mesbooks Chapter 189: The Crimson Night [17]
Chapter 189: The Crimson Night [17]
The War for The North [76]
Chapter 189: The Crimson Night [17]
The northern capital no longer resembled a city. It looked like a massive painting of apocalypse, drawn by the wrath of gods.
The thick scent of blood hanging in the air mixed with the stench of burnt flesh, choking the lungs. The corpse of Veviron, once the absolute ruler of the skies, stood as the most grotesque monument of this destruction.
A colossal mass of ice had pierced through the ancient lightning dragon’s chest, bursting out from his back and leaving his enormous body suspended in the air. The hundreds of meters around him had completely frozen along with the blood dripping from his body, turning into a crystallized grave where even time and death seemed frozen.
Not far from there lay the lifeless body of the guardian of the north, the ancient Dragon Queen Cryomara. Her once magnificent blue scales had dulled, and the freezing aura she radiated was completely gone.
Sitting atop her massive corpse was Archangel Solariel.
His flawless divine armor was stained with blood and ash. The final spear he had used to kill Cryomara, a strike powerful enough to pierce worlds, had come at a heavy cost.
His right arm, from shoulder to fingertips, was completely charred. It had turned into a lifeless mass of blackened flesh.
Even sacred mana was no longer enough to heal it.
Yet Solariel seemed unbothered by the pain. With his intact left hand, he casually tossed something into the air and caught it again like a ball.
A pitch black Dragon Heart wrapped in sacred chains.
Cassian’s heart.
Solariel squeezed it in his palm with a bored expression, waiting for the battle to fully end, waiting for the disgusting noise to finally stop.
At that moment, two golden portals opened in the air.
Two Primordial Angels descended, their wings beating softly as they landed before him and bowed respectfully. They had come to report the state of the battlefield.
There was no longer a single being in the capital that could pose a threat to them.
The resistance had completely collapsed. Only civilians running through the ruins, screaming for their lives, and heavily wounded soldiers who could not even hold their weapons remained.
One of the angels spoke without lifting her head, her tone calm and mechanical.
"Senior Solariel..."
"We have achieved our objectives. The north has fallen. I would like to remind you that it is time to cease the battle and return to the divine realm. Further bloodshed from this point on would be meaningless and unnecessary..."
Solariel let out a long, exaggerated sigh.
In less than a fraction of a second, he vanished from where he sat and appeared directly in front of the speaking angel.
He slowly raised his left hand and gently ran his fingers through her golden hair.
"What is your name, novice?" he asked, his voice soft as silk.
" Uriel " the angel replied, trying to remain composed.
"Uriel... unnecessary bloodshed, slaughter, meaningless death... those kinds of words make us sound like the bad ones, don’t they?"
Solariel’s voice suddenly turned cold.
"Do you think... I am someone like that?"
"I was just—"
"No, I am not," Solariel cut her off before she could finish. His voice echoed like thunder.
"After all, we are all here to carry out the will of our perfect and absolute god, Yavres. And in this disgusting world, the one who represents him... is me."
Solariel tightened his grip on Uriel’s hair, making her entire being tremble.
"My decisions are the decisions of our god. Do you think the will of our god is flawed?"
Under the overwhelming divine pressure and fear crashing down on her, Uriel was completely paralyzed. Her throat tightened. She could not say a single word.
She could only tremble.
Taking a twisted satisfaction from that silence of absolute obedience, Solariel let go and gave his next command.
"Kill everyone who remains. Do not leave a single breathing insect in the streets."
He turned his back and began walking toward Cryomara’s corpse, then paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"Oh... and one more thing. What is the status of Mordret’s sword? Find it."
***
Deep beneath the border between the North and the Demon Empire, far underground...
Umbrelion, the Prince of Curses, stood in the center of an airless, pitch black cavern before a massive black gate.
The surface of the gate was carved with ancient crimson runes so complex they could drive a human mind into madness.
Even the pressure leaking from the seal beyond the gate was overwhelming enough that Umbrelion could barely remain standing. His bones ached, his lungs felt crushed.
Yet the determined, desperate expression on his face did not waver in the slightest.
He had cut both of his palms deeply.
As black blood poured down, he pressed his hands against the cold surface of the gate and began tracing over it, completing the missing runes with his own blood.
From his lips poured a chant that no normal human throat could produce, distorted, guttural, and layered with multiple voices.
With each word he spoke, the runes on the gate glowed like hellfire, and Umbrelion’s skin grew paler.
The gate greedily devoured his life force.
Thin streams of blood began to flow from his eyes, his nose, and his ears.
Finally, as he shouted the last word and slammed his bloodied palm against the very center of the gate, the earth shook violently.
A deep, ancient cracking sound echoed.
The massive black gate slowly opened, awakening from a slumber of thousands of years.
From the gap, a thick, unsettling black smoke began to seep out, swallowing all light and filled with faint whispers.
Umbrelion’s eyes rolled back.
The last trace of energy in his body was gone.
As the black smoke spread through the cavern, the Prince of Curses collapsed to his knees and slowly closed his eyes.
***
While all of this unfolded...
Cassian was trapped in the middle of a waking nightmare.
It felt like a horrifying form of sleep paralysis.
He was stuck in an airless, infinite darkness, completely surrounded by nothing.
He could not move a single muscle.
He could not speak.
He could not breathe.
His body had been sealed outside by sacred chains, but his consciousness remained here, echoing within this void.
Worse still, despite being unable to move, he could see and hear everything happening in the outside world.
Solariel’s sickening arrogance.
The order for slaughter.
The screams of people.
All of it played inside his mind.
Even the System that had always guided him, that had given him strength, was completely silent.
Not a single notification.
Not a single way out.
But the most crushing part...
Cassian no longer wanted to move.
Horrific moments replayed endlessly across the walls of his mind.
The single black stone left of Fredrinn.
Half of Marquis Aldren’s body turned to ash.
The eternal silence of Cryomara’s once thunderous roar.
Everyone he had fought for, everyone he knew, being thrown away one by one for nothing.
And outside, thousands of innocents still dying.
In the cold, black ground of his own dark domain, Cassian pulled his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and buried his head between them.
He lay there without moving.
He had lost.
Not just his body.
His soul had been completely shattered.
There was nothing left in him to fight, to resist, to rage.
His red eyes, once burning with defiance and fury, slowly opened.
But there was nothing inside them.
No fire.
No hatred.
No will to live.
The light in them had completely faded, replaced by an endless, absolute emptiness.
The Prince of Nothingness had finally surrendered to the nothingness he belonged to.