Chapter 246 – Wrath of Nathan Evenhart

  Soldier Norwin Dale:

  “Run!” shouted a soldier beside me, his eyes wide with panic as we fled the nightmare chasing us. At the end of the corridor, Nathan Evenhart walked calmly, wielding a sword he had picked from a corpse with uling ease.

  “Shit!” another soldier screamed, desperately trying to put distaween himself and the boy. Nathan raised his hand, juring a wind barrier that smmed the soldier against the wall with crushing force. The barrier pressed tighter and tighter as the man screamed in agony, until with a siing pop, he burst like an overripe fruit.

  “One less,” Nathan said, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.

  The soldiers around me scrambled to raise stone barriers in a desperate attempt to shield themselves. Massive stone walls rose in the corridor, and I, equally terrified, summoned another yer of prote. But it was all in vain.

  BAM! The walls were obliterated in seds, and Nathan tinued his steady march forward, uerred.

  “Bastard!” one soldier yelled, lunging with his sword. Nathan effortlessly deflected the strike, smmed the man into the wall, and drove the bde into his chest.

  “One less,” he muttered again, his tone eerily sistent.

  Nathan Evenhart moved onward, unstoppable. He pointed a finger, firing a lightning bolt that struother soldier, sending him crashing to the ground. Without breaking stride, Nathan stepped forward and, reinf his foot with wind magic, delivered a devastating stomp. The man’s head caved in with a siing ch.

  “One less,” Nathaed, advang methodically.

  I ran, driven by sheer terror, through corridors filled with horrors plucked straight from nightmares. I caught glimpses of atrocities as I fled, a woman with a body of stone and a fagulfed in fmes was trampling soldiers, her fiery bde skewering them effortlessly. She hurled their charred bodies aside like discarded toys, their screams of agony reverberating in the air.

  Turning into another corridor, I froze. A dog made of twisting vines and thnawed on a bloody human leg.

  I screamed, spinning around in panily to find my path blocked by a cloud of bck mist. Out of the darkness, a man staggered forward, throwing himself to the ground.

  “Help me!” he pleaded, but the mist dragged him back, thrashing him violently as blue fshes of lightning illuminated his mutited form. His screams cut off abruptly, swallowed by the darkness.

  Fueled by fear, I sprinted faster. Nathan’s calm, deliberate footsteps echoed behind me, and his voice rang out again.

  “One less.”

  I began to sob untrolbly. The wall ahead exploded with a deafening crash, and from the rubble emerged a massive yellow knight. It seized a man, flinging him across the corridor before crushing him beh its colossal weight.

  “This is hell! We’re in hell with evil inate!” a soldier shrieked as he ran past me. I followed him, ed by the same raw terror.

  The soldier slipped on a puddle of water. I reached out to help him, but the water… it smiled.

  “Help me, dammit!” he screamed as the water coiled around him, swallowing him inch by inch.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned and ran, tears streaming down my face as I screamed. Behind me, I could hear more cries of pain and the relentless sound of bodies being crushed, electrocuted, and torn apart.

  I reached a door and flung it open, stumbling into a room filled with aire garrison of soldiers.

  “What’s going on?! The nobles ordered us to stay here,” one of them demanded, his voice tinged with fusion.

  I tried to answer, but my legs shook so violently that I couldn’t form words. I could only point to the dasping for breath, uo vey the horror that awaited them.

  “Close it! Seal the door with earth magic, barriers, anything you muster!” I screamed, stumbling away, searg for an escape as fear ed me.

  The doors shook violently with each impact, each thunderous thud heraldih’s approay knees, my legs were too weak to hold me up. Panic coursed through me, my breaths ragged and shallow.

  “Kneel!” I shouted at the others, desperation crag my voice. “He said he’d show mercy if everyone kneels!”

  fused stares turoward me. “What are you talking about?” one soldier asked, his tone ced with disbelief.

  “KNEEL!” I screamed again, my voice breaking, drowning in terror.

  The doors trembled even harder now, on the verge of giving way. I cmped my hands over my ears, brag myself for the screams I knew would follow. The siing ch of bones and the wet sound of flesh being torn apart were the symphony of death I had heard too many times.

  BAM! The door burst open with a deafening crash, but… silence followed.

  For a moment, nothing moved. The oppressive stillness suffocated the room, the air growing heavier with each passing sed. My wide eyes stayed fixed on the doorway as I k, trembling.

  “What’s happening out there? How many enemies are there?” a soldier asked, his voice tinged with nervousness.

  “One!” I shouted, disbelief trembling in my voice. “It’s all the work of a single boy!”

  The soldier bli me, his face torted in fusion and ridicule. “You’re afraid of a boy?” he asked, half-ughing, half-incredulous.

  I looked at him, tears streaming down my face. “Don’t say that…” I whispered, my voice barely audible, drenched in despair. “Now… even kneeling won’t save you…”

  At that moment, a man came staggering in from the hallway I had fled, his body engulfed in fmes. Half of him was charred beynition, his arms gone. He stumbled into our midst, colpsing in a heap, his burning corpse sm on the ground.

  “Less one…” a chilling voice echoed from the shadows. Tears streamed down my face as my mind broke uhe weight of fear.

  A bck smoke surged into the room, writhing like a living predator. It wasn’t just ominous. It was malevolent, aension of the boy’s wrath. The cloud enveloped the room with an overwhelming presence, f us to huddle together like ered prey.

  “What the hell is that? A golem!?” a soldier shouted, his voice breaking as he tried to make sense of the chaos.

  Emerging from the suffog bess, the boy walked in with slow, deliberate steps. Blood spattered his body, and his eyes sed us with cold detat, like a butcher choosing his cut.

  “I’m kneeling!” I cried, my voice quivering, desperate to avoid his wrath. But he didn’t even g me. I was nothing to him, a ghost in the room, as his focus shifted to the other soldiers.

  “You’re surrounded, kid!” a soldier bellowed, trying to sound fident. “This is a full garrison, and we have mages. Surrender or die!”

  The boy remained unfazed, his icy gaze drifting across the room as if weighing his options. Without even looking at the soldier who had dared to challenge him, he replied with chilling simplicity: “You have one choice. How it ends is up to you.”

  The soldier scoffed, ughing nervously. “What choice?”

  “Die… or die.”

  Uneasy ughter broke the tense silehe soldiers exged nervous gnces, mog the boy’s threat, oblivious to the nightmare they were about to face.

  I knew better. I had seen the destru he left behind. I knew what was ing. Trembling, I wished I could burrow through the wall with my earth magid escape. But fear of drawing his attentio me rooted to the spot, kneeling and helpless.

  “Have fun,” the boy murmured, and at his and, the bck cloud advanced.

  The screams started again. The creature, formed from that dense smoke, attacked with a ferocity I had never seen. Men ran, tried to react, but it was futile. Their swords sliced through the air, but they couldn't harm the cloud. It seemed intangible, invulnerable.

  Then, I watched the smoke enter a soldier's mouth. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony, his body shaking violently before exploding from within. Parts of him flew in all dires, and the room was filled with the horrendous sound of flesh tearing.

  The screams tio eingling with the sound of the smoke dev their bodies. I remained on my knees, uo do anything but listen, terror ing me as I awaited my turn to bee another victim of this storm of horror.

  Fear paralyzed me as I watched the boy, the bck oving behind him like a living shadow. He approached me, each slow step carrying an oppressive tension. His cold eyes met mine, and he looked down at me, his presence overwhelming.

  “Go!” he ordered, his voice low aionless. “Tell the men to kneel and pray for my mercy.”

  I stood up, trembling, trying to make the smallest movement possible to avoid provoking his wrath. As soon as I ran toward the door, a feminine voice rang out through the room, freezing me in pce.

  “Where do you think yoing, soldier?” The voice was filled with alice. I turned bad saw five figures entering through the same door the boy had e from. Their energy alpable, and I immediately reized them. They were the Ten Fingers, the most powerful mages of this pce.

  “You must stay and fight to the death for your lord,” the woman ughed. The sound of her ughter was disturbing, almost insane.

  One of the mages advanced. “You gave us quite a blow with that lightning strike. Somehow, you had put it ihe cloud before being caught. I wao keep going at that moment, but my duty as a guard was to take the o safety. But now... it seems like there’s nothing to stop us.”

  The boy slowly turned, his eyes fixed on the new oppos. The bck cloud beside him seemed to analyze the five with the same ess.

  The boy snapped his fingers, and the bck cloud golem disappeared.

  “It seems this battle is too plicated for me to let him participate,” the boy said, his voiow filled with a sinister fidence.

  The woman smiled bitterly. “Dealing with a bunch of weak mages is ohing, kid. But we are the best mages in this pce. Unfortunately, my group is divided, and part of us is outside,” she said, the provocation clear in her voice. “But five of us... are more than enough to handle you.”

  The mages exged gnces, preparing for the frontation, their hands already ed in magic. I, caught in the middle of this nightmare, didn’t know what to do. Everything seemed beyond my prehension. The air grew dehe tensioween the boy and the mages building with each passing sed.

  And then the frontation began.