"Happy birthday again, Lith. Sorry for involving your father in this shenanigan, but these days I don't know who I can trust anymore." He said.

Orion Ernas was a man in his mid-forties over 1.96 meters (6'5") tall, with black hair and brown eyes like Phloria. His physique was lean but muscular and his perfectly shaven face showed great sadness.

Orion had some wrinkles around the eyes and temples, but every movement of his was still full of the vigor one would expect from a much younger man.

He and Raaz knew each other ever since their respective children had attended the White Griffon academy. Even though the difference in their social standing was like heaven and earth, the two men carried a deep bond of trust and respect.

"Thanks. What's going on that requires this kind of secrecy?" Lith asked.

"I will answer to all your questions in due time. First things first. Is it true that you have found a teacher unrelated to the Kingdom to teach you advanced magic after your honorable discharge?" Orion asked.

"Yes." Lith said. With both his leave and the military service closing to their end, it was pointless to play it close to the chest. Especially after what had happened with Rena.

"Do they know Runesmithing?"

"My mentor shares my same specializations and none of the chains the Kingdom tries to burden me with. What's your point?" Lith didn't like being interrogated.

"My point is that if this guy is as good as you say, then I can uphold my part of our bargain." Orion took one of the plainest bastard swords Lith had ever seen from under his seat and placed it upon the table.

It had a silvery blade, cross-shaped guard, and pommel while the grip was black. If not for the line of purple crystals along its fuller and Solus's mana sense spotting the runes hidden under the surface, Lith would have taken it for a joke.

"If anyone asks, I never gave it to you. Say that it's a gift from your new master, that you found it at a flea market, on the corpse of one of your enemies, I don't care. Just keep my name out of it." Orion said.

Lith caressed the blade, yet he couldn't feel a single spark of magic from it. Even Invigoration found it to be weird, as if it was some kind of magical corpse.

"What's going on, Orion?" Lith asked.

"I'll tell you what's going on. Phloria's trial is still ongoing and things don't look good for neither of you." With a wave of Orion's hand, three glasses and a bottle of Raging Phoenix appeared on the table.

It was a liquor so strong that it was mostly meant to be diluted with non-alcoholic beverages, to be used for medical reasons, and to burn corpses to a crisp.

"What does it have to do with my son?" Lith and Raaz accepted Orion's offer to sit down along with the liquor.

"Everything. They took it on Phloria first because they gave us Ernas for granted and because she was the commanding officer. You got away scot-free not because of your performance, but because they were still trying to rope you in." Orion emptied his glass with small, enraged sips.

"The Royal Court was afraid that charging you with anything might make you leave the Kingdom and offer your talents somewhere else. Now that your voluntary military service is about to end, things escalated from fear to panic.

"The Magic Empress tried to recruit you when you met in Laurel and after the existence of the Orichalcum Skinwalker armor was released to the public, you are considered a leading figure in both the Healing and Forgemastering field.

"The Kingdom is left with no moves except for those that would lead you to pack up and leave which makes a lot of people uneasy. Politicians don't like the existence of powerful people they have no control over."

"Which led them to the decision of leaving you alone, but at the same time, they have no convenience in helping you anymore. Long story short, I've been forbidden to deliver the sword to you." Orion refilled and emptied his glass before Lith could even taste his own.

"Are you telling me that the Royals are afraid of me? That they don't want to keep their part of our bargain?" Lith's gaze shifted from the plain sword to Orion, incapable of deciding which one piqued his curiosity more.

"Gods, no. They love you. They have been fighting long and hard to protect our respective interests, but they don't run this country alone. The army and the Mage Association fear that if you received a piece crafted with Royal Forgemastering techniques, you or your newfound master would be able to reverse engineer it.

"They can't afford state secrets being leaked to rogue mages or foreign countries so the official version is that Ruin is the best I could do. Off the record, I was ordered to continue my research but only share it with fellow Royal Forgemasters as I did with your armor."

"What about this sword?" Lith pointed at the blade still in front of him.

"It's something I worked on during my free time in the privacy of my home, using only methods that I invented myself. In other words, it doesn't exist. Even if you searched the whole Mogar, you won't find anything like it." Orion replied with a pride equaled only by his rage.

"No, what I meant is why are you giving it to me, and aren't you afraid of committing treason?" Lith was now more curious than ever, but he liked the Ernas family more than he liked the idea of a new sword.

He had yet to learn even the basics of modern Runesmithing or witness Faluel's Forgemastering skills. He had plenty of ways to procuring him good weapons, maybe even better than Ruin, whereas a trustworthy friend was irreplaceable.

"I'm giving it to you because that was our deal. Thanks to your armor, the Royal Forgemasters discovered how to apply energy-based spells to Orichalcum. It provided us with the answers we've been looking for decades." Orion said.

'What the actual hell?' Solus thought. She didn't know whether to be more shocked at the idea that Orion had invented his own Forgemastering technique or that Royal Forgemastering was so advanced that they could replicate true magic to such degree.

"As for committing treason, I'm simply returning the favor in kind. The army betrayed my family by starting a ridiculous trial against my little Flower and then by trying to pin the blame for Manohar's escapades on my wife!

"To add insult to injury, they had the guts to order me to betray my word, to lie to a friend. And in exchange for what? A fucking dog treat?" Orion's rage turned his voice into a snarl and his glass into shards.

"Don't worry about me. Both my family and Jirni's have played this game long enough to know what we can and cannot do. Believe me when I say that a lot of people are about to discover what happens when we're not happy.

"Misery likes company and I'm going to make sure that it will host a party no one will ever forget." Orion snapped his fingers, making the shards reform the glass before pouring himself another drink.