed punch connected directly with the center of Marcus’s face.
The sickening crunch of shattering cartilage echoed loudly in the narrow alleyway as Marcus was violently lifted off his feet, his vision exploding into blinding white pain.