Supreme Warlock System : From Zero to Ultimate With My Wives
Chapter 455 - 455: Unquiet Lunch

Warlock Ch 455. Unquiet Lunch

Damian could feel them. Five others. Marked. Tied to Ralvek's rituals through indirect funding, stolen supply chains, fabricated sigils.

They didn't even realize they were walking into a war of attrition they'd already lost.

He wiped his mouth delicately with the silk napkin.

"Shall we?" he said to the table.

Aria gave a small nod.

Cassius grinned. "Time to pretend we're grateful?"

"Time to go let them think they won," Damian said.

And when they reached the guest quarters the Tribunal had so generously assigned them, Damian took the window seat, cracked it open, and let the breeze hit his face.

The smell was still there.

That animalistic undercurrent. Subtle. Persistent.

They were trying so hard to trigger something inside him.

But what they didn't understand—

What they'd never understand—

Was that Damian Blackthorn didn't have something inside him.

He was the thing waiting to be unleashed.

And now?

He had their names.

He had their faces.

And soon… he'd have their graves.

One by one.

The lunch continued.

Elegant. Tense. A masquerade of etiquette so fine you could mistake it for peace—if you weren't sitting beneath the illusion with a target painted across your back.

Damian didn't flinch. He cut his food precisely, tasted each bite like it was fine cuisine instead of bait, and kept a quiet smile on his face like nothing was wrong. Like the walls weren't breathing lies. Like every wine-poured toast wasn't laced with poison dressed in gold.

Across from him, Victoria swirled her goblet of bloodwine like a woman watching a play she'd already read the final act of. Cassius had switched places with Cedric so he could sit closer to the door—'just in case the ceiling falls down'—and Lysandra had quietly ripped the arms off her chair because it had insulted her shoulders.

Aria sat beside Damian, not eating much. Just watching.

Waiting.

And so was he.

Because the Tribunal didn't back off. Not really. They kept poking the edges, probing for a crack. A misplaced look. An insult taken badly. A moment of silence that stretched a beat too long.

The conversation was poison.

"So, Lord Blackthorn," one of the senators said, raising a glass just high enough to flash the gemstone ring on his finger. "Tell us, how does it feel to be a public hero again? Must be quite the change."

Damian smiled politely. "It's strange. People tend to forget I never stopped trying to save lives. Even when I was in chains."

A few forks paused mid-air. The air thickened. Aria suppressed a grin.

Another senator leaned in. "Surely you understand the fear. You did absorb a mana core. Two, if I recall. And the creature's especially… unstable."

"It's stable now," Damian replied. "More than most of the politics in this room."

The senator laughed too quickly. "Of course, of course."

Damian reached for his water and sipped slowly. Through the rim of the glass, he caught Senator Belmonte watching him.

Hard.

Still. Cold. Quiet.

He remembered that kind of stare. Calculating. The stare of a man deciding whether now was the time to draw blood or simply wait for someone else to start it.

Good.

He's cracking.

Damian had marked Belmonte with [Shadow Latch] over an hour ago, the passive weaving an invisible tether between them. It didn't control. It didn't coerce. It simply… waited. Coiled in the dark parts of Belmonte's soul, feeding off intent. Off guilt. Off hatred.

The moment that hatred boiled over into hostile intent?

That would be the trigger.

And Belmonte—sharp, disciplined, cold-blooded Belmonte—was slipping.

Damian could feel it in the air around him. Like a ripple against his skin.

Another senator spoke. "Surely you understand our caution, Lord Blackthorn. There's still unrest among the public. Some think you're just… a more refined threat than the last one."

Victoria let out a low, musical laugh. "Is that jealousy I hear?"

The senator froze.

"I wonder what it feels like," she continued, running her finger lazily along the rim of her goblet, "to have less control over your tongue than Damian has over a sleeping god."

That shut them up for a while.

The conversation turned to something else—trade routes, magical law reform, an absolutely dry discussion of teleportation taxes. It was meant to dull the mood. Bring the pressure down.

But Belmonte?

He was boiling.

Damian watched the vein in the man's neck tighten. Watched the tremor begin in his right hand. Watched the way he wiped his brow twice despite the room being perfectly cool.

He's fighting it.

Shadow Latch wasn't corruption. It didn't override will.

It just mirrored what was already there.

And when it reached critical mass?

The soul simply… tore.

Belmonte stood.

Too fast. Too abrupt.

All conversation stopped.

Even the waitstaff froze in place, silver trays suspended mid-motion.

"Forgive me," Belmonte said, voice too loud, too tight. "I seem to have had… too much wine."

"You haven't touched your wine," Lysandra said flatly.

He ignored her.

"I need to… air."

He turned, too sharply.

And stopped.

His shoulders twitched.

Then—jerked.

His jaw clenched so tightly it cracked.

Cassius stood slowly. "Anyone else noticing the part where his aura just spiked?"

Belmonte let out a low sound. Not a word. A growl.

A snarl.

The next moment happened all at once.

His hands burst into arcane flame—unstable, wild, laced with dark-mana rot.

He didn't attack Damian.

He lunged—straight for the Fae King.

But before he could cross the space between them, the other senators moved.

Chains of golden light erupted from their hands, slamming into Belmonte mid-air, yanking him back like a beast on a leash. His body hit the floor with a crunch, magic sputtering violently as he roared in pain.

They weren't saving the Fae King.

They were silencing Belmonte.

Because his outburst hadn't been a betrayal.

It was a leak.

"You ruined it!" he screamed, body writhing in the senators' binding spells. His voice cracked, wild with rage and broken restraint. "He ruined it! That warlock mongrel wasn't supposed to survive! We gave everything to Ralvek's plan! The ritual—the sacrifice—was supposed to open the way!