Chapter 262 - Nathan Evenhart and Nikous Wolves

  Nathan Evenhart:

  I ran, feeling an overwhelming rage surging within me, as if my identity as Nathan Evenhart was being overshadowed by the fury of Icarus. I wao find Nikous Wolves, I wao kill him more than anything in this world.

  Eventually, I arrived at a long corridor that housed prison cells. What I saw there was disturbing: corpses ed, with buckets of blood beside their bodies, as if they had been used for macabre experiments and other twisted practices.

  I kept expl, passing through rooms filled with traband drugs, ons, and even stone blocks with a inscriptions, found in archaeological digs. All of these items were carefully anized, ready to be sold on the bck market. The walls, covered in dust and wear, revealed a history buried for turies, now in the hands of greedy criminals.

  Among the stone blocks, some still had fragments of runes and unknown symbols, partially worn by time. I touched one of them, feeling a faint vibration, and realized there was more to this cavern than simple traband. It was as if the pce itself was ected to something bigger and darker.

  Ea revealed more about the criminal operations taking pce, and the air grew heavier, as though an invisible presence was watg me. The inscriptions oones, from a loinct civilization, uled me.

  As I approached a rge stone mural, something ued happehe inscriptions in an a nguage, initially inprehensible, began to glow with a faint, pulsating light. My eyes tingled slightly, and for a moment, I thought I was halluating. But then, the letters began to rearrahemselves, slowly shifting until, suddenly, the words carved into the storansformed into phrases I could read, as if they were transted directly into my nguage.

  I was stunned. I had never experienced anything like this. It was as if the mural itself was unig with me, unlog long-lost secrets. The words spoke of a "War of the Elves," mentioning a kingdoms and a "Dark flict" that, from what I could gather, had devastated entire civilizations.

  My heart raced, and the more I read, the more the feeling that something profound and dangerous was about to be revealed grew inside me. It was as if the mural was whisperis from past ages, and I, somehow, had been chosen to hear them.

  The realization of how I was able to read the inscriptions hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was my Celestial Eyes. Somehow, they khis nguage, and now I could uncover information that no one else could. I could feel the a magic flowing through the mural, revealis long buried. I tinued moving from wall to wall, trying to uand what was there, but despite reading the words, the tent still seemed disected. Many parts were missing, with pieces of the mural destroyed, and the runes cracked or inplete.

  I ran my hand over the inscriptions, feeling the runes light up with a pale glow, shifting as I touched them. It was as if they reized my presend wao show me something deeper. The wlowed, ging shape before my eyes. Yet everything was still an enigma.

  "Elves... and Great Elf Mother," I whispered, trying to ect the fragments. "A war between elves? Or a war in which they participated?"

  The disordered phrases kept appearing, loose pieces of a puzzle that seemed impossible to solve. Everything poio a flict of epic proportions, but it was impossible to say against whom or why. It was as if part of the history had been erased or deliberately hidden.

  There was a growing sense of something dark behind those words, an echo of a distant past that still reverberated in the present.

  As the murals ended abruptly, a sense of inpleteness lingered in the air. Without the other parts of the mural, the story they were telli unfinished.

  I decided to move forward, but something made me stop. A sharp sound echoed behind me.

  ‘CAW’ the caw of a crow.

  I quickly turned, sing for the bird, but there was nothing. Just the silend darkness surrounding me.

  Something on the ground caught my attentioh a pile of wood and animal pelts meant for smuggling, there was another mural, partially hidden. It was smaller, a small stone sb that seemed out of ppared to the rest of the murals. That sound seemed to have appeared only to guide me to it.

  With effort, I pushed the wood aside and grabbed the stone sb in my hands. As soon as I touched the ruhey glowed, as if the sb had awakehe inscriptions began to rearrahemselves, f a new message, and I read it aloud:

  “Darkness always walks with the Treacherous, following their every step. Beware the great liar who whispers lies and desires you so long to hear. Beware falling into their words, lest you lose yourself.”

  At the bottom, a subtle signature: ‘Mimir’s Journal.’

  These words seemed to echo inside me, like an a and urgent warning. It was as if something bigger, more dangerous than any previous mural, was at stake. A dark puzzle that had only just begun to reveal itself.

  I tinued walking, the path growing into an increasingly custrophobic byrinth. The headache began to intensify, and with each step, it felt like the air around me was being drained, and a faint traalevolence lingered imosphere.

  Still, I pressed on, knowing that whatever was happening here, it was far beyond simple traband.

  I arrived at my destination, feeling the fury burning within me, ready to explode. Standing at the back of that chamber was the man who had caused me so many problems since I was only five years old. The chamber was circur, its edges surrounded by a dark pool, refleg the vaulted ceiling. To reach him, I had to cross a small stone bridge.

  That pce didn’t seem like just a battle room.

  “Temple!” I excimed, surprised by the revetion.

  What would a temple be doing here? Humans on this ti don’t worship gods.

  He was fag away from me, with his personal troops, the so-called ‘Great Wolves,’ by his side, ready to defend their master. However, something in that room caught my attention. The walls were covered in drawings depig strange and disturbing figures.

  One of the stone drawings showed a tall man sitting on a throne, with ach. Surrounding him were crows and other birds. But they weren’t ordinary birds… they were phoenixes.

  My head throbbed, and the familiar darkness withiirred. The guardian was clearly disturbed.

  I turned my gaze to another image on the wall. This time, it was a man holding a hammer, ao him, a...

  Serpent… I pleted in my thoughts.

  Above all of them, bck ropes hung like mariorings, trolling them. And beyond the ropes, glowing eyes in the darkness watched them from above, anding like an invisible force.

  “Grrrrr!” The voice of the guardian echoed in my mind, growling in irritation. Something about those bck figures and the painted se deeply uled him.

  I felt excruciating pain, an immense pressure. I o focus, but I was flooded with information, and then the guardian burst out of the darkness with a loud roar. He had awoken, and i haste, he spoke to me in the darkness of my mind, in that pce where time seemed to stand still. There, he and I had a brief argument.

  "Nathan Evenhart!" Nikous Wolves's voice echoed through the chamber, filled with desperation and rage. He was sweating, fear clear in his eyes, but his fury was even more evident.

  "It’s all your fault!" he screamed, his voice trembling with frustration. "They stopped answering me! I ecial! I was chosen to be someone important. But then... you showed up! They told me to wait... They said everyone would fall on the day of the great flict! But you got in my way, stopping me from marrying Chloe and being the Duke!" His anger alpable, almost suffog, as if he was on the brink of colpse.

  Nikous's men, his personal troops, stood motionless, but there was something deeply wrong with them. Silently, they began to move toward me. Their bodies were deformed, with dark, deg parts. Grotesque holes appeared in their flesh, and their eyes... pletely bck, lifeless, without whites, like voids staring into nothingness.

  Corrupted...

  I knew what they were. The information was etched in my Celestial Eyes. They were mere shadows of the humans they once were, now trolled by the corruption of their souls.

  "I had to use them... my st resort! Now you will die, and I will dan your corpse!" Nikous screamed, his insanity spilling over.

  The corrupted began to charge toward me. Their screams were inhuman, their bodies deformed. Their mouths opened wider than should have been possible, and from their throats came distorted, beastly roars.

  "Kill him!" Nikous roared, his voice eg through the chamber.

  I didn’t hesitate. Feeling the burning rage against Nikous Wolves, I gathered the thunder in my hand. The energy crackled around me, apanied by the desire for vengeance.

  ‘ZAP!’ The first corrupted was struck by my lightning, flying backward with a shrill scream. But others came, leaping with speed and ferocity. Dozens of creatures that were once human advanced, hungry for destru.

  "You’re no longer human..." I murmured, realizing they were all ing to devour me.

  Nikous Wolves:

  I sent the men transformed into those abominations directly at the boy. I followed exactly what I was taught, using the special stones I received from that mert, one of the Illuminated's servants. He gave me the bck stone, promising power and trol. I had withe power of the Illuminated up close, and I believed I would be one of the chosen. I would be at the top, ruling beside them when they came to this world.

  I looked at Nathan Evenhart with hatred, but something was wrong. The boy wasn’t afraid. Even as the creatures advaoward him, his eyes remained firm, impassive. A chill ran down my spine when I saw something was off. Nathan Evenhart’s eyes were glowing e, and his pupils were strahey were vertical, like a serpent’s.

  How is this possible?

  The creatures advanced against him. This was my st resort. I o kill this boy and thehe creatures to set a trap and kill his family.

  ‘Zap!’ The boy shot a lightning bolt, sending one of the corrupted flying backward, but the others kept ing. He drew a sword from his ste bracelet and charged directly into the crowd of monsters.

  “This kid is crazy!” I muttered, tightening the bck stone in my hand.

  When the abominations were born, I trembled with fear at their monstrosity, but that boy was insane. He ran toward the mohat would make anyone piss themselves.

  “Kill him!” I shouted.

  The beastly creatures leaped at him, but what I saw shocked me even more. Nathan Evenhart jumped right into the middle of them.

  He drove the sword into one creature’s chest and, with a strike to the hilt, sent the monster flying backward, knog down others ing behind. More creatures jumped onto his back, but he grabbed one by the head, smming it into the ground and nding punches so powerful that the impact cracked the floor.

  Nathan Evenhart jumped, pung another creature with such force that its head flew off. He advanced like thuhrough the crowd, sparks running across his body as the ground around him exploded. More moried to grab him from behind, but he grabbed them by the ned, with a brutal movement, made one of their heads explode in his hands.

  One creature jumped to bite Nathan, but he locked his hands on its mouth and, with tremendous force, ripped its fa half.

  “Aaaargh!” the abominations screamed around him, but the boy remaiill, his body soaked in dark blood. He extended his hand, and his sword flew ba. Nathan began to spin, and lightning shot from his sword as the creatures leaped towards him.

  One of them grabbed his leg, while aried to sink its teeth into his face. In response, Nathan Evenhart trated his energy, bursting into lightning that hurled the creatures away. Without wasting time, he ran, firing his sword like a onball, propelled by the wind, pierg two creatures at ond throwing them aside.

  He grabbed one of the abominations by the stomad, with a devastating move, split it in half over his knee, shredding it without hesitation.I fell to the ground, watg in horror, realizing that both Nathan and the creatures were monsters.

  The boy extended his hand, and the sword returo him in a fluid motion. He kept running, firing bsts of wind and stomping on each of the creatures without showing any fear. The sword flew like a projectile, cutting through the enemies and soourning to his hand, spinning and slig through the enemies as if guided by unyielding magism.

  He eled his energy into the sword, which began to glow intensely with thunder crag along its surface. In a swift move, he threw the spinning sword like a b. The electrified bde cut through the air, crag as it spun, decapitating the creatures that crossed its path. Snapping his fingers, he made the sword return, cutting more enemies as it came back to his hand. Without hesitatiohrew it again, the bde spinning and whirling at high speed, causing the creatures to be split in half as explosions of thunder illumihe field. With the sword returning to him, the boy charged at the creatures, ready to tihe massacre.

  When he pointed his hand at a group of creatures, I felt the air around me ge, being heavy. Suddenly, all the abominations were sucked into a sphere of wind. With his other hand, he uhe sword, which spun towards them and exploded in thunder as it hit. The blood spttered across his body as he remained unshaken, without fear or hesitation.

  He stared at me, and I, in a desperate impulse, poi a wall and activated my earth magic.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, my voice choked and desperation overflowing. “You're fucked, kid! I saved this to finish off your family, but now this thing is going to destroy you!”

  The walls began to shake, revealing a hidden space where I had kept something that had taken years to cultivate. This was the result of a decade of smuggling, kidnapping, and dark experiments. Humans had been transformed into monstrosities. Deformed creatures, created and cultivated in the darkness, molded for war. This was the true power the gods had granted us, an army of aberrations, obedient as long as my mana trolled them.

  I touched the bck stone in my pocket, my guarantee of survival. As long as I kept that artifact with me, charged with mana, they wouldn't turn against me. The creatures began to emerge, one by one, from the deep shadows of the hole. They snarled frantically, pushing each other in their eagero escape. From where I stood, it seemed like the flow would never end. It was an endless river of monstrous flesh, armed with rusty swords, cws, and a primordial hatred that pulsed in every fiber of their distorted bodies.

  My eyes widened for a moment as I watched their grotesque forms. The deformities were terrifying; some had multiple arms, others had exposed bohe darkness where they were locked seemed to have fed them, turning them into something even more fearsome.

  "Kill! Kill Nathan Evenhart!" I shouted, feeling my mana violently draio give the and. The pain from the mana loss made me stagger, but the hatred and fear kept me steady. I o trol them. This was the price for ensuring their obedience. Without my mana, these creatures would turn against me, and that would be my end.

  They lined up, a horde of over 200 frenzied beasts, and charged toward the boy. Their guttural growls and screams reverberated through the tunnels.

  "You’re dead, Nathan Evenhart!" I shouted, my voice filled with hatred and triumph. "These things will kill you and then go after your family!"

  I ran back, weaving through the creatures with the stone ched in my hand. I held it as if it were my only lifeline. Each step I took was filled with fear, but also with sadistic pleasure. My mind boiled with the vision of Nathan being torn apart by those things.

  "This pce will be your tomb!" I shouted again, ughing as I watched the se. The creatures moved quickly, their twisted bodies moving like hungry predators. Their screams echoed, filling the space:

  "AARGH!"

  "ROAR!"

  They charged toward Nathan, more powerful and numerous than anything he had ever faced before. A tide of pure hatred aru.I watched from afar, waiting for the moment he would be engulfed by the horde.

  "Cry! Scream!" I yelled. "You’re dead!"

  Nathan Evenhart remaiill, but then he opened his mouth, issuing a single and, clear and resonant:

  "BODY ASPECT!"

  An explosion of white light lit up the pce. The impact of the light made me stumble and fall backward, my body colliding with the wall. When the light began to fade, I struggled to lift my head, trying to uand what had just happened.

  And then I saw.

  "Impossible..." I muttered, seeing a semi-transparent white figure beside Nathan Evenhart, identical to him, that... was a e.