Chapter 89 ‒ The Fall of Light
Chapter 89 ‒ The Fall of Light
The battlefield stretched far into the twilight, a wasteland of shattered spears and scorched banners. The ground was churned into mud streaked with blood and scattered armour fragments. Yet, above all the ruin, a single, golden glow lingered — the sun of Shindo, painting the soldiers’ faces with a last fleeting warmth.
King Glitheon stood tall, his cloak tattered but fluttering proudly in the evening breeze. His breastplate bore long, shallow cuts that glimmered like silver scars. By his side, General Wing stood, armour immaculate, ice sword planted in the ground beside him like a silent sentinel.
Across the battlefield, weary Shindo soldiers fell to their knees, clasping each other’s shoulders. Some tore off their helmets to feel the wind on their faces; others raised trembling fists toward the fading sky.
“We did it! We truly did it! Shindo lives!”
Voices rose, laughter tangled with exhausted sobs. One man pressed his forehead to the earth, muttering thanks to the gods for sparing his family. Another soldier held up a pendant, whispering to a lover waiting back home.
Glitheon lifted his sword high, voice ringing like a great bell.
“Sons and daughters of Shindo! The Great War is won! Today we prove that the sun of Shindo shall never set, no matter how dark the world becomes!”
Cheers erupted like a tidal wave. Shields clanged, fists pounded against armour, echoing across the ruined plains.
General Wing stepped forward slightly, his face a mask of stoic resolve. His pale eyes, cold as glacial lakes, glimmered with something unplaceable — admiration, perhaps, or something darker that no one dared to notice.
Glitheon turned to him, eyes softening.
“Wing… my greatest friend and most loyal blade. Together, we shall return to our people. Together, we will guide Shindo into an age of eternal light!”
A hush fell over the men nearest them, hearts swelling with pride and relief. A few even dared to believe that maybe, just maybe, the nightmare was over.
But in that fragile silence, a sharp sound broke — the smooth hiss of steel being drawn.
Before anyone could move, General Wing stepped forward, driving his radiant ice sword straight through Glitheon’s back.
Glitheon’s eyes widened in horror and pain. His mouth opened and closed, gasping like a fish torn from water.
“W-Wing… why…?” he rasped, voice barely more than a dry whisper.
“You… who stood beside me… through every darkness…”
General Wing leaned closer, his breath misting in the cooling air.
“Your sun has set, old king. You failed to see the truth… Winter is eternal.”
Frost blossomed across Glitheon’s body like an invasive bloom. His fingers curled, grasping at the air, before his entire form froze solid — an icy statue preserving his final expression of betrayal.
General Wing gave a single, dismissive kick.
The statue shattered into a thousand shards, each piece catching the last rays of the sun before crashing to the mud.
For an instant, no one spoke. The entire battlefield felt frozen in place, as though the world itself had forgotten to breathe. Then, chaos erupted.
“Traitor! It’s treachery!”
“The king is dead! The king is dead!”
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“General Wing… he… he killed His Majesty!”
Screams rose, and several soldiers surged forward in blind rage, weapons raised. But Wing moved like a phantom. His ice sword danced through the air with surgical cruelty, slicing through throats and armour as if they were reeds. One man dropped his sword mid-swing, his eyes empty before he even hit the ground.
Snow began to fall. At first, it was a soft dusting — a few flakes drifting like feathers. But then the storm grew, swirling violently, lashing faces and biting through armour.
From the distant city, bells began to ring. Doors slammed. Mothers clutched children as frost spread over rooftops. Fields, once ripe with golden wheat, turned brittle and white, frozen beneath a sheet of unnatural ice.
The light dimmed rapidly, as if the sun itself had hidden in terror. In truth, it wasn’t merely metaphorical — Shindeon, the deity who guarded Shindo, had vanished, forcibly sealed away by Yandeon’s final spell.
Yandeon’s curse, the Eternal Winter, was no ordinary punishment. It was the ultimate layer of sealing magic that cost Yandeon his very life. Shindeon wasn’t slain — he was bound beneath the earth, trapped in the Underworld. For ordinary beings, the Underworld was death incarnate. But for Shindeon — its Warden — it was nothing but a forced confinement, a cold fortress from which he waited, plotting.
Above ground, the curse didn’t just freeze the land; it froze hope. Children looked to the sky, searching for the sun that had warmed them since birth, only to find a hollow grey void.
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Far away in the castle, a princess clutched a book to her chest, her fingers trembling so violently that the pages crumpled. The stories she loved — tales of gentle rulers, smiling children, feasts in flower-filled courtyards — all felt like distant illusions.
She could hear faint screams, distant but drawing closer. Her mind raced with fragments of her father’s philosophy: “Peace can only be earned when no enemy remains to start another war…” She had always argued, “No! True peace is in shared laughter, in gardens, in music!”
Now, those childish arguments lay shattered, their pieces as scattered as the king’s frozen remains.
Suddenly, the door burst open, nearly tearing off its hinges. Three soldiers stumbled inside, armour cracked and stained red. Their eyes darted wildly, haunted.
“Your Highness!” the first one gasped, falling to one knee. “King Glitheon… His Majesty… has fallen!”
She dropped her book, pages fanning out like a dying bird.
“No… no! You’re lying! Father… he’s stronger than anyone… He can’t… he wouldn’t…”
The second soldier stepped forward, voice trembling.
“It… it wasn’t Yandi… it wasn’t their wizards… The enemy… it was from within… It was General Wing.”
Her eyes went wide, head shaking violently.
“General Wing? No… that’s impossible! Father saved him… he raised him… how… how could he…?”
The third soldier stepped forward, collapsing to his knees. Tears spilled down his face.
“A son of a bandit can only become a bandit… His Majesty realized it too late…”
The words pounded against her skull like hammer blows. She stumbled backward, nearly falling over her scattered books.
“We must flee now!” the first soldier shouted, grabbing her arm. “General Wing is coming for you! If we stay—”
But before they could move another step, a chilling laugh echoed through the corridor. The sound crawled along the walls like a snake, seeping into every shadow.
General Wing stood framed by the doorway, his ice sword dripping, his armour splashed with streaks of red and frost. His eyes gleamed with vicious delight.
“Well, well, well… what have we here? The last rats trying to scurry away with my delicate little puppet?”
The soldiers drew their swords, their hands shaking so violently they nearly dropped their blades.
“Your last hope?” Wing purred, stepping forward. “How touching… how pathetic!”
He lunged. The first soldier barely managed to raise his sword before his head flew from his shoulders, spinning into the shadows. The second screamed, running at Wing with a desperate roar — only to be skewered through the chest, lifted, and tossed aside like broken furniture. The last soldier fell to his knees, attempting to crawl to the princess. Wing crushed him beneath his boot, then cleaved his back open with a downward slash.
Blood sprayed across the walls, misting over the princess’s face and hair. She sat frozen, her hands clawing at her own skirts, eyes wide with horror.
The final soldier, his hand trembling, reached toward her, fingers twitching weakly. She grasped his hand, sobbing.
“Do not… give… up… Princess Nellisa…” his voice rasped like a dying wind. “Please… take… our revenge… Only you… can save… Shindo… You must… live… for them…”
His fingers slackened, going cold as his last breath rattled from his chest. Slowly, painfully, he crumbled into motes of pale light that drifted upward like lost prayers.
Nellisa felt the final warmth fade from her palms, leaving behind a leaden weight in her chest. Her shoulders shook, her breath catching on each sob. But deep beneath the sorrow, something began to burn.
The girl who once believed in a world of gentle words and peaceful smiles was gone.
She felt it spread through her veins, filling every crevice where warmth used to live. Rage, sharp as an icicle, clawed up her throat. Her gaze lifted, no longer weeping, but searing with an unearthly resolve.
She did not see a general anymore. Before her stood the embodiment of everything vile and cruel — a tyrant born from betrayal and blood — King Wing.
In that moment, as her tears stilled and her hands curled into trembling fists, she felt something new take root: hatred strong enough to melt every frost, hatred deep enough to tear open even the most unyielding winter.