Chapter 240 – The Storm of War

  ander Allistor:

  We were anxiously awaiting Lord Nikous’s return. Gathered with other he atmosphere was suffused with palpable tension. War could break out at any moment, and whispers of fear echoed among those present. I art of a special division, and my duties often involved destine operations. My work included esc captured individuals, soon to bee sves, or apanying carriages loaded with traband, primarily drugs destined for other parts of the duchy.

  “What have I gotten myself into…” I murmured, watg the anxious nobles.

  I thought about all the effort I had ied i years, the pns, the schemes, and the sacrifices I had made to reach this point. Everything would have worked if Nikous had taken trol of the duchy. He was the key figure, the man who could bring order to everything. Under his leadership, I would have been in a much more advantageous position.

  Nikous would rusted men to manage his nds, and I could easily be one of those strategic allies. I could have pyed a crucial role in this region, helping to solidate his authority, or perhaps followed him as a prestigious guard in his castle. And his nephew, Frederick? He would be nothing more than a decorative figure, a puppet maniputed by Nikous to serve his is.

  My loyalty, ambition, and experience should have earned me a privileged position. But now, everything is falling apart. The perfect opportunity is slipping through my fingers like sand.

  It’s not over yet. We still turide!

  Everything happened so quickly after that I barely had time to process it. Lord Nikous returned, bringing with him the Evenhart heir, and my mind momentarily froze. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. The boy was really there, in front of us, as if he had delivered himself on a silver ptter, ano tricks.

  The atmosphere around us was charged with tension, and the murmurs among the soldiers quickly turned into a nervous buzz. “Is it really the heir?” they whispered. “Why would he do something like this?” The incredulity was etched on everyone’s faces, but as I looked at the boy, I knew instantly that it was true.

  What a joke of fate, he walked right into the wolves' den.

  The Ten Fingers, the most powerful mages in the fortress, surrouhe boy in a tight circle, ready to react to any suspiovement. The tension was suffog. Their hands were subtly raised, eae eling mana into creating aal barrier, prepared to ralize any magiathan Evenhart might attempt. Any movement he made would be met with an imperable defense, preventing him from casting even the smallest spell.

  If he so much as lifted a finger, if he dared to activate any spell, the barriers would rise instantly, and the bined power of these seasoned mages would leave no room for him to escape ht back.

  “We’ve won!” I excimed, barely believing the words ing out of my mouth. The boy was being dragged away like a on prisoner as the fortress gates smmed shut with a heavy thud. Victory was within rasp.

  The men around us parted to let Lord Nikous through, while the nobles nearby appeared equally stunned. Reality began to settle in, and I couldn’t tain the growiement in my chest. I hurried toward the tent where the garrison was statiohe pce where I had spent the st few days under unbearable tension.

  Entering, I saw a few men adjusting their equipment, the metallic sound of swords and armor eg softly in the cramped space.

  “It’s over!” I decred, my voice brimming with relief and euphoria. “It’s really the heir! We’ve won. The duchy is ours now!”

  The soldiers’ faces lit up briefly with surprise, but I barely noticed.

  I rushed to the table, grabbing my fsk with trembling hands. Taking a generous swig, I weled the burniion of the strong alcohol c down my throat, warming my chest. Wiping my mouth with the bay hand, I smmed the fsk onto the table with a thud.

  “Screw the Evenharts!” I ughed, a euphoric release washing over me. For days, I had felt the sharp edge of a bde pressing against my neow, that oppressive weight had lifted, repced by a liberating sense of triumph.

  “Man… I’m gonna enjoy myself with a woman tonight,” I joked, ughing untrolbly. But then I noticed something was off. The room, which should have been filled with ughter and celebratio heavy, unnervingly silent.

  “What’s with those faces you’re making?” I asked, frowning.

  Everyone ient ale, their eyes wide with disbelief, as if they had just withe impossible. Swords began cttering to the ground as trembling hands lost their grip. One soldier, stumbling backward in panic, tripped over an armor stand, sending a cacophony of metal g to the ground.

  And then I felt it.

  A presence.

  Something unseehrough me, crushing the air arouh its sheer weight. My chest tightened, my lungs refusing to draw breath. It was an intangible force, but its terror was absolute, as though death itself had ehe tent.

  “What the hell is this?” I muttered, feeling my body shudder involuntarily. My hands trembled violently, and an icy dread crawled down my spine.

  I bolted out of the tent, heart pounding. Before I could make sense of the chaos, a scream pierced the air, sharp and cutting like a bde. Suddenly, the heavens seemed to tear open, unleashing a blinding light that carved through the stormy clouds.

  ‘KABOOM!’

  The deafening crash of thunder roared around me. In an instant, an intense blue light desded from the sky, smming into the earth with a cataclysmic force. It didhere. Successive bsts followed, each louder and more violent tha, shaking the very grouh us.

  A shockwave hit us like an invisible wall. I was hurled through the air like a ragdoll, crashing into a tent and tumbling untrolbly until smming into the side of a carriage. The tent’s vas colpsed over me as I struggled to get my bearings.

  Amid the chaos, I felt it again, that oppressive, almost otherworldly force. It stricted my chest, robbing me of air as if the atmosphere itself had turned against me. My breaths came in shallos, my lungs refusing to cooperate.

  Pain radiated from my shoulder, throbbing with every attempted movement. But that wasn’t what terrified me the most. It was the overwhelming sense of dread, the invisible monsters I could almost feel watg me, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Panig, I forced myself to stand. My body resisted, frozen in fear. My ears rang with an uing high-pitched whine, and my vision remained obscured by blotches of light from the earlier explosion.

  When I finally steadied myself, the true horror unfolded before me.

  The fortress gate was in ruins, utterly obliterated. Debris was scattered everywhere, smoke rising in thick plumes from the rubble. Above, dark storm clouds roiled, lightning bolts arg wildly through the sky. Each electric strike targeted the fortress’s ptforms, mercilessly obliterating everything in its path.

  Mages and archers, on anding positions atop the walls, were thrown to the ground like ragdolls. Their bodies y crushed beh falling stone and shattered wood, the air thick with the acrid smell of destru and the cries of those who hadn’t yet succumbed to the onsught.

  It was devastation inate, and it was only the beginning.

  The stones supp the structure crumbled one by one as soldiers scattered in every dire. Chaned, pached across the faen who had believed themselves secure. Cries of despair echoed across the battlefield, but no one knew where to run. The destru was relentless, the fear, all-enpassing.

  I watched as the magis of the Ten Fingers scrambled in desperation, helping the politiobles to their feet and urging them toward the castle. The explosion had sown utter disorder, and even these renowned mages, celebrated for their prowess, were visibly shaken. Some of the Ten Fingers, who had been hurled beyond the gate by the sheer force of the bst, tried to return, but a dense bck cloud desded from the sky, pletely sealing the area and cutting them off from the rest of the army.

  Disoriented and injured, my gaze turo Lord Nikous. He was terrified, runniically toward the castle, fnked by nobles and other members of the Ten Fingers, all desperately seeking shelter. Seeing him, once so proud and anding, now reduced to a man ed by fear, filled me with an ominous sense of foreboding.

  A sharp pain shot through my shoulder, and I realized it was dislocated. The agony was intense, but the terror I felt far surpassed any physical disfort.

  The sky, once a mere harbinger of an impending storm, was irely shrouded by a dome of bck clouds. That oppressive barrier sealed us in, isoting us within a shadowy, suffog space.

  Wounded men staggered, leaning on each other for support, while those still able to fight sed their surroundings with panic-stri expressions. Doubt and fear hung thi the air, palpable in every frantid trembling hand.

  At that moment, a bolt of lightning struck the earth, briefly illuminating the chaos before exploding with a deafening roar.

  “ander!” Soldiers rushed toward me, their faces mirrors of the terror I felt. “What should we do?”

  I looked at them, then at the devastation around us, and finally at the be encirg us. My mied the reality of what was unfolding before my eyes. This wasn’t natural. There shouldn’t be any spell capable of summoning a storm of this magnitude.

  I tried to speak, but the words caught in my throat. My gaze drifted, locked on the pulsating dome that surrounded us as if it were alive, a ravenous creature poised to devour us all.

  The boy wields the lightning element... this mess has to be his doing.

  “Find that bastard! Find Nathan Evenhart!” I shouted, my voice slig through the chaos. The tension and desperation in my tone were unmistakable. “This is a territory spell; we’re trapped in here. We o kill or ralize him to break this prison!”

  The soldiers scrambled, frantically trying to free their rades buried beh the rubble. Even with the magical orbs scattered across the battlefield, the storm’s oppressive darkness seemed to e everything. The crackle of lightning streaking across the sky echoed ominously, a stant, looming threat.

  “There he is!” someone shouted, pointing toward the ruins.

  My eyes followed the trembling hand of the soldier, and then I saw him. Sitting atop the highest pile of debris, like a king on a throne of destru. The sight was uling, almost unreal. Nathan Evenhart sat there, high above us, surveying the se with a cold, calg demeanor. His presence was suffog, like that of a predator watg its prey, anding and unyielding.

  “Before we begin,” Nathan said, his voice slig through the tension like a bde, “I want to make ohing clear. I’ll give you one ce to leave here alive. Drop your ons and kneel in surrehose who kneel will have my mercy.”

  His words echoed across the battlefield, heavy with vi. Soldiers and mages around me exged uain gnces, struggling to prehend the situation. Doubt hung thi the air, yet no one moved. The silence was almost as deafening as the thunder.

  Nathan Evenhart remained motionless, his figure stark against the stormy sky. He watched us, like a judge poised to deliver his verdict. Then, after several seds of suffog silence, he smiled, a cold, detached smile, utterly devoid of empathy.

  “So, no one will kneel… perfect,” he said, his voice id defiant. Rising slowly to his feet, every movement exuded an overwhelming aura of dominance. “Enjoy this night. It will be your st.”