Chapter 85: The Battlefield Burns
The battlefield burned.
Crimson fire swirled like a living beast, devouring steel and bone. The corpses of elite knights littered the charred earth, smoke rising from their shattered armor like prayers to forgotten gods. The acrid stench of melted metal and burned flesh hung in the air, a funeral pyre for the kingdom’s finest. Valerian stood at the center of the carnage, cloaked in obsidian lightning that crackled and writhed around his form like serpents of pure darkness. His arm remained outstretched, fingers still sparking with residual energy. His breathing was steady—unnaturally so, as if the slaughter had been nothing more than a morning exercise.
Umbra floated above his shoulder like a dark halo, pulsing with forbidden energy that seemed to drink in the very light around it. The artifact’s malevolent whispers had grown silent, sated by the feast of destruction.
"Is this what you’ve become?" Kael muttered, staggering to his feet. His once-polished armor, bearing the golden crest of House Drakemoor, now cracked and scorched beyond recognition. Blood trickled from the corners of his lips, and his left arm hung useless at his side. The man who had once stood as Valerian’s closest friend now looked upon him with a mixture of horror and desperate hope.
Valerian turned slowly, his movements fluid and predatory. His eyes, once warm with compassion, now held the cold depth of winter nights. "No. This is what I was always meant to be."
The words fell like stones into still water, each syllable rippling with finality.
Kael clenched his fists, his knuckles white beneath his gauntlets. "You slaughtered them all. They were loyal men. They had families, dreams, children waiting for them to return home."
"They were pawns. Sacrifices necessary for the greater design." Valerian’s voice carried no emotion, no recognition of the lives extinguished by his hand. "Their deaths serve a purpose greater than their meaningless existence ever could."
Kael’s voice cracked, barely above a whisper. "You sound like him."
The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Valerian’s gaze sharpened, the obsidian lightning around him intensifying. "Him?"
"The other you. The one who started all of this." Kael’s voice trembled with the weight of terrible knowledge. "The one who destroyed everything we swore to protect."
A low hum echoed through the sky, growing louder with each passing second. Reality itself seemed to groan under an immense pressure as black portals ripped open above them, jagged tears in the fabric of existence. From these wounds in the world descended armored figures—faceless, pale-skinned warriors draped in sigils from another realm entirely. Their movements were too fluid, too perfect, as if they were puppets dancing to an invisible conductor’s baton.