Revenge: A Path of Destruction
Chapter 73: Badass Entry (1)

Chapter 73: Badass Entry (1)

Lady Lucy’s face remained unreadable, her calm gaze locked on Thutmose. The air in the hall grew still again, the tension thickening like a storm about to break.

"I was in my office," she said evenly, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife. "Filling out paperwork for our expansion on the Thunder Domain. The usual burdens of influence."

She shifted slightly in her seat, the torchlight catching the gleam of the purple fabric around her shoulder.

"That was when I received the message. Just a single line..." She paused, her gaze drifting upward for a moment, recalling it with perfect clarity. "’One of your daughters will be assassinated very soon.’"

A ripple passed through the elders, like a breeze brushing through a field of dry grass. Lucy didn’t flinch.

"At first," she continued, "I assumed it was some stupid prank." A small, humorless smile flicked across her lips. "But then I remembered—no ordinary person should even have access to my direct line, much less the nerve to send something like that."

Her fingers tapped gently on the armrest of her chair. "That’s when I realized this might not be a joke. It was a warning."

She leaned forward slightly, her voice low but heavy with restrained fury. "I used a portal to return the moment I felt something was off. I arrived barely an hour ago—just in time to find out my daughter was dead and you all here wasting time instead of finding the culprit."

Her eyes narrowed, not at Thutmose, but toward the space where her daughter should have sat.

"So forgive me," she said, her voice dipping into something darker, "if I seem impatient with questions about why I’m here. I wasn’t summoned. I was warned."

Her gaze slid back to Thutmose, sharper now.

"And I’d like to know exactly who sent that warning... and who made it necessary."

....

Her eyes were calm as the last syllable left her mouth, but her mind was blazing like wildfire.

She watched them all.

Every breath. Every blink. Every shift in posture.

The message had been deliberate, timed perfectly. She knew someone in this room either sent it, knew about it, or wanted her to see it just before the deed was done. A power play—or perhaps a test.

So, she looked for the cracks.

It was subtle, but she caught it—Menkara. Her son. The moment she mentioned the message, there was a flicker—a brief hesitation in his breath. A twitch in his cheek. Then it vanished. Masked by that neutral expression, but not fast enough.

Do you know something, Menkara, she thought. Or at least you suspected something was about to happen.

The second person she noticed that brief change on was Thutmose.

There it was again—quicker than Menkara, but it was there. A second tightening of the jaw. A glance, just barely off rhythm. He was trying to maintain control, but she’d spent decades reading politicians, generals, and beasts alike.

’So, he knows something also, ’ she noted, ’but I’m sure you aren’t the one. ’

It made sense. Thutmose had too much to lose for Merit’s death to be anything but a liability to him. Unless... he wasn’t the hand behind it, but the sword someone else had drawn. A tool—or worse, a scapegoat.

And then her eyes fell on Lady Nandi and her daughter, Neferura.

Stone. Unmoving. Their faces hadn’t shifted a millimeter since she’d arrived.

Nothing? she thought, a slow, cold creeping into her spine.

’This she fox, no change in her emotion, she is good.’

Her fingers curled lightly around the armrest.

She had always known that Nandi was dangerous, ambitious in a way that was patient, strategic, and masked behind matriarchal concern.

’She is just like I am’

Too perfect.

No flicker of recognition. No microexpression. Just still, poised arrogance.

And just like that, the final piece slid into place in Lucy’s mind.

It wasn’t Thutmose. Not fully. And Menkara... he’s not smart enough to pull it off alone.

It was you, Nandi.

You called the hit.

Her heartbeat remained steady, but her blood had turned to magma beneath the surface.

She smiled faintly, almost pleasantly, and looked away.

But the list was forming.

And it was short.

....

A few minutes passed in heavy silence, the air in the chamber thick with unsaid thoughts and restrained tension.

Then, with a slow, deliberate breath, Lady Nandi leaned forward, her voice cutting through the quiet like a blade dipped in honey.

"So," she began smoothly, "who was it that sent you the message, Lady Lucy? Surely, you must’ve tracked them down by now."

Her tone was sweet, almost curious, but everyone in the room could hear the sharp edge beneath it. The challenge. The dismissal.

Lucy turned her head slowly, her piercing gaze locking onto Nandi’s as if she’d been expecting the question.

"No."

The answer was firm. Cold. A wall with no cracks.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

"But I do know it was you who had my daughter killed, Nandi."

Gasps rippled softly through the room, but Lucy didn’t care for their reactions. Her words were not for them.

Nandi shot up from her seat immediately, the sharp scrape of her chair echoing through the tense hall. Her shawl slipped slightly from one shoulder, but she didn’t care. Her face was no longer the polished mask of nobility—it was burning with rage.

"How dare you?" she spat, her voice cold and venomous.

Her gaze bore into Lucy with unfiltered fury. "You realize what kind of accusation you’ve just made? That’s not some petty slight or childish rumor—that’s a declaration of war within the main bloodline."

She raised her hand slowly, fingers trembling—not from fear, but from the weight of her fury. Crystals of ice formed over her knuckles and snaked up her wrist, frost cracking in the air like brittle glass. Mana gathered around her hand, coiling like a viper.

"If you don’t have proof, Lucy," she growled, her mana-charged hand glowing cold and pale, "then you’d better be damn sure. Because I won’t take this insult lying down."

Her shwt subtly shifted behind her, ready to intercept any clash, though the tension in their posture said even they weren’t sure they could stop her in time.

The temperature in the room dropped.

Everyone sat still.

Every elder watched.

"Enough!" Thutmose’s voice finally rang out, firm and commanding as he stepped forward from his seat. His shwt moved subtly, responding to the pressure in the air, but stayed in formation. "This is not the time—nor the place—for personal vengeance."

But neither woman listened.

"Stay out of this, boy," Nandi hissed without even looking at him.

"You’re not in charge here, not when you let your sister die under your watch," Lucy added coldly, her eyes still locked with Nandi’s. Her voice never rose, but the edge of her tone cut sharper than steel.

The air cracked as Nandi’s ice mana burst outward, frost webbing across the stone floor, crawling up the base of the torches, and dulling the flames. At the same moment, Lucy’s aura expanded, wild purple currents laced with thunder leaking into the room, causing the torches to flicker violently.

Their auras collided in mid-air—ice crashing against storm.

A deep boom echoed like thunder as their opposing forces pushed against each other. The stone beneath their feet trembled. Some of the weaker guards along the walls staggered.

And then—

Thutmose’s mana dropped. Heavy. Absolute.

The floor beneath the two women groaned.

In the next breath, six more Grandmaster-ranked auras crashed down in tandem—elders and shwt alike. Their combined pressure landed like mountains on Nandi and Lucy’s shoulders, forcing both women to pause mid-escalation.

Frost cracked. Lightning fizzled.

The tension thinned just enough for the mana to be drawn back. Slowly. Reluctantly.

Nandi exhaled sharply through her nose. Her fingers twitched, the last remnants of ice cracking off her skin. Her chest rose and fell once. Twice.

And then—

"You want to throw accusations?" she said, her voice hoarse, bitter—raw. "Fine. Let’s go there."

She stepped forward, no longer hiding the venom in her tone.

"I’ve always hated that fake, easy-going act of yours. That sweet little smile you wear like armor. Backstabbing bitch."

The room gasped as the words echoed through the chamber like a slap.

"You think I didn’t know?" she seethed. "You think I haven’t kept it to myself all these years? You’re so smug with your secrets—but I know, Lucy."

She pointed a trembling finger across the chamber, her lip curling with disgust.

"Tell them. Go on. Tell them how you killed Thutmose’s mother."

Silence.

Even the torches seemed to stop flickering.

Every eye turned to Lucy. Every heartbeat waited.

Then the silence shattered.

Thutmose spoke.

His voice, usually measured and calm like bedrock, now trembled with something darker—a storm of barely contained fury. The sound of it alone made the air feel heavier, and everyone in the hall instinctively straightened, as if sensing a shift in the natural order.

Everyone knew one thing about Thutmose: he did not speak of his mother unless he had to and never with emotion.

But now?

Rage bled from his every word.

The ground beneath Lucy’s feet quivered as an overwhelming pressure slammed down on her—not just mana, but wrath made tangible. She stumbled, then dropped to one knee, breath caught in her throat.

Even Lucy, for all her strength and calm, had never felt anything like this.

His eyes—usually unreadable—burned as they locked onto her.

"Is what she said true?" Thutmose asked.

His voice wasn’t raised.

But the quiet fury in it screamed louder than a war cry.

Everyone in the hall froze.

Because they knew he was one breath away from killing her.

Not as a prince.

Not as the acting Patrician.

But as a son whose world might have just been shattered.

Then, from nowhere, a childlike voice pierced the tension in the room, cutting through the silence like a knife.

"Whoa, your mana control is seriously next level, dude," a small voice chimed in from the west side of the hall. "Right, Alex?"

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