Chapter 421
Captain Rohen gritted his teeth as he and his men rushed toward the main square, weapons drawn. But the moment they arrived, dread settled deep in his gut.
The shadows moved, making them think their eyes were seeing wrong. Not like ordinary darkness but like something alive—flickering, writhing, stretching unnaturally across the cobblestones. And the people...
Some lay collapsed, bodies convulsing as inky tendrils slithered beneath their skin. Others had already risen, their eyes vacant, their movements unnatural—jerking, twitching, as if guided by unseen strings.
The captain found himself stumped as he didn’t know where to start helping from. The enemy could even be hardly seen.
Captain Rohen stood frozen for a fraction too long, his mind racing. Where could he even begin? The enemy was barely visible, shifting between shadow and flesh, striking from nowhere.
"Shields up!" he barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Form up! We hold the square!"
The guards obeyed without hesitation, shields locking together in a desperate wall of steel between the advancing darkness and the remaining civilians.
Then the Zealots stepped forward.
Emerging from alleys, temple doorways, and beneath archways, they came—not in a charge, but with slow, deliberate steps. Their inhuman, feathered forms stretched unnatural shadows across the cobblestones. Hollow eyes gleamed with eerie devotion, and when they spoke, their voices layered and distorted into one.
"You resist in vain."
The first Zealot moved faster than thought.