Arcane: Twin Cities Mechanic

After Elder Eldred finished his conversation with the War Mason, the "Madwoman" Fabrice, he hurried back to his quarters. Along the way, he made sure to splash water on his head and upper body, hoping to conceal any evidence of their meeting. 

However, as soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, still bare-chested, he noticed faint tremors reverberating through the floor. He froze for a moment, confused. 

Then, the double doors to his chamber—doors he had locked himself—were suddenly smashed open. 

Two figures stormed in. They were clearly not human, constructed entirely of gleaming metallic components and illuminated with blue and white lights. Without hesitation, they pinned Eldred to the ground. 

"What the hell are these things?!" Eldred cursed, struggling with all his might, only to discover that he couldn't resist at all. 

In the blink of an eye, he was subdued. He felt a sharp prick on his neck, followed by an immediate loss of strength throughout his body. 

"You bastards… Guards! Where are the guards?!" Eldred shouted hoarsely, his voice echoing through the room. 

Instead of seeing the Dauntless Vanguard, what appeared before him was a pair of golden steel boots. His eyes traveled upward—gleaming leg armor, a white knee guard adorned with gold trim, and a cape flowing down to the floor. 

It was the king. 

"Your Majesty?!" 

Eldred looked up and saw the grim expression of King Jarvan III. 

Behind the king stood a familiar group: the ever-calm Li Lin, Crown Prince Jarvan IV, Steward Xin Zhao, Tiyana, and a fully armed Dauntless Vanguard contingent, including a frosty-faced Pieter. 

The two metallic figures that had restrained him? They were none other than Li Lin's mechanical workers, initially used for upgrading Galio's fusion reactor. 

As for the injection, it contained a specially formulated sedative designed to immobilize the body while keeping the mind alert. 

"What is the meaning of this?" Eldred stammered, his face a mask of confusion. 

"Still playing dumb at this point?" Jarvan III's tone was icy cold. 

Could it be…? Did those three idiots expose everything and implicate me? 

Panic swirled in Eldred's mind, though he desperately tried to maintain a facade of innocence. 

"This must be a mistake! Who's trying to frame me? As the leader of the Mageseekers and a respected member of the Crownguard, why would I still be here if I were guilty? Surely I would've fled by now, wouldn't you agree?" He forced a weak smile and glanced at his wife, hoping for her support. Instead, Tiyana looked at him with pure hatred—so cold and devoid of emotion that even her past disdain for him seemed warmer in comparison. 

Damn it. Am I really exposed? 

If so, it's probably because of Camilla, that idiot who inherited her father's position. She has no tact and insists on parading around with that perpetual scowl. Or maybe it was Clemense, the impulsive fool. 

Back when I first reached out to Newman to discuss the mage problem, I explicitly warned him not to involve that hothead. But Newman, the senile old coot, just wouldn't listen. He's practically one foot in the grave, yet he still manages to screw things up! 

Eldred's thoughts were a whirlwind of curses. 

What he didn't know was that the first to crack under pressure wasn't Camilla or Clemense, but Newman himself. Under the influence of a truth serum, Newman not only confessed but also shifted the blame for colluding with Noxus squarely onto Eldred. 

"Tiyana, we're still husband and wife. Surely you can—" 

"Don't even try to drag me into this!" Tiyana cut him off, her voice sharp and unyielding. 

Eldred's face stiffened. 

The crisp sound of metal boots striking marble echoed through the room as Jarvan III stepped forward. He crouched down, meeting Eldred's gaze directly. 

"I never would've imagined, Eldred, that the reason you abandoned your declining family to marry into the Crownguard wasn't love, but to exploit my trust in them for your own gain—to climb the ranks and aid Noxus from within." 

"How… how could you…" Eldred's pupils shrank in terror. "This is baseless slander! I've never—" 

Before he could finish, Jarvan III raised a hand, signaling to Li Lin. The king then placed a small projector on the floor, activating it. 

Holographic images sprang to life. 

The footage depicted Eldred pressing a hidden mechanism on his bookshelf to reveal a secret passage. It followed him as he descended the staircase and engaged in a whispered conversation with Fabrice, the Noxian spy and War Mason. 

Every word was audible. 

The perspective was unsettlingly close, as though filmed from just behind Eldred. The footage ended with a crystal-clear shot of Eldred gripping Fabrice by the neck—a full-body, high-resolution "portrait" that left no room for doubt. 

This had all been captured by one of Li Lin's cloaked nano-drones, which had silently followed Eldred. 

Eldred's jaw hung open. Despite the overwhelming evidence, he stubbornly cried out, "This is fabricated!" 

Then, he glared venomously at Li Lin and lashed out, "Your Majesty! Have you not noticed that ever since this Piltover rat showed up in Demacia, we've had incident after incident? What if he's the one colluding with Noxus, staging all this chaos to infiltrate our ranks and sow discord?" 

Li Lin remained silent, but Crown Prince Jarvan IV's face darkened. The butt of his Drakebane struck the floor with such force that the marble cracked like a spiderweb. 

"Don't you dare slander Li Lin!" the prince roared. "He saved my life. Without him, I wouldn't even be here!" 

Jarvan III, however, was much calmer. A thin, humorless smile appeared on his face as he said, "Whether it's slander or not, we'll find out soon enough." 

The king rose and walked toward the bookshelf. Following the footage, he removed an inconsequential book and began feeling along the wall behind it. 

"Your Majesty! You can't—" 

"Shut up!" 

Tiyana strode forward and delivered a brutal kick to Eldred's mouth. Her rune-forged steel boot shattered several of his teeth, filling his mouth with blood. 

With the evidence so damning, there was no need for a truth serum. To Tiyana, her traitorous "husband" deserved no mercy.

Suddenly, the king seemed to have noticed something. His eyes lit up, but he didn't impulsively press the button.

"Li Lin, that guy still has a flask of Alchemical Flame," Jarvan III frowned as he turned back.

"Your Majesty, just press the button. Leave the rest to me," Li Lin replied with a faint smile. "It's merely an Alchemical Flame—not worth worrying about."

Jarvan III nodded heavily. Over the past few days, he had witnessed too many things that defied his understanding, so he had no reason to doubt Li Lin's capability. 

Compared to alchemical concoctions, he felt Li Lin's nanotechnology, which could transform at will, was far more advanced. 

As the king firmly pressed an inconspicuous protrusion on the wall, the hidden stone door by the bookshelf opened for the third time in just a few minutes. 

Realizing that his defeat was inevitable, Eldred burst into self-deprecating laughter. "Hahaha... I see you've all figured it out. Well, the show's over! This farce was bound to fail, just like how the Black Rose crushed the self-righteous heroes!" 

His voice was hysterical and spiteful, leaking through clenched teeth. He was also shouting in an attempt to warn Fabrice in the underground chamber. 

"If you're leaking air, then stop talking. It's embarrassing," Li Lin quipped as he walked past Eldred, meeting his bloodshot, hate-filled gaze. "You want to go down in a blaze of glory, but you're not even close to being qualified."

In the blink of an eye, Li Lin's entire body became encased in a sleek, black-and-blue muscle-like armor. From his suit, more than ten drones separated, darting quickly toward the underground chamber. 

A sharp cry from a woman and the muffled sound of drone-mounted weapons firing echoed briefly before falling silent. Then, a voice notification from the AI sounded within the armor: 

[Master, Fabrice has been paralyzed and is now unconscious. The Alchemical Flame in her possession has been neutralized within the nano-armor's containment.] 

The nano-materials of the Infinite Battle Armor, upgraded from zero-element synthesized metals, could withstand even the pressure and temperatures of nuclear fusion. An unstable chemical concoction like the Alchemical Inferno posed no threat whatsoever. 

Having neutralized the Warmason's plan, Li Lin retracted his helmet. He turned to Jarvan III and calmly declared, "Your Majesty, the issue has been resolved." 

(End of Chapter)

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