Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

And a six-year-old girl had just casually handed him the magical equivalent of a cellular smartphone.

”You... you invented instantaneous, untraceable audio transmission,” Roan breathed, his mind reeling with the geopolitical implications of the device. Wars could be won with this. Empires could be toppled. ”How did you... the spatial compression alone violates three laws of standard thermodynamics...”

”The laws are boring. I bypassed them using a recursive feedback loop,” Seraphina shrugged, resting her hands on the desk. ”I call it a ’Cell-Stone’. It’s a working prototype. But I have a problem.”

Roan slowly looked up from the blueprint, meeting her dark eyes. ”A problem?”

”I am six years old,” Seraphina stated the obvious. ”I have the leverage to completely manipulate the Imperial economy. But I cannot walk into the Underground Guild, file a patent for a magical smartphone, and start selling untraceable communication devices to the highest bidder.”

Seraphina leaned forward, her gaze intense and uncompromising.

”I have the capital, the product, and the intelligence,” she said. ”I need a proxy. I need a front-man. Someone who can walk into the shadows of the Capital, establish an Information Guild, and manage the logistics without drawing the Archduke’s attention!”

Roan Charte, the most chaotic, mischievous, power-hungry entity in the East, felt an euphoric thrill rush through his veins.

He had come to the Capital to investigate an anomaly.

He had found a girl who looked like his lost love.

And now, that same girl was offering him the position of CEO in a syndicate armed with revolutionary magical technology.

A slow, wicked, and dangerous grin spread across Roan’s face. He took off his glasses, tossing them onto the desk, his pitch-black eyes practically glowing with unholy delight.

”Let me ensure I understand the parameters of this proposal, Sovereign,” Roan purred, leaning across the desk, completely matching her intense energy. ”You are asking me, your humble, bespectacled tutor, to operate an illegal, unsanctioned underground corporate empire, using revolutionary technology to blackmail the Imperial nobility.”

”Yes,” Seraphina nodded. ”With a seven-three profit split. I take seven. I’m the inventor.”

Roan threw his head back and laughed, a loud, booming, joyous sound of pure villainous excitement.

”You are an absolute monster,” Roan beamed, looking at her with overwhelming adoration. ”The Archduke thinks he adopted an angel, and he actually brought a mafia don into his living room. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed.”

He reached across the desk, extending his pale, elegant hand.

”I accept your terms, Boss,” Roan smirked. ”The Capital’s shadows won’t know what hit them. We shall call our little enterprise... The Obsidian Network. It has a nice, mysterious ring to it, don’t you think?”

Seraphina reached out, grasping his large hand with her tiny one, sealing the unholy alliance.

”The Obsidian Network,” Seraphina agreed, a wicked smile matching his own. ”Your first assignment is to procure a storefront in the Lower Ward. Have the D.S.S. ducks deliver the blackmail material on the Duke of the Western Marches to the highest bidding mercenary group. Let’s start a bidding war.”

”It shall be done before dinner,” Roan promised, his eyes dancing with mischief.

They released their handshake.

The ultimate, untouchable partnership had been forged. The grumpy Archduke provided the physical, impenetrable shield, but the handsome Archmage would be her sword in the shadows.

The Capital was officially doomed.

****

Unfortunately, while Seraphina was successfully launching a tech-startup/blackmail syndicate in the secondary study, the primary study was currently under an infuriating political assault.

The peace of Kaelus’s casual day was brutally shattered.

Count Valerius, having somehow managed to acquire dry clothes, though his dignity remained permanently shattered at the bottom of the koi pond, had returned to Kaelus’s office. And this time, he had not come alone.

He had brought reinforcements.

When Seraphina hopped happily out of her tutoring session and waddled down the grand corridor toward her father’s office, she instantly sensed the suffocating wave of Kaelus’s dark mana leaking out from under the heavy oak doors.

It was cold and angry. But it wasn’t the explosive rage of a physical threat. It was the fury of a man trapped in a political corner.

Seraphina didn’t knock. She kicked the door open, marching into the room.

The scene was a nightmare of aristocratic bureaucracy.

Kaelus von Nacht was standing behind his cracked mahogany desk, his casual linen shirt doing nothing to soften the terrifying, murderous glare in his violet eyes.

Sitting in a semi-circle of velvet chairs opposite the desk were three elderly, robed men holding golden staffs. They were the emissaries of the Nacht Elder’s Council, a relic of the old Northern traditions, a group of grumpy, ancient lords who technically held the power to audit the Archduke’s bloodline and succession plans.

Standing triumphantly behind them, looking incredibly smug, was Count Valerius.

”Ah, the little stray joins us,” Valerius sneered, gripping his walking stick.

Kaelus’s hand twitched toward the hilt of his sword, a spike of black frost shooting across the desk.

”Count Valerius,” Kaelus whispered, his voice a lethal promise. ”One more word regarding my daughter, and the Council will be electing a new Count.”

The three Elders shifted uncomfortably, clutching their staffs.

”Your Grace, please,” the Lead Elder, a frail man with a long white beard, coughed into his hand. ”We are not here to debate the child’s presence in your home. You have registered her. She is your ward. But the laws of the Northern Succession are absolute. A child without the Nacht blood resonance cannot legally inherit the Vanguard or the Bastion.”

”I am the Vanguard,” Kaelus snarled, his aura flaring. ”I dictate the succession.”

”You are the Archduke, but you are not immortal, Kaelus!” Count Valerius argued, stepping forward, emboldened by the Elders. ”You refused my grandson. You refused a collateral adoption to secure the bloodline! You leave the Duchy vulnerable to Imperial seizure if you fall!”

Valerius slammed a velvet-bound portfolio onto Kaelus’s ruined desk.

”The Elder’s Council has reached a unanimous decision.”