Chapter 260 - Nathan Evenhart and General Icarus

  Nathan Evenhart:

  I walked through the castle’s underground tunnels, a vast and a byrinth, almost as if there were a sed hidden castle beh the maihe rough stone walls, shaped with almost supernatural precision, dispyed the unmistakable signature of the Wolves family. Masters at maniputih for stru, they had turhe pto a moo their skills, an imperable byrinth for those who didn’t know its secrets.

  I knew no one would interrupt or help me. Before desding into the depths of the dungeon, I used every ounce of effort I had and activated my special eyes, leaving a guard golem at the entrao ensure I wasn’t followed. I repared for whatever came .

  Each step felt like a battle against my own body. My head throbbed incessantly, as though dozens of needles were pierg my skull. The vision in my right eye was pletely gone, a terrifyiihat left me vulnerable. The rest of my powers were also weakened, and only thunder and wind, magics directly tied to my own gem, still responded, but even they were unstable. My Special Eyes had been pushed to the limit, especially in the days prior, when I cultivated the bck storm dome. The price of that effort now fell upon me, and I feared the damage to my eye might be perma.

  “I think I’m going to… pass out,” I murmured, my voice eg through the damp walls of the tunnel.

  The air in the underground was heavy, almost suffog, and every breath came with an acute pain radiating through my body. Movi like an act of torture; my broken bones protested with every step, pierg me like invisible bdes. My body screamed for rest, but the strength of hatred, an insatiable fme fueled by memories of the battle and the losses I had suffered, kept me going. I couldn’t stop. Not here, not now.

  My mana was pletely exhausted, draio the st drop. I had used the little I had left to use the Aspect of Time to escape the mud trap and surprise the demi-human, and then to summon the golem, who was guarding the dungeon door. Even so, something primal and desperate urged me on. It was more than hatred; it was the will to survive, to take reveo fight against the fate that seemed determio destroy me.

  As I moved through the dimly lit corridors, my mind wavered betweey and exhaustion. The shadows on the walls seemed to take threatening forms, as if the castle itself were alive, testing my resolve. With every sed that passed, the darkness seemed to swallow me more, but still, I pressed on, oep at a time, refusing to fall.

  I sighed, but the throbbing pain in my head quickly brought me back to reality, cutting off any thoughts that threateo distract me.

  Something was wrong, terribly wrong. The atmosphere of the pce was suffog, as if the tuhemselves were alive, watg every step I took. The air was dense, charged with an oppressive energy that made my skin crawl. It resence, or perhaps a bination of all the shadows that seemed to grow as I moved forward.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to relieve the pressure on my mind while my body, almost automatically, kept walking. When I opehem again, I realized I had been unscious for a few minutes. I didn’t know how long had passed, but somehow, my feet kept carrying me forward, even in the plete absence of sciousness.

  “I’m a fool…” I murmured to myself, feeling the futility of tinuing in this dition. No mana, with my body on the verge of colpse, heading straight toward the enemy. When I took the step, my knee gave way, and I fell, brag myself against the wall with effort. My ha a red stain. I looked at my own body and firmed the obvious: the blood was mine. My injuries were horrendous, more severe than I had admitted.

  “Going like this? In such a deplorable state?” Athena’s sharp voice echoed beside me, filled with disdain. When I looked, there she was. “You’re pathetic! Weak!”

  I ignored her. I kept walking, to, but my steps faltered. The darkried to pull me away, into a mental abyss where my sciousness would no longer resist. I stopped, feeling my eyes begin to close. No… this was limbo. The extreme mana exhaustion ullio it like a mag. A state where the mana gem forced the mage into a a until it replenished.

  “No!” I screamed to myself, a roar of the st fsh of strength. My voice echoed through the tunnel, sounding as desperate as I felt. With a colossal effort, I forced my body to stay scious.

  I fell to my knees, feeling my muscles and bones scream in protest. My body was shutting down, slowly, and I khe liween passing out and dying was being too thin. The healing potion I took from the fire mage had healed some superficial wounds, but the blood I had already lost could be a death sentence. Even with this in mind, I fought.

  “Stay awake... Stay awake!” I told myself, trying to keep my blurry vision focused on anything. Anything that would stop me from giving in. I put strength in my arms, a strength I didn’t have, but still, I tried. Eaent seemed to pierce me with needles of pain, but I forced myself to rise. A simple act, but it seemed like an impossible task.

  With a muffled scream, I mao stand, only to stumble again. I fell once more, my body crushed by the weight of exhaustion and pain. Now, lying on the cold floor, I felt my mind fading, while the liween life ah seemed more uain than ever.

  “So this is how General Icarus’s life will end?” her voice sounded, cold and full of pt. Athena crouched, staring at me with that mog smile. “What a disappoi… all the effort I put into you for nothing, dying from mere wounds inflicted by mortals.”

  “Shut up!” I screamed, trying to punch her as I stood up. But she easily dodged, stepping back with elegance, as if she were pying with me.

  With effort, I rose, leaning against the wall to keep my bance. Every muscle screamed in protest, but I kept walking, ign her, passing right by her.

  “Keep that attitude, Icarus. It was your stubborhat made you lose what you loved most in your past life…” Athena said, her voice eg, before disappearing again.

  The corridor ahead seemed to stretdlessly, a path of torture where each step brought a new pain. I dragged myself along the wall, my arm already uo support my weight. Now, my whole body depended on that cold surface to not colpse.

  “Icarus…” her voice came back, but it wasn’t Athena. It was my own mind tormentih a versation I had with the Goddess in another life, bringing buried memories. “If you had served me as I wanted and accepted my offer, your fiancée would still be alive. Helen was killed, and the bme is yours… she took the burden that was supposed to be yours. She accepted the position of General to protect you.”

  The words pierced my mind like sharp bdes. I k wasn’t real, but the weight of the guilt I carried made it impossible to ignore. Ea I passed revealed fragments of my life. Distorted images of moments I would rather fet.

  I ughed, a bitter sound that echoed through the corridor. “Illusions…” I muttered, trying to ighem. “Nothing but illusions.” But deep down, I khey were more than that. They were truths I didn’t want to face.

  With every turn I made, the memories became more vivid, more real. Until the corridor was no longer just a dark tunnel; it was my own story, f me to front it.

  “Icarus…” Charon’s voice came, hoarse and heavy. I saw myself, young, holding Helen’s lifeless body, tears streaming down my face. “There is nothing there for you t back… there is no soul for me to retrieve… don’t try to do this, don’t make a pact with a god…” Charon said, his dark and iable presehe memory faded like smoke before me, but its weight remained.

  I kept walking, dragging my body with difficulty, trying to push the images away. But they kept ing, eaore cruel tha.

  “T Helen back to life is quite simple…” Athena’s voice echoed again, and I saw the se I knew so well. Me, kneeling before her, pleading desperately. “Go and kill a god for me,” she said.

  The pain, the exhaustion, and the weight of the memories accumuted within me like a storm. I was nearing the limit, my body on the brink of colpse. But still, I kept moving. I couldn’t give in. I couldn’t stop. No matter how many memories haunted me, I had to keep going.

  “If you serve me pletely and worship me, I’ll make you the greatest warrior who ever existed. Greater than Achilles, greater than Hercules, greater than Perseus,” Athena’s voice echoed with a seductive, pelling tone, like the song of a siren promising what I desired most. “You just o serve me, fight for me in my war against Olympus as my champion. If you kill Hades… you bring Helen back to life. That is my price, Icarus. Fight my wars, expand my empire across the world. As my influen this wrows, so will my power, and then… I’ll have the power to resurrect Helen.”

  Every step I took through the tunnels seemed t forth vivid memories, more inteh each passing moment. Images of bloody battles formed around me, like a cruel theater of my own life. I saw myself fag armies of enemies on bzing battlefields, fighting the colossal Kraken of Poseidon, turning it to stoh the power of Medusa’s head. Every fallen mo my feet, every sacred on cimed... it all became part of my jouro bee the greatest warrior in history, Athena’s general.

  “You’re walking a dangerous path, my friend,” ’s grave voice cut through the memories. I saw myself, General Icarus, surrounded by corpses otlefield, bloodied and solitary.

  “Getting involved with gods… is asking to be used and discarded,” he warned, his tone heavy.

  “Helen’s soul is in the underworld… I’ll save her and bring her back to life, no matter the cost, no matter the price. I’ll fight as many wars as it takes for Athena.” I heard the young Icarus’s voice responding with bliermination.

  I kept walking, ign the ses unfolding like a nightmare around me. Each memory seemed more cruel tha, but I khat stoppi giving in. Giving i losing.

  I saw Hades on the ground, covered in blood, his eyes glowing with inprehensible madness as he ughed hysterically. “You made a pact with something worse thahe king of hell,” he said, each word interwoven with insane ughter as I kept pung him. Eay blows seemed to feed his insanity even more.

  “Gods don’t like petition… they just want there to be o the top… remember that,” he ughed again, until his voice was repced by the deafening sound of thunder.

  I advanced with difficulty, each step heavier tha. The storm around me grew, lightning tearing through the sky, illuminating Athena’s figure in front of me in the rain. I was kneeling before her, defeated, wounded, desoted. The weight of the truth crushed my spirit. I had fronted her, demanded answers, but her words cut deeper than any bde.

  “Helen’s soul is not in the underworld, Icarus,” her voice sounded almost like a triumphant whisper. “She was killed by a god’s bde. Her soul ceased to exist.”

  My world colpsed around me. All my sacrifice, all my pain, all the lives I took in her name… all to discover that the promise was a lie, a cruel deception. The cold rain mixed with my tears as I faced the reality… Helen wouldn’t e back to life, I had lost her forever.But even in the face of all this bitter remembrance, I kept walking. Because stopping was never an option for me.

  “And you believed that?” Athena’s voice echoed, cruel and triumphant. She ughed, stepping on me while I was lying on the ground, vomiting blood. Each ugh of hers was like a kabbing me, each strike of her spear was a reminder of how I had been maniputed.

  The young Icarus tried to react, but she grabbed him by the neck with overwhelming force, throwing him back to the ground. Her boot brutally pressed his fato the damp earth.

  “I’ll tell you something, General Icarus…” she whispered in my ear, her voice dripping with pt and malice. “It wasn’t Hades who killed Helen... it was me.”

  My vision darkened for a moment, not from physical pain, but from the hatred growing within me. She ughed as she stepped away for a moment, only to return, her voice full of venom.

  “You should’ve seen how she screamed, how Helen suffered. But don’t worry,” she tinued, eaore cruel tha, “before I killed her, I made her feel… loved. I tied her up and had many men enjoy her. She screamed your name all night.”

  The sound of her ughter echoed as my body trembled with rage and despair. I tried to fight, tried to get up, but she smmed my head into the ground again with a devastating blow.

  “You only killed Hades because I made you do it,” she ughed. “I guided you. I told you his weakness. I gave you the tools, I prepared the on. You’re just a pawn in my game, Icarus. Don’t fet that. Don’t fet your pathetic pce, mortal.”

  Athe hitting me, nding punches and insults. “Oh, Icarus... oh, my love...” she mocked, grotesquely imitating Helen’s voice. “Maybe she even liked what my men did to her. Maybe she became a real woman, delighting in pleasure.”

  “ENOUGH!” I screamed with all my strength, and the memories shattered like broken gss. The ey own voice filled the void around me. Rage burhrough my veins.

  “I’ll kill every st one of you!” I said to myself, repeating the words of General Icarus’s promise. “I’ll kill every st god! Even if I have to destroy the world, even if I have to annihite entire civilizations, even if I bee the greatest tyrant who ever existed!” My voice grew louder, fueled by the same hatred from my past life.

  “Oh, you will?” Athena ughed in the memory, looking at the fallen Icarus. “e... I’m waiting at the top.”

  As I walked, I didn’t feel the pain from my injuries, the weight of exhaustion, or the absenana. On the trary, it felt like I had never been wounded. A strange vigor coursed through my body. My slow steps began to qui, and before I realized it, I was already running down the hallway, driven by something much deeper than rage: a hatred that burned like an immortal fme.

  Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced my mind, like lightning tearing through the sky. I tried to uand what was happening ahe mana els pulse with an unknown force. I mentally searched for the source of that power, and to my surprise, it didn’t e from my mana gem. No... it was beyohe flow emanated from the dragon-serpent’s mahat slept within my soul, that being I barely uood.

  My body faltered for a moment, but I kept moving forward, now feeling an intense heat in my eyes. My vision, which had once seemed blurry and limited, cleared with every step until everything around me looked unnervingly sharp. I stopped before a puddle of water, my heavy breathing eg in the emptiness.

  Then, I saw my refle.

  My eyes.

  They were no lohe same. An e, almlow radiated from them, intense, primal. And in their shape, there was something unmistakable: they were the eyes of a serpent.