Chapter 264 - The General's Revenge

  Nathan Evenhart:

  In front of me, an army of Corrupted advanced like a tide of pure terror. Their grotesque forms, disfigured faces, and animalistic growls filled the air, like an annou of my immi death.

  'FAST!' the guardian's voice roared in my mind. 'YOU HAVE TO KILL HIM NOW!'

  I narrowed my eyes, irritated by his urgency. He had expio me what was happening: I had accessed a part of his power ily, releasing the Life Aspect, which healed most of my injuries and regeed 70% of my mana. However, it was a temporary effect. As soon as the Life Aspeded, I would return to my previous state, slipping into a a due to extreme mana exhaustion. What I had gained was not a solution, but just a few minutes of sciousness.

  Why didn’t you warn me about this earlier? I questioned him mentally.

  'MY VOICE COULDN’T REACH YOU! GO QUICKLY, YOU IDIOT!' he shouted in my mind.

  My eyes, fueled by the power of the serpent-dragon, not only saw better but felt. It was simir to the bestial transformation of a demi-human, where the body switches. But as soon as those eyes fell asleep, I would return to my previous state and pass ht here, where I would be killed.

  'THEY’LL FIND YOU BY NIKOLAUS WOLVES’ STONE! QUICK!' the guardian tinued pressing me.

  I tried to use the Time Aspect to reaikous Wolves, but I failed. The expnation came quickly and sharply.

  ‘Your Life Aspect limits the other Aspects, so you ’t use Time now'

  Meanwhile, Nikous Wolves was fleeing among the creatures, running towards the hole where I knew more horrors were hidden. The Corrupted howled and growled, many wielding rusty ons, while others just dispyed grotesque cws ah. The dim light of the pce illumiheir monstrous faces.

  I knew I only had a few minutes before the Life Aspect ran out, and they would tear me apart. “BODY ASPECT!” I shouted, and a white light appeared beside me.

  The Body Aspect was my only salvation. Instead of transf my body, it granted me the unique ability to create a e: the Specter. Made of pure mana, white aransparent, it had the same abilities as my mana gem: wind and thunder. Something that impressed Cyl.I could see and feel everything the specter did, as if my senses were shared. It was exhausting, like looking in two opposite dires at once, but necessary. The problem was that it drained mana terrifyingly fast, and I could never keep it active for more than a few minutes.

  I pulled a sword from the ste bracelet I took from the fire mage’s corpse and threw it to the Specter while summoning the Cursed Bde to my hand. We both stared at the advang army like a wave of destru.

  "Let’s go!" I shouted, and with a burst of thunder, we ran together at the monsters.

  My body spun among them, my sword cutting through flesh and bone while the Specter exploded with lightning, clearing a path. The creatures advanced in mass, some jumping on us, biting and tearing, but we didn’t stop. The Specter released energy to push back the morying to subdue it, while I spun, knog dowhing in my reach.

  I advanced, cutting down every monstrosity that dared y path. Deformed creatures leaped at me, trying to crush me with their enormous strength. Everywhere I looked, there was chaos. Some charged at me armed with axes and swords. I kicked them, throwing them away, while electric discharges ran through their bodies, leaving a trail of paralyzed bodies and agonizing screams.

  The Specter and I fired lightning without stopping, carving our way through the horde of abominations. With our hands free, we simultaneously jured the Thunder Whip. Our movements were synized, destroying everything in our path. Each sh of the whips geed explosions of electrical energy, the discharges weaving through the air, hitting and immobilizing more creatures. The explosions created shockwaves that scattered the monstrosities like leaves in the wind.

  The Specter blew a gale that hurled several creatures back, spinning in the middle of them, its body ed in lightning. I stomped the ground, sendirical energy through the earth, causing explosions that opened craters and swallowed some of the abominations. Part of the ground caved in, creating obstacles for the morying to surround me.

  From a distance, I saw Nikous Wolves fleeing toward the hole in the wall, certainly trying to reae exit. My anger grew as I watched him run, ign the chaos he himself had created.

  I threw the Cursed Bde into the air, and it spun like a b until it nded in the Specter's hand. He began spinning with both swords, transf into a tornado of wind and thunder. Meanwhile, I jumped between the creatures, geing gusts of wind that opened my path. The synizatioween us erfect: the Specter threw the Cursed Bde bae, and I caught it in the air, exeg spins and throwing it again to him. The battlefield trembled, every movement of ours making the ground more unstable. But I could feel the mana draining quickly, my pseudo-mana already below 50%.

  At this rate, I’ll be dead ihan 10 minutes!

  I leapt up using a wind ptform, creating others in sequence as I ran through the air. The Specter remained on the ground, fag the creatures and keeping the chaos under trol.

  “Hahese things!” I ordered the e, my voice filled with determination. With the Thunder Maivated, my body was enveloped in pure electricity, every creature that tried to touch me being thrown away by the shock. My only priority was Nikous Wolves.

  He wouldn’t escape.

  Nikous Wolves:

  His steps echoed through the tunnel like the beats of a death drum. Closer and closer. Every wall I built, every barrier I created, was reduced to nothing. He didn’t stop. He didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t human.

  "Just you and me!" he shouted, his voice filled with an almost supernatural fury. His e stayed behind, holding off the creatures as he charged directly at me.

  Damn it! Stupid, damures!

  I ran desperately, creating walls and sending giant thorns to block him. But eay defenses was destroyed. Explosions of thunder and cutting winds echoed through the tunnel as he advanced. I stumbled and fell, gasping for air, but I quickly got back up. When I looked back, there he was, pletely covered in blood, walking calmly towards me. That look. Those e snake-like eyes. They paralyzed me.

  "Stay away!" I shouted, throwing stohorn balls at him. He tered with precise kicks, sending everything flying through the air. I smmed my hands on the ground, summoning a gigantic thoro him, but he created a wind barrier and dodged. A sed thorn shot from the wall and pushed him against another wall, which I began to close to crush him.

  "You and your damn family are going to die today!" I shouted, trying to vince myself that I was in trol. But he stared at me with pure hatred in his eyes, and in that instant, my body betrayed my ce. I involuntarily took a step back.

  Suddenly, he exploded into blue energy. The shockwave’s pressure threw me back. Before I could react, I felt something grab my ankle. I looked down and sae made of thunder. I was yanked brutally, my flesh burning with electricity. My body was thrown against a wall.

  The pain was excruciating. I felt broken bones, my ribs screaming in agony. As aer, my body had ance. I wasn’t like the es who could reinforce their bodies with mana. "Shit..." I muttered, gasping, trying to get up.

  He approached slowly, his snake-like eyes glowing with pt. I knew I was finished, but desperation made me try o time. I touched the ground, summoning a colpse. Sharp thorns would fall from the ceiling to crush him. My mana was running out, drained by the creatures, but I put everything I had left into that spell.

  The ceiling colpsed with a deafening roar, stones and thorns falling to crush him. For a moment, I thought I had succeeded.But Nathan raised both hands, and a wind barrier formed. With a fierce motion, he unleashed a lightning strike that destroyed everything in a devastating explosion.

  “Damn you!” I shouted, toug the ground to create a hole, but before I could tinue, I was kicked away. Just as I was about to touch the ground again, Nathan Evenhart was too fast and shoved something into my mouth—the bde of his sword. An indescribable pain surged, burning my tongue.

  “Ahhhhhh!” I screamed.

  “Shut up!” he said, his voice cold and indifferent.

  I tried to rise, but he grabbed my face by the hair, f me to remain still.

  “Now it’s just you and me, no interruptions,” he said, and the burning in my toensified, drivio the edge of agony. The sword he wielded, an ented relic, burned like fire, and I was in unbearable despair.

  He held me brutally, pressing my body against the floor with his foot, and without hesitation, drove his sword into one of my hands. The pain was immediate, burning like living fire. I screamed, feeling the hot bde pierce my flesh, but he just stepped on my other hand, immobilizing me.

  “I’ve thought about ing after you for a long time,” he said, his voice cold, “but I had a peaceful life.”

  He brought his face closer to mine, his eyes burning with overwhelmiermination. “For a long time, I chose to be just Nathan Evenhart. But today...” His voice grew darker, each word filled with a palpable threat, “...he is no longer here. Today you will meet someone much worse.”

  He stared at me up close, the iy of his presence almost suffog. “Today you will face my judgment. You run, you hide behind ws, men, kings... But know this: I would walk over all of them to tear your head off.”

  His voice reverberated with a cold fury. “There is no persod in this world who stop me from ing to kill you.”

  Then, he drove the sword into my eye.

  “Ahhhhhh!” The scream escaped me untrolbly as the bde burned what remained of my sight. Even so, he tio look at me coldly, as if it was nothing. Slowly, he removed the bde, but the pain was unbearable.

  “The judgment has begun!” he said. When I tried to react, he grabbed my hand, crushing my fingers with monstrous strength. I heard the sound of bones breaking and screamed again. Then, with unimaginable cruelty, he ripped my eye out, pulling along a grotesque thread of flesh.

  He showed me the eye he had just ripped out, smiling cruelly, and then crushed it in his palm.

  “For every suffering my family has had, I’ll destroy a part of you,” he said with terrifying calm. In despair, I tried to crawl away, but he didn’t give me any time.

  “The is your nose,” he stated, as I tried, in vain, to escape. With a firm step, he crushed my back, pinnio the ground like an i, with no ce of esg.

  He sighed, as if bored. “This works too,” he said, and then I felt the bde tearing through my back.

  “Stop! Help!” I screamed in desperation, as he tinued. Each cut was meticulous, and the pain was so intense I could hardly breathe.

  “Don’t worry,” he said with chilling calm. “I know how to do this in a way that won’t kill you.” His words were poison, and then I felt his haering my back, expl my flesh.

  “Do you know what the sound of a bone breaking is like? You should know… you’re experienced in bat,” he ented, as if discussing something trivial. “But do you know which bone has a peculiar sound? The spine.”

  It was then that I felt the greatest pain of my life.

  ‘Crick!’ The sound of my spine breaking echoed in the air.

  “I told you, the sound is different,” he said, almost amused.

  I tried to scream, but the pain was so overwhelming that no sound came from my mouth. My body aralyzed. All I could feel was the growing agony and the despair of losing all trol over my own body.

  He flipped me over with his foot, as easily as turning a piece of wood on the ground.

  “Now, let’s move on to the nose,” he said, as if it were a simple task. “Did you know my cousin burned her nose? She was fighting with her assassin, Quinn.”

  I couldn’t respond, only trembling.

  “Unfortunately, I ’t use fire right now,” he tinued, “but I burn things with electricity. Let’s use a little imagination, shall we? Pretend it’s the fme of fire.”

  Then the pain came, as if my face were being ed by an invisible furnace.

  “Ahhhhh!” I screamed, uo tain the agony.

  “Now, the ear. Don’t worry, what I’m going to do is different. I want your ear al,” he said coldly, iing a finger ihout hesitation.

  “Just one w ear to hear me is more than enough. Now listen to the thunder,” he murmured with sarcasm.

  ‘THUD!’ My ear exploded ihe sound of ligaments tearing echoed, and soon I felt the blood trig. The pain was indescribable. I tried to beg for mercy, but my mouth could only make weak groans.

  I knew, at that moment, there was no hope. My body trembled as I stared into the boy’s eyes. They glowed with an almost supernatural iy, an indest e light emanating from his irises. They weren’t normal eyes. Those eyes, the color of crag fire, were those of a serpent—deep, cold, and calg. The kind of gaze that doesn’t just observe, but devours. Looking at him was like being marked by a predator who already knew I was its prey.

  “What are you!?” I shouted, my voice distorted by fear. His e eyes locked onto me with a dark gleam.

  Nathan Evenhart raised his hand, summoning a blue spark that quickly turned into wild purple electricity. “BOOM!” The ceiling colpsed with the explosion of lightning, as purple discharges struck the clouds, f a spiraling storm that tore the sky with thunder.

  "I am the GODSLAYER! I am the SN!" he decred, his voice cold and merciless.

  His e eyes, cold ay, never wavered from me. Purple energy crackled around him, radiatiru. The ons scattered on the ground began to slowly rise, but the only thing I could feel was the crushing despair and the excruciating pain ing everything.

  "You hurt me and my family! You harmed my fiancée!" His voice echoed alongside the thuearing through the skies, and the storm he jured seemed i on ripping the entire world from its foundation.

  "You wao have a child with my cousin, didn't you?"

  Before I could respond, he raised his boot, positioning it above the ter of my legs.

  "MERCY! PLEASE!" I screamed, my voice ringing out in absolute desperation as I realized what he was about to do.

  "Here's my mercy!" he spat with disdain, bringing his boot down with force, crushing the ter of my legs.

  "AAAHHHHHHHH!” Each impact felt like piey existence were being torn apart. Blood began to drip between my legs, and the pain was so unbearable that my body gave in to vomiting.

  I looked down, my vision blurred by agony and horror, and saw the grotesque pool of blood, excrement, and uri was as if my body had beeroyed from the i.

  He crouched down, gripping my face with a strong, merciless hand, and shoved it into that vile mixture.

  "This is where you belong, drowning in filth!" he sneered, his voice dripping with pt as he rubbed my fato the grotesque pool.

  A kick followed, nding squarely on my face. I barely had time to react before another blow struck, and then he began stomping on my head, each strike f my face deeper into the ground.

  With his foot pnted firmly on my chest, he kept me pio the ground. The pain was overwhelming, robbing me of any ce to fight back, as the storm roared in the sky heavy with bck clouds.

  His hand, stretched toward the heavens, glowed even brighter, a vivid shade of purple.

  "There once was a man who aimed to kill a god…" he said, his voice low but ced with a chilling, iable threat, as if narrating a final sentence.

  I struggled, terror sinking its cws into my soul. I tried to scream, but my voice faltered, swallowed by the crushing dread that permeated the air. It was the same overwhelming feeling of insignifice I had when I saw the Illuminated ones: a primordial fear, the fear of something inprehensible, something that saw me as nothing more than an i.

  "And for that... he became a god," he tinued, his voice steady as he ted the spell.

  The bck clouds writhed like enraged serpents, and the sky split open into a jagged purple rift that throbbed with wild lightning, responding to his presence.

  The air grew dense, suffog.

  "That man made the gods themselves tremble."

  He stared down at me with glowing e eyes, refleg the fury of the storm surrounding him. Purple sparks danced around his body like ravenous predators, vibrant and alive.

  “He didn’t just kill a god... He destroyed aire pantheon.”

  Thunder boomed in agreement. The rift in the sky widened, growing into a hungry abyss that threateo e everything.

  "And this..." He stepped forward. "This is but a fra of the power he once wielded."

  Then, silence fell. A silence so crushing, so absolute, it swallowed everything.

  Nathan Evenhart, in a whisper that resonated louder than any thunder, decred:

  "Be annihited, you worm!"

  The heavens roared in respohe rift erupted, and a purple lightning bolt desded, striking him in an explosion of blinding light. He approached me slowly, his hand outstretched, and touched me.

  Energy surged from him like a living wave, tearing through my body. Every fiber of my existence shattered, ed, as I felt myself bursting from the i.

  And then... everything vahe world was ripped away from me.