Chapter 188: My hatred VI
[Verdantis: Capital City]
[Location: Royal Castle, princess Alyssia's chambers]
Alyssia heaved shallow breaths, confined to her bed, and beads of sweat rolled from her pristine, delicate skin. Her eyes tightly clenched, yet the anguish was there all the same.
"By the Gods...." King Casimir's jaw clenched at the state of his daughter. "Tell me this instance! What plagues my daughter?!" He bellowed, eyes darting to the stiff form of Lyra; anxiously, she bit the nail of her thumb.
"The mark of Death," she answered.
"What?"
"She was marked as a sacrifice; soon the Bringer of Death shall descend and take her." She further clarified, her voice all but dull.
"You make no sense, woman! Speak clearly!" He ordered with a wave of his hand, Alyssia's guards, Luther and Gunther, stood by the door, cautiously glancing inside but not disturbing.
"You fool! I am speaking clearly!" Lyra screamed back, King Casimir recoiled as if slapped. He had never seen the court mage of Verdantis so livid; nay, that would be an understatement. She was furious, yet her ire was not directed at him, "We can bargain with it, but it's a long shot. Alyssia's soul is valuable; we need an equivalent exchange. Dante is handling it; losing our heads over this will not help the princess." She took a deep breath as her words rang out much calmer.
The King looked down, his brows furrowed in contemplation. "You've not steered me wrong ever, Lyra. I will place my trust in you; save her... save my Alyssia." The King all but begged; she nodded her head.
"I will, I swear it," she nodded. "The mark of Death is slowly deteriorating her body. Bringing her to the brink, I've since managed to stabilize her with my Ultra Vires. But I can not stave off Death; we—
Suddenly her head snapped to the window of the room, her gaze wide as a snarl escaped her. In the vast distance, beyond the horizon... that putrid signature of mana was unmistakable. She would remember it; she always would. "Aelfric...." A low growl escaped her mouth; at that moment, anger engulfed her being. "Casimir...stay with the princess; the one responsible looms closely."
"Wait!" The King's words fell on deaf ears; an intense, radiating mana engulfed Lyra, and in the next instant, her body shot through the window at breakneck speed, shooting through the air like a comet.
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[Verdantis: Outskirts]
With a burst of force, she harshly landed on the snow-covered ground, the impact sending snow and rock flying in reckless abandon. Lyra's eyes wildly scanned the snowy landscape; just as soon as she had located him, Aelfric had hidden his signature expertly. The moon hung over her, casting a glow that illuminated her surroundings.
"Aelfric! Show yourself, you coward!" Her anger blinded her; it was no use going after the man; she knew that. Killing the one who set the mark of Death would not invalidate it, meaning it would still be fully functional. But she could not allow him to exist after what he had done to Alyssia; ironically, she held the title, Ancestor of Knowledge, yet she was shortsighted. She needed to make him pay no matter the cost; even if it was impossible to kill him, there were worse fates than death.
"My, my, you may burst a vocal cord, dear Lyra." Her head spun to the source of the voice in an instant; snarling, she regarded the source of her hatred. Aelfric, the Ancestor of Wisdom, a small smirk tugging at his lips as he regarded his brethren, his robes bellowing with the small, cold win, "I honestly expected a warmer welcome; we are of the same race, you know? Yet you are so livid." He cupped his chin, feigning ignorance.
"You bastard, I'll kill you!" She took a step forward, her mana wildly fluctuating.
Aelfric snorted, folding his arms and regarding her with a raised brow, "My, your time with that filth has deteriorated your mind to this degree. You of all people should know how impossible it is to kill me." He grinned, relishing in her furious glare.
"Why... what involves Alyssia?! Just because she's close to me!?" Lyra bellowed with fury, "We might not have seen eye to eye in the past, but we simply let each other be; there was no ire between us!"
"True, but you misunderstand. I have no squabble with you, Lyra." He bluntly stated, "In fact, I quite respected you, such a powerful mind. To figure out the depths of the realms, to decipher the Divine Principals. It was thanks to you my immortality was granted to me; you were such a help pointing out the most useful of loopholes." He chuckled; it was an unpleasant sound.
"Then why!?"
"Because I will not allow a spawn of hers to roam this land." He revealed, almost dryly. Lyra stared at him, almost in disbelief.
"That's what this is about? Your ire with Octavia..." She clenched her hands tightly, her nails digging into her flesh as she all but growled. A fierce glare directed at Aelfric, she hissed out, "Don't you dare involve Alyssia in something as pointless as that!" And then a burst of mana once more, more intense, however. Waves of pure energy shot outwards, swaying trees and pushing away snowfall; the very air seemed to bend around her. "Aelfric, I swear it.... I shall make you suffer!"
He leisurely grinned, casting a gaze upwards. "Ah, it's finally here."
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A terrible silence fell upon the land.
It was not the quiet of a peaceful night nor the hush of a gentle snowfall—it was absolute, suffocating nothingness. No wind howled through the mountain passes. No distant wolves howled at the moon or the sound of any Astrothians. No crackling torches burned along the watchtowers. The world simply stopped.
And then—blackness.
The sky, once a vast and twinkling blackness of stars, was consumed in a single instant. Not a cloud. Not a storm. Pure, impenetrable blackness. The moon—obliterated. The stars—erased. The skies—swallowed.
A creeping horror slithered through every corner of Verdantis. Farmers in their fields dropped their tools, their breath caught in their throats. Nobles in their grand halls froze mid-speech, their chalices trembling in their grasp. Soldiers, both of Verdantis and Zephyrian, stood atop the fortress walls, their hands tightening around sword hilts and spear shafts, their breaths misting in the frozen air, their gazes locked on the abyss that had devoured the sky.
Then came the eyes.
One by one, in slow, blinks, grotesque and otherworldly eyes began to form within the black void above. They were not merely watching—they were studying.
The first eye was impossibly vast, stretching across the skies like a lidless, burning sun, its sclera an unnatural, pulsing lilac, its slit-like pupil twisting and writhing, like a snake consuming its own tail.
Then came the others—countless eyes of all shapes and sizes, bulging and malformed, dripping with an unknown, viscous fluid, some humanoid, some reptilian, some insectoid, some so disgustingly alien that simply looking upon them made men fall to their knees in wordless horror.
And then—the mouths.
Gaping, writhing maws split open amidst the glaring eyes, jagged teeth dripping with saliva, some too many to count, some with needle-thin fangs, some lined with fractured bone. Some mouths did not have teeth at all, only yawning pits of a void, breathing in and out with a dreadful wheezing sound.
The people screamed.
In the cities, nobles fell to their knees, their robes pooling on floors as they wept in terror.
In the villages, children clutched their mothers, their tiny hands shaking against coarse, fur-lined cloaks.
In the fortresses, warriors clutched their weapons, their knuckles white, their blades useless against something so incomprehensible.
The soldiers of Verdantis, their eyes darting wildly behind visors, their breaths quick and ragged. Their swords felt insignificant—mere slivers of steel against something beyond human understanding.
The Zephyrian warriors, their scimitars gleamed, their javelins gripped tightly, but their hands trembled. These were warriors who had braved blistering deserts, who had fought in the cruelest of battles—and yet now, in this frozen land, they knew fear.
From the great capital of Verdantis, the heart of it, the royal banners hung limp, untouched by wind, as if the air itself had been stolen from the world. High upon its greatest tower, the bells—those that had tolled for churches for centuries—remained silent.
But the silence did not last.
From the black abyss above, a single sound rang out.
A voice—if it could be called such—emerged from the void, not spoken with words, not uttered with tongues, but etched directly into the minds of every living soul in Verdantis.
A whisper. No, a scream. No, a command.
It was both and neither, its tone shifting, breaking, reforming, an amalgamation of sounds never meant for human ears. It was mocking, amused, hateful, patient, ravenous, waiting.
It was many voices.
It was one voice.
It was infinite voices.
"Be not afraid."
The words drove into skulls like iron nails, rattling in the minds of the Verdantians, of the Zephyrians, of all who stood beneath the broken sky.
The ground shook. The snow cracked. The torches flickered violently.
And then—movement.
The eyes above shifted, all of them at once, turning to focus on something that took their interest. The mouths curled into grins, some filled with infinite teeth, others stretching into smiles that split the very fabric of reality itself.
All those grotesque eyes focused on but a man.
"You wish to bargain," The amalgamation of voices rang out. All heard the message, but the words were meant for one.
He stood sentinel in the snowy lands bathed in darkness, the corpses of demons surrounding him seemingly insignificant before something this powerful.
"That's right," Dante's voice rang out, steady, carrying with it not a hint of fear. He stared at those countless grotesque eyes and mouths; he did not flinch or backpedal; he merely gazed ahead.
"What have you to offer, human?"
"Nothing."
"Then you mock me?" No anger could be detected from the array of voices, but there was the minute narrowing of eyes, "You wish to preserve the spawn's life, no? Or do you offer your own as compensation, or the lives of all mortals of this nation?"
"Hm,"
"Her soul holds a value to me, mortal. A value not easily replaced; if you cannot appease me, then I shall simply take it. I do not wish to linger in this plane of existence any longer."
"The mark of Death was implemented as a loophole for you to descend to this plane. Yet even so it goes against the Divine Principal's and irks The Keepers of Order," Dante deduced, folding his arms. "Yet you cannot claim Alyssia's soul until Death takes her, so I have a proposition for you."
"Speak."
"Battle me for her soul." The words left his mouth so easily that anyone would have done a double-take, even Death itself. "If you do not agree, then I shall destroy Alyssia's soul." He bluntly stated, his words were not a loose promise.
"To battle me is to welcome Death, mortal. Are you prepared to succumb to your end?"
"I am. The question is if you are ready to bear the consequences that follow." His blade appeared in his right hand with a burst of gold sparks, "I may very well perish in the battle; that is inevitable. But even so, how long will it take for me to succumb to my end? Long enough for the Keepers of Order to notice your plan, no doubt. Will you take that risk, Bringer of Death, for a simple soul of a spawn?" He pointed the blade defiantly at the horror above.
A dreadful silence encompassed all.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Very well, I concede. I will forfeit my rights to her soul; I shall remove my mark. However..."
Dante frowned beneath his mask. ("Do they wish to add more conditions?")
"I shall only return one of the souls. The other will be in the Ancestor of Wisdom's possession until I retrieve it."
"What?"