In the tense silence following Lucius's outburst, a sound broke the stillness—unexpected, jarring, and utterly inappropriate for the situation.

  Nova was ughing.

  It began as a small chuckle, barely perceptible in the heavy atmosphere of Lucius's private chambers. Then it grew, cascading into uncontrolble mirth that echoed through the open doorway where court members stood frozen in the corridor, their expressions shifting from fear to utter disbelief.

  The absurdity of the situation had finally overwhelmed Nova. The all-powerful king defending him with such fury. The terrified servant still trembling on the floor. The court officials' stunned expressions as they peered from the hallway, afraid to enter yet unable to leave. It was all too much.

  For two hundred years, Nova had controlled every reaction, suppressed every emotion that might provoke punishment. Laughter had been beaten out of him decades ago. Yet here, in this moment of extreme tension, when even the most courageous vampires cowered in fear of their king's rage, Nova found himself unable to stop.

  Lucius turned to him, completely taken aback. In all his prophetic dreams spanning two millennia, he had never anticipated this response. The being he had waited for across countless centuries was ughing in the face of power that had just brought an entire supernatural world to its knees.

  The court members in the corridor exchanged horrified gnces, clearly expecting Nova's imminent destruction. No one ughed at the Vampire King—especially not when he was already enraged.

  But Nova couldn't stop. The ughter poured from him like water breaking through a dam, years of suppressed emotion finding release in this single, defiant moment. His eyes watered, his shoulders shook, and still the ughter continued, fearless and genuine.

  In that moment, something profound was revealed—beneath the trauma of captivity and the scars of attempted "training," an indomitable spirit remained. No amount of cruelty had managed to extinguish the core of who Nova was. His ughter stood in stark contrast to the terror surrounding him, a powerful testament to a resilience that two centuries of captivity had failed to break.

  Lucius watched this unexpected dispy, and gradually, the hard lines of his rage softened. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, and then—to the absolute astonishment of everyone watching from the corridor—he smiled. A genuine smile that transformed his entire countenance. Around them, the atmosphere remained charged with the aftermath of his fury, yet Nova's ughter seemed to dispel it like sunlight cutting through storm clouds.

  The contrast could not have been more striking—the most powerful being in existence, who moments ago had nearly killed a servant for a single careless word, now smiling at the one creature who dared to ugh in his presence.