Gunmage
Chapter 154: To the victor, the spoils

Chapter 154: Chapter 154: To the victor, the spoils

Lugh raised his heads, both of them, and was met by a sea of silent stares.

He turned to his second self. This could be troublesome. Best they believed it was cloning magic rather than something as problematic as a twin brother.

He made a deliberate show of dissolving it with camouflage magic, turning invisible slowly—like fog thinning at dawn—until his second body vanished completely.

It created the illusion that it had faded out of existence.

"Y-You... awakened?"

Someone asked in a small, trembling voice.

"Yes"

Lugh replied instantly, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant. The beastkin whose memories he’d absorbed was woefully ignorant of the wider world.

And as for Emrys... he likely knew the concept, but not the human term for it.

Nevertheless, a new title could only help. Another label for them to fear. He had intended to bare his teeth tonight, and the result had exceeded expectations.

Now, all he saw were numb gazes, filled with awe, fear, and something bordering on reverence. The usual shrewd cunning had evaporated.

His eyes slid toward his cousins, no longer sprawled in a heap. They flinched under his gaze. A few, no doubt, still clung desperately to their ambitions, but that was acceptable—for now.

Time to take his spoils.

He walked forward with measured steps, approaching the beastkin pinned to the ballroom floor, still convulsing from the backlash of Lugh’s assault.

The man turned his head toward the sound of approaching footsteps and locked eyes with Lugh, hatred blazing in the pain-clouded gaze.

Good.

Minutes passed. The beastkin’s eyes dulled and clouded. Lugh closed his own and began digesting the memories.

When he opened them again, they were colder.

He yanked the sword from the beastkin’s back, letting the man drop limply to the polished floor. Then, wordlessly, he began to drag him away.

He would need to heal him before he bled out. Then, in private, transform the beastkin into a mirror of himself.

It wasn’t something he could attempt under so many watchful eyes.

Luckily, no one dared stop him from leaving now.

As he reached the grand doors, he spoke aloud, his voice echoing through the stunned silence.

"My dear thieves. I sincerely await the day when we compete for the position of family head."

He didn’t need to turn around to know the impact of those words. He could feel the chill that passed over them, the draining of color from their faces.

The silence cracked.

"What... just happened?"

Someone finally whispered.

It was as though he’d broken a dam.

A torrent followed:

—"Two bodies. He had two bodies! Did you see that?!"

—"I thought it was an illusion spell at first, but... damn!"

—"He walked out with a corpse like it was a f*cking grocery bag—"

—"No, that wasn’t a corpse. That was twitching! He was still alive!"

—"Should we be worried?"

—"I always said he had potential, didn’t I?"

—"Liar, you called him a street rat half an hour ago!"

—"That was before he summoned his evil twin!"

Nervous laughter broke out here and there. The kind that comes when fear has nowhere to go.

The ballroom was ruined, broken tiles, overturned tables, a blood-slicked floor. There would be no further dancing tonight.

From her elevated position, the Queen tilted her head and smiled thinly.

"Lady Selaphiel, I must commend you. This is truly a ball of the damned."

A ripple of laughter followed. Genuine or not, it helped the tension loosen its grip.

Draque’sill and the rest of the Inquisition quietly excused themselves not long after Lugh.

The rest of the court’s dignitaries lingered for an hour or two, buzzing, speculating, and pretending to be unshaken, before they too began to filter out.

The ball was formally concluded, and the storm of gossip had already begun its spread through the capital like wildfire.

Only the members of the Von Heim family remained, and with them came a very awkward silence.

Lugh, meanwhile, had long since begun dragging the bloodied beastkin through the castle’s stone corridors, startling servants and guards alike.

Some turned to speak, others shrank back. But no one intervened.

Now that his identity had been revealed to the world, he no longer needed to hide. He could drag a half-dead man openly without fear of consequence.

Freedom had never tasted so sweet.

It didn’t take long to reach his chambers. The heavy door shut behind him, and the room was bathed in green light as he activated the spellwork.

He would wait. Once his stamina returned, the transformation could begin.

It wouldn’t be permanent. As with most magic, mana needed to be supplied continuously to maintain the spell.

The energy would flow from Lugh himself. That meant he could only control a limited number of transformed beings at a time.

Severing the connection—through death or interruption—would revert them to their original form.

That likely explained why the others had returned to their beastkin shapes upon execution.

To create a perfect clone, one independent of his mana, he would need a different discipline altogether: transmutation magic, human transmutation.

And considering such arts were techinically outlawed, he would need to track down a rogue mage—someone skilled and unscrupulous.

But that could wait.

As for the memories he’d acquired...

Useful, but not extraordinary. His captive had battle experience, decent instincts, effective improvisation, but nothing Lugh hadn’t already mastered.

No new spells, no arcane insight.

Mundane life? Unremarkable.

But there was one thing of value, information.

This man wasn’t Mike. The moment Lugh had whispered the name during his dance with Vaelith, the real Mike had fled, leaving this unfortunate behind to command the team.

Cowardly? Certainly.

Smart? Undoubtedly.

More importantly, Lugh had discovered the Canines’ true identity.

It made no sense for a mere mercenary group to be so heavily composed of beastkin. Now it did.

The Canines were a proxy organization, founded and secretly run by one of the larger beastkin nations.

Most members hadn’t even known.

But this one, his catch, had been high up enough to understand the truth.

They operated along the small northern regions of the continent—where human enclaves like Ophris, Heieg, and others lay—spreading misinformation, destabilizing governments, sowing conflict under the guise of mercenary work.

To destroy the Canines, one would have to destroy the nation backing them.

Lugh wasn’t there yet.

But one day, perhaps.

He etched the country’s name into memory:

Zhuul.

Now, back to business.

He needed to find Jeane, the maid.

Before he saw Isolde, he had a very important question to ask.