Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight! novel Chapter 228

Chapter 228: ’No More Hesitation’

Heinz’s fingers tightened around the frames of his glasses, the metal biting into his skin. His breath came slow, controlled—too controlled. A practiced veneer of calm, masking the storm raging beneath.

’Kill them.’

The thought slithered through his mind, dark and commanding, coiling tighter around the burning embers of his fury. These wretches. These pathetic creatures who dared to invoke his father’s name as if it held any worth. As if the man they worshiped had been anything but a failure.

’Destroy them all.’

The firelight flickered in their wide, eager eyes, reflecting their blind devotion. Fools, clinging to a corpse of a cause, to a kingdom that no longer existed. It would be so easy—so, so easy—to show them the truth. To carve it into their flesh and let their dying screams be the lesson they should have learned long ago.

’Let them see who I am. Let them choke on their hatred when they realize the king they despise stands before them.’

His heartbeat drummed against his ribs, heavy and unrelenting, matching the rush of blood in his ears. A sick part of him—the one buried beneath years of restraint—wanted to indulge. To see their faces twist in agony, to watch their pathetic hope crumble beneath the weight of his wrath.

And he could do it.

One word, one command, and Azure would descend upon them. In mere moments, these traitors would be nothing more than broken bodies, their spilled blood steaming against the cold earth. He could drown their defiance in crimson, paint the dirt in ruin, tear apart their feeble resistance like paper in a storm.

But—

A face flickered through his mind.

Stubborn. Frustrated. A little naïve, but undeniably determined.

Florian.

Heinz’s grip faltered.

’Why?’

Why was he thinking of that now? Why was that face—so damnably sincere—intruding on his thoughts? Florian’s belief, his conviction that this place could still be saved, that there was something worth salvaging—why should that matter?

It didn’t.

’He’s just a pawn. A means to an end. Nothing more.’

Heinz exhaled sharply, fingers twitching. And yet...

Augustus moved.

Subtle. Barely noticeable. Just a flick of his fingers. But Heinz saw it.

And then—

Kane bolted.

His hand closed around Florian’s wrist.

For one breath, Heinz’s blood ran cold.

What—

He took a step forward, his instincts screaming—but hands clamped down on him. Fingers dug into his arms, his shoulders, his coat—gripping, yanking, pulling him back.

"Bastards," Heinz snarled, struggling against them, but they had numbers, they had weight, and they were desperate. He wrenched his arm free, only for another to take its place.

’Fuck.’

His hesitation had cost him.

He heard Florian’s sharp gasp. Saw the blood—fresh, trailing down his temple, dripping faster than before. Saw Kane’s grip tighten, his fingers tangling in Florian’s hair, yanking his head back.

Ah.

Something inside Heinz snapped.

His body moved before his mind did, muscles coiling, ready to rip them apart—

But then—

The villagers moved too. Hands plunged into their pockets.

Something glinted in the firelight.

Mana stones.

Magic.

’This is why emotions are such bullshit.’

Fine.

"Y-Your... Majesty?"