Chapter 168: A Walk With Melvin
"Master?"
Melvin’s voice carried a mild, almost disbelieving shock as he rose halfway from the throne.
His cold eyes moved slowly over the figure standing before him.
Akasha’s skin held a gentle luminous brown that caught the cold light of the chamber and held a soft purple afterglow, as though the air itself had been painted around him.
His cascading hair of deep purple and pure snow-white framed a face so precisely carved it bordered on dangerous.
The sharp, pointed ears, the subtle glint of fangs when his lips parted, and the clean purple infinity symbol resting beneath his left eye completed the transformation.
For a brief moment, clear awe flickered across the younger man’s face before discipline reasserted itself. He straightened fully and offered a formal incline of the head that included everyone present.
"Master. Mistress Luna. Mistress Yume." His gaze shifted to the unfamiliar Shadow Demon standing a short distance behind them, black eyes narrowing with quiet curiosity.
"And...?"
Yume’s soft chuckle drifted through the freezing air of the throne room.
"Well, this is Calista Shade." She introduced, "And she may become the second disciple of Dreamer’s Peak," she said, blue-streaked hair shifting as she tilted her head. "Or she may not. That decision is still hers."
Melvin’s brow arched slightly as he studied Calista for another heartbeat.
He offered her only a brief, respectful nod and said nothing further.
Akasha let his attention wander across the vast, sparsely decorated chamber—the high vaulted ceiling, the empty galleries, the single throne that dominated the far end.
A hint of dry amusement colored his voice.
"It’s a bit lonely in here, don’t you think?"
The mild effort to lighten the mood met with no smile in return. Melvin stayed composed, sitting straight with a serious expression that didn’t waver.
"Has Master come to assign me a task?" he asked, his tone polite yet straightforward.
Akasha’s brow lifted in mild surprise.
’Well... this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought,’ he mused, giving a small shake of his head.
"No... there’s no task. Didn’t I tell you that you had freedom?" he asked with a smile before continuing.
"I just want you to come with me for a while."
Then, turning toward Luna and Yume, his voice softened.
"You three can stay here or do whatever you’d like. I’ll only be gone a few hours."
He stepped close enough to brush a brief kiss against Luna’s lips, then another against Yume’s, the gestures unhurried and familiar.
Without further explanation, he started toward the great doors of the throne room.
Yet Melvin stayed rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed and unyielding, saying nothing.
Akasha lingered at the doorway, casting a look over his shoulder with a soft, amused laugh slipping past his lips.
"I won’t ask you again... don’t force me to kidnap you twice."
Without further explanation, he started toward the great doors of the throne room.
Melvin remained rooted where he sat, gaze fixed and unyielding, the cold air of the chamber holding him in place for several long heartbeats.
A quiet sigh slipped from him as he rose from the throne with measured steps and followed.
----
When he stepped through the doors, Akasha was already standing at the front of the palace, luminous brown skin, his purple and snow-white hair stirring gently in the wind.
He watched the snow fall in slow, heavy flakes that blanketed the frozen courtyard and the distant rooftops beyond.
Without turning, he began to walk, the words quiet but clear.
"Come along."
Hearing this, Melvin fell into step beside him.
They left the palace grounds and then the outer walls of the kingdom itself, moving through streets of ice-laced stone and past silent watchtowers until the last markers of Blackwood fell behind them.
Hours passed without either of them speaking.
The only sounds were the soft crunch of snow beneath their boots and the occasional distant crack of ice shifting under its own weight.
Both men seemed content to take in the transformed landscape. The endless white plains, the frozen rivers, the skeletal forests locked in crystalline stillness.
At last Akasha’s voice broke the long quiet.
"What drove you to do it?"
Melvin tilted his head, a hint of real confusion flickering across his sharp features. Akasha kept her gaze on the horizon, deep purple and white eyes unblinking.
"Your family. What made you kill them?"
The question landed like a blade against an old wound.
Nearly eleven years had passed, yet the scar remained raw enough that for a dangerous moment Melvin’s entire body tensed.
Had the words come from almost anyone else, he might have answered with violence.
Out of respect for the man walking next to him, he managed to keep his reaction in check.
Taking a slow, steady breath, he willed the heat in his chest to cool, and when he finally spoke, his voice came out low and measured, each word carefully weighed.
"I did it to free them from their pain."
He let out another quiet sigh, the snow drifting down around them in thick, lazy flakes as he started to recount what had happened the day he came back.
In that moment, he began to explain how everything had already been different from the kingdom he remembered.
The so-called alliance between Blackwood and Loria had been nothing more than a carefully maintained lie.
In truth, the Blackwood people had been reduced to little more than enslaved people beneath the Loria Matriarchy.
Melvin’s voice remained low and controlled as he described finding his father broken and tortured, no longer the man who had raised him.
His mother and sister had endured years of systematic defilement.
When they looked at him that day, the only thing left in their eyes had been the desperate wish to be released from the pain and the failure that had consumed them.
So, he had granted it.
Akasha trudged quietly across the long expanse of snow-covered ground, his breath curling in the frigid air as a faint frown etched itself onto his striking features.
After what seemed like an endless silence, he finally spoke, his voice low but sharp, cutting through the stillness.
"...So, why stop with the Prince and King of Loria? Why not anyone else?"
He couldn’t wrap his head around it... If so much had happened to his kingdom and family, how could it make sense only to kill the king and prince?
Akasha knew the people of Loria had been slaughtered, yet he still couldn’t understand why he had never heard of the Queen’s death.
Melvin turned his head, studying him for several moments, deep purple and white eyes locking with cold blue in quiet assessment.
Snow settled on the younger man’s dark hair as he asked, his voice tinged with genuine curiosity,
"Master... how do you already know this?"
He remembered Luna and Yume mentioning that Akasha was going through some evolution... a fact that was obvious just by looking at him.
Still, that didn’t explain how he knew something he hadn’t even shared with the Mistresses.
Akasha gave a small shake of his head, purple and snow-white hair shifting with the motion.
"There is not much I cannot find out when I decide to look." He arched one brow slightly, clearly waiting.
Melvin’s gaze wandered forward again as he spoke.
"Right... the Loria Ancestor escaped with the Queen. Even now, I can’t fathom how it happened. Before she disappeared, she told me only that by killing the Prince, I had triggered the final catalyst."
Akasha didn’t respond right away.
’A catalyst, huh?’
They walked on through the endless stretch of white, the only sounds the muffled crunch of snow under their boots and the faint, distant groan of ice shifting under its own weight.
After a long silence, Akasha’s voice returned, softer than before.
"So... tell me, what do you want now?"
For years, it was obvious that Melvin’s only motivation was preserving his Kingdom’s status and thwarting Loria’s schemes.
But now, with that Chapter closed, he found himself wondering what his disciple truly wanted for his own life.