The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

Chapter 337 Chains in the Mist

Mikhailis slipped into the manor, the mist curling unnaturally around him. It clung to the old walls like something alive, creeping over cracked pillars and rotting wooden beams. The place reeked of abandonment—stale air, decayed fabric, and the faint, bitter tang of something arcane lingering in the corners.

His boots barely made a sound against the dust-coated floorboards as he moved deeper inside. Broken chandeliers hung from the ceiling like skeletal remains of past grandeur, their crystal pendants dulled with age and neglect. The silence felt too heavy, pressing down as if the very air resisted his presence.

<Environmental analysis: Unstable arcane resonance detected. Strong residual energy. Possibility of phased anomalies.>

Rodion's voice hummed in his head, calm yet laced with an undertone of caution.

Mikhailis exhaled slowly. "Meaning?"

<Meaning if you die here, I won't bother analyzing the cause.>

A smirk twitched at his lips. "Touching."

Still, the warning sat uncomfortably in his gut. He moved forward, weaving through the remains of what must have once been a noble estate—one of the older ones, built before the city had fully surrendered to the Technomancer's hold. The architecture had an ancient elegance, layered with forgotten history. He could almost picture how it might've looked in its prime—bright tapestries, gold filigree, halls filled with laughter and whispered court politics. Now, all that remained were dust and echoes of something long lost.

The deeper he went, the more the air thickened, charged with unseen tension. His fingers ghosted over the wall, brushing against cold stone where faded carvings traced forgotten patterns. Glyphs, half-erased, barely visible beneath the centuries of neglect. But the energy in them was still there—subtle, thrumming beneath his skin like the first static before a storm.

Then, the corridor opened into a vast chamber.

A ritual chamber.

Mikhailis halted, breath catching at the sight before him. Ancient symbols flickered along the walls, faint yet pulsing with some residual power. The floor bore a circular engraving, its lines intricate, delicate—and somehow, impossibly familiar. The air inside this room felt heavier, more solid. Every instinct screamed that something significant had happened here long ago.

Stay tuned with My Virtual Library Empire

His gaze fell to the center of the chamber, where a large, dormant console stood. Its surface was smooth, untouched by dust, though no hand had likely reached it in years. Something in him tightened at the sight of it—a feeling not unlike recognition, though he knew he'd never been here before.

Hesitation flickered through him, but curiosity won. He stepped forward, extending a hand.

His fingers brushed the console—

A rush of images flooded his mind.

Darkened thrones, their crowns toppled and shattered. A city engulfed in mist, its skyline blurred, lost to swirling tendrils of something unnatural. The sound of voices—many, layered upon each other, whispering in a language he couldn't quite grasp.

And then, a figure.

Bound in golden chains, their eyes hollow yet burning with something ancient, something alive. Their form flickered, as if trapped between reality and something beyond it.

A voice rang out—not spoken, but felt, reverberating in his very bones.

"The chains must break before the throne is reclaimed."

Mikhailis gasped, staggering back, the images shattering like glass around him. His chest heaved, his pulse hammering too fast. He pressed a hand to his temple, steadying himself.

What the hell was that?

Before he could process it, something shifted in the air.

Movement.

His instincts screamed, and he spun just as two figures emerged from the mist.

One masked.

One golden-eyed.

Mikhailis stiffened, tension coiling in his gut. These weren't Technomancers. Their presence was different—sharper, quieter, carrying the weight of something ancient, something unseen.

"You are a variable we did not anticipate," the masked one intoned.

The voice was neither warm nor cold, simply measured—like an observer noting an unexpected anomaly.

Mikhailis exhaled, shaking off the lingering disorientation. His lips curled into a smirk, though his grip on his composure was tighter than it looked. "You know, I get that a lot."

The golden-eyed woman studied him, head tilting slightly. Her gaze was unnerving—not just piercing, but assessing. Like she was peeling back layers, looking past the surface straight into something he didn't even know was there.

"You touch what you do not understand," she said, voice quiet but certain. "The mist was never meant to be controlled by human hands."

Mikhailis raised a brow. "Funny. The Technomancers would say the same thing."

Something flickered in her expression, brief but there—an acknowledgment, maybe. But it vanished as quickly as it came.

The masked figure took a step forward. "Do you seek to rule or restore?"

The question sent a chill through him.

Mikhailis's fingers flexed slightly. They were fishing. Trying to gauge where he stood, whether he was an enemy or something else entirely.

"Neither," he answered easily, his smirk deepening. "I just like pissing off people who think they can decide fate."

A flicker of something in Eldris's golden eyes. Approval? Amusement? It was hard to tell.

Then the air shifted.

Without warning, the mist moved.

Tendrils lashed toward him, fast, precise. Mikhailis dodged, twisting through the air in a sharp motion. The mist followed, morphing, adapting to his movements. Then, from the corner of his vision, he saw it—Eldris moving in, too fast, too fluid.

A blade of golden light gleamed in her grip.

It struck.

Pain flared through his side, sharp and hot—but then, something strange happened.

The wound didn't hold.

The mist recoiled from his body as though repelled, as if something in him rejected the attack itself. The sensation was unnatural, like the laws of reality were bending around him in ways they shouldn't.

Eldris's eyes widened. "You—" she began.

The masked figure raised a hand. "Enough."

The mist stilled.

Mikhailis, still gripping his side where the blade should have cut deep, watched as the two figures regarded him with something new in their eyes—not hostility, but something closer to recognition.

"He is not ready," the masked one murmured. "Yet."

And just like that—

They were gone.

The mist swallowed them whole, dissolving their forms like they had never been there at all.

Mikhailis stood in the heavy silence they left behind, pulse still racing, breath still unsteady. His fingers curled, tightening around the edge of his coat.

What the hell just happened?

Then, his gaze dropped.

Where they had stood, the ground bore a mark—a sigil burned into the stone, still faintly glowing.

An unfamiliar symbol.

But something in him recognized it.

And that terrified him more than anything.

____

The team reconvened at the hideout, tension thick in the air. The room, dimly lit by the flickering oil lamps, felt smaller than before—walls closing in as the weight of what they had uncovered pressed down on them. Dust hung in the still air, stirred only by their restless movements as they settled in.

Lira sat at the rickety wooden table, her fingers gliding over the sigil they had brought back from the manor. The carved emblem, now sketched onto parchment, gleamed faintly in the candlelight. She traced its curves with a careful precision, lips pursed in thought.

"It matches the ones in the ruins," she murmured, eyes flicking toward Mikhailis. "This isn't just an obscure symbol. It's part of an ancient prophecy. One tied to the city's True Sovereign."

A silence fell over the room, thick with unspoken questions. The only sound was the distant murmur of the city outside—muted, tense, as if the mist itself listened in.

Cerys's eyes narrowed, her arms crossed. She leaned against the wall, posture stiff, her expression unreadable. "And what does that mean for us?" she asked, her voice edged with skepticism.

Mikhailis met her gaze, but he had no clear answer. The moment he had seen that sigil, something inside him had pulled—like a thread long buried beneath layers of forgotten history. He felt it now, a quiet thrumming at the back of his mind, urging him to dig deeper.

"It means we're in deeper than we thought," he admitted, exhaling.

Cerys didn't look satisfied, but she said nothing more.

Across the room, Rhea sat perched on an overturned crate, one knee propped up. Her usual smirk was absent, replaced with a thoughtful frown. "You're saying this prophecy isn't just some ancient bedtime story?" she asked, eyes flicking toward Lira.

Lira shook her head. "No. The ruins weren't just random crumbled structures. They were part of something bigger. The old Serewyn system, the mist, the city's foundation—everything is connected. And now," her fingers tapped against the parchment, "this symbol keeps appearing. It wasn't just left behind by accident."

Vyrelda, who had been standing near the window, watching the fog-choked streets, turned her head slightly. "So what?" she asked, her voice clipped. "Does that mean we're tangled in some centuries-old power struggle that none of us signed up for?"

"Seems that way," Mikhailis mused, running a hand through his hair. "Unlucky, huh?"

Vyrelda shot him a glare. "You're taking this far too lightly."

He gave a small, lopsided grin. "Oh, don't get me wrong. I hate this. But what am I supposed to do? Cry about it?" His gaze darkened slightly as he leaned forward. "The fact is, something's moving beneath the surface. The Technomancers don't fully understand it. The Crownless House is grasping at it. And now, we've got people who can manipulate the mist itself appearing out of nowhere."

Vyrelda crossed her arms, unimpressed. "And you think cracking jokes is the best way to handle that?"

"It keeps me sane." He leaned back, balancing the chair on two legs, staring up at the ceiling. "Anyway, the real question is: If this prophecy is real, who exactly is supposed to be this 'True Sovereign'? Because I'm pretty sure it isn't me."

A silence stretched across the room.

Rhea chuckled dryly. "Gods help us if it is."

Mikhailis rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Lira exhaled, shaking her head. "I don't think we have enough information yet. But if this symbol is tied to the city's past—" She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "—then the people who attacked you at the manor might not be enemies in the way we thought."

Cerys scoffed. "They literally tried to kill him."

"Or test him," Lira countered. "They stopped before finishing the fight. They saw something in him that made them hesitate." She turned toward Mikhailis. "Didn't they?"

He frowned, the memory of Eldris's widened eyes flashing through his mind. "Yeah," he admitted reluctantly. "They definitely weren't expecting something about me."

Vyrelda's gaze sharpened. "And you have no idea what that something is?"

"Not a damn clue." He let the chair legs drop back onto the floor with a thud. "But I'd love to find out before they try again."

Rhea tapped her fingers against the crate she sat on, gaze flicking between them. "So what's the next move?"

Mikhailis drummed his fingers against his thigh. "We need to gather more intel. The ruins hold part of the answer, but the city is moving fast. The Crownless House is making their own plays, and the Technomancers are panicking."

Lira nodded. "I agree. The Technomancers wouldn't enforce a full curfew unless something big was about to shift."

Then, in the distance—

Bells tolled.

Loud. Ominous.

A sound that sent a chill through the air, reverberating through the hideout's thin walls.

Vyrelda turned sharply, eyes narrowing. "That's an emergency curfew."

Everyone went still.

Rodion's voice broke the silence, crisp and efficient.

<The city has been placed under Class-5 Threat Lockdown. All civilian movement restricted. Technomancer enforcement squads deploying across districts. Unregistered individuals will be detained on sight.>

Mikhailis let out a slow breath, his gaze shifting to the city beyond the cracked windows.

Well, things just got more interesting.