My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode-187

Chapter : 373

He saw the path ahead with chilling clarity. Lloyd’s star was rising. Roy, his brother, now saw him not as a disappointment, but as a worthy heir, a prodigy. The other nobles, once dismissive, were now watching him with fear and respect. His power, both political and personal, was growing daily. And with that power, would come… retribution.

Lloyd knew. Rubel was certain of it. He knew about the assassination of the previous generation, a crime Rubel had been so careful to distance himself from, a secret buried under layers of plausible deniability and the convenient deaths of hired assassins. But the look in Lloyd’s eyes during the confrontation, the way he had spoken of ‘maneuvering against the main branch for years’… it had been too knowing, too specific. He suspected. And a man like this new Lloyd, a man with steel in his blood and ice in his veins, would not let such a suspicion lie dormant. He would dig. He would investigate. And eventually, he would find the truth.

And when he did, Rubel knew, his own life, and the life of his son, would be forfeit. Not with a fine, not with a public shaming. But with the cold, silent finality of an assassin’s blade in the dark.

The prison of his manor suddenly felt less like a symbol of his diminished status and more like a cage, a gilded cage where he was simply waiting for the executioner to arrive.

He looked at his son, at the bitter resentment etched on his young face. He looked at his own reflection in the dark glass of the window, at the face of a man whose lifelong ambition had turned to ash in his mouth.

No, he thought, a new, desperate resolve hardening in his heart. No. I will not be erased. I will not be a footnote in the story of Lloyd Ferrum’s triumphant rise. If the old games of political maneuvering have failed, then I must find a new game. A darker game.

If the power of the Ferrum bloodline was no longer enough, then he would seek a new power. A forbidden power. One that did not care for birthright, or tradition, or the judgment of kings and brothers. A power that fed on ambition, on resentment, on the festering wounds of injustice.

He set the crystal goblet down on the windowsill with a sharp, decisive click. The viper in the shadows was no longer content to merely stew in his venom. He was ready to strike. And he would seek a new, more potent, poison to arm his fangs.

The chill in Viscount Rubel Ferrum’s study was not just from the cool night air seeping through the mullioned windows; it was a cold that radiated from the very stones of his memory, a frost that had settled deep in his soul decades ago and had never truly thawed. He stared at his son, Rayan, at the bitter, resentful slump of his shoulders, and saw not just a defeated youth, but the reflection of his own long, festering wound. The root of his ambition, the poison that had fueled his every waking thought, his every clandestine maneuver, was not just a simple lust for power. It was a quest for a stolen birthright, a crusade against a historical injustice that had defined his entire life.

He remembered his father, Lord Gideon Ferrum, not as the world did—a quiet, scholarly Viscount of a minor cadet branch—but as he should have been: the rightful Arch Duke of the Ferrum Duchy. Gideon had been the elder son of the then-reigning Arch Duke. He had been the heir. By all the laws of primogeniture, by all the traditions that held their noble society together, the line of succession was clear. Gideon was destined to rule.

But Gideon, bless his gentle, scholarly heart, had been… different. In a family that prized martial prowess, that defined strength by the weight of a sword and the potency of one’s Void Power, Gideon had been an anomaly. He had been a man of books, of art, of quiet contemplation. His spirit, a gentle Wind-Sylph, was suited for healing and diplomacy, not for shattering enemy lines. His control over the family’s Iron Blood was… adequate, but uninspired. He saw it not as a weapon, but as a tool, using it to craft intricate metal sculptures, to mend broken things. He was, the family elders had whispered in the shadowed halls of the estate, “too gentle.” He lacked the “killer instinct,” the ruthless, unyielding will that the Ferrum name was built upon.

Chapter : 374

And then there was his younger brother. Roy’s father, Lord Malachi Ferrum. Malachi was everything Gideon was not. He was a warrior born. Loud, boisterous, aggressive. His spirit was a mighty Earth-Titan, a creature of stone and fury. His mastery of the Iron Blood was not subtle; it was brutal, overwhelming. He saw the world as a series of challenges to be conquered, of enemies to be crushed. He was the quintessential Ferrum, the embodiment of their house’s martial pride.

Rubel, as a young boy, had watched the dynamic play out with a growing sense of dread. He had adored his father, Gideon. He had loved his gentle nature, his quiet wisdom, his ability to see beauty in a world that so often valued only strength. He had listened, enraptured, as Gideon read to him from the great histories, explaining not just the battles, but the reasons behind them, the diplomacy, the human cost. He had seen the intricate, beautiful metal birds his father had forged with his Void power, marveling at the delicate artistry.

But he had also seen the way the other nobles looked at his father. The faint, pitying smiles. The condescending pats on the shoulder. The whispers behind cupped hands. And he had seen the way they looked at his uncle, Malachi. With fear. With respect. With the undeniable acknowledgment of raw, unshakeable power.

The crisis came when Rubel was just a boy of ten. A series of brutal border skirmishes with the savage clans of the Firepeak Mountains had escalated. The Arch Duke, their grandfather, old and ailing, had needed a strong hand to lead the Ferrum legions, to crush the incursion. He had turned, not to his elder son and heir, Gideon, but to his younger, more warlike son, Malachi.

Malachi’s victory had been swift, brutal, and absolute. He had returned to the capital a hero, his name on the lips of every soldier, his reputation as a formidable commander cemented. The family elders, the powerful heads of the cadet branches, had seen their chance.

The meeting had taken place in the same Grand Hall where Rubel had so recently faced his own public humiliation. He had hidden behind a heavy tapestry, a terrified, ten-year-old boy, listening as the fate of his family was decided.

“The times are dangerous,” one of the elders, a grim-faced traditionalist from the Ironwood branch, had declared. “The Altamira clan grows bold in the west. The savage clans press us from the east. We cannot afford weakness at the head of our house. We need a warrior. A commander. We need… steel.”

The implication was clear. Gideon, the gentle scholar, was not the steel they needed.

Rubel’s father had tried to argue. He had spoken of diplomacy, of strengthening alliances, of building prosperity through trade. He had spoken of a different kind of strength, the strength of the mind, of the spirit. But his words had fallen on deaf ears. They had been dismissed as the naive ramblings of a man unsuited for the harsh realities of rule.

And then, Malachi had spoken. He had not argued. He had not debated. He had simply stood, his massive Earth-Titan spirit a shimmering, intimidating presence behind him, and declared, “The house must be strong. I will do what is necessary to ensure its survival.”

The decision had been made. It was not a formal disinheritance, not a public shaming. It was a quiet, brutal, political coup. Gideon, the elder brother, the rightful heir, had been ‘persuaded’ to step aside. For the good of the family. He had been allowed to keep his titles, his lands, his dignity, but the line of succession had been officially, irrevocably, diverted to his younger brother, Malachi, and his heirs.

Rubel would never forget the look on his father’s face as he had emerged from that meeting. It was not anger. It was not even sadness. It was a profound, soul-deep weariness. The look of a man who had seen the core principles of his world—of law, of tradition, of birthright—cast aside in the name of brute, pragmatic force. Gideon had retreated into his studies, into his art, a quiet, gentle ghost haunting the edges of a court that no longer valued his brand of strength. He had died a few years later, not of any discernible illness, but, Rubel had always believed, of a broken heart.