Chapter 691: [Bonus - 11/9] It’s Over

Chapter 691: [Bonus Chapter 11/9] It’s Over

The black lake kept draining.

Its dark surface sank in long, shuddering pulls, and the water slid back from the edges of the ledge as though something beneath it were drinking it down.

Wet stone appeared, then slick mud, then pale shapes that had lain hidden for years.

Bones lay scattered across the lakebed in heaps, small and large, tangled together like the remains of a place no one had ever meant to open.

The Mother stood frozen at the center of the cavern, its arms hanging in the air.

Dozens of eyes followed the falling water. Its shoulders trembled, and the black threads along its skin pulled taut.

For a moment, the only sound in the cavern was the gurgle of the lake emptying into the dark.

Then it screamed.

"Noooooooooo!"

Every mouth opened at once.

The cry tore out of dozens of throats, high and low, cracked and raw, and the whole cavern shook with it.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

The undead Scorpion Men clinging to its body slipped free and tumbled to the ground.

The scream broke apart.

The mouths began to speak, each in its own voice, each in its own rhythm, as though a hundred minds were collapsing at once.

"Was he counted?" one of them cried, her voice breaking across a dozen throats. "Was my boy counted?"

"Was my daughter counted?"

"Was my husband counted?"

"What about my father? Was it counted?"

The questions spilled over one another, faster and faster.

Some of the mouths wept as they spoke. Others laughed, a thin, shattered laughter that made Thoren’s skin crawl.

One mouth repeated the same name over and over, and another could only whisper, "Mama, Mama, Mama."

"How dare you take what is ours from us?"

"What gave you the right...?"

"Noooooo!"

The Mother’s eyes were no longer filled with hunger. They were wet and wide, swimming with a grief so deep that it seemed to press against the air itself.

Black tears ran down the pale faces and dripped onto the exposed stone.

Its many hands scrabbled at the ground where the water had been, as though it could scoop it back, and then closed into fists and pounded the rock until it cracked.

Thoren stood at the edge of the ledge, his breath caught in his throat.

He had expected rage.

He had expected the Mother to charge, to tear through his undead legion, to try and stop him by force.

Instead, it stood there broken, mourning in front of him.

Then its eyes turned.

One by one, dozens of them swung toward him.

They locked onto his face, onto his chest, onto his hands, and every one of them was full of pain and accusation.

The weight of their gaze pressed on him like a hand around his throat.

He frowned.

’What do you mean?’

The questions kept echoing in his ears, and he could not make sense of them. Counted?

Who had been counted?

He had only closed a gate, one that had been built to be closed. A cold unease slid into his chest, and beneath it, a slight irritation.

’How is that my business?’

He had not come to the Weeping Ossuary for any of this.

He had come alone, with a single purpose, to find a clue that would lead him out of this cursed world.

He had no part in whatever tragedy lay behind these ruins, and no stake in the lives that had been poured into the thing before him.

Yet the eyes did not look away.

"Give it back..."

"Give them back..."

The Mother took a step forward, and the stone broke beneath its foot.

The Mother took another step.

The stone cracked under its foot, and a thin trail of dust drifted up from the break.

Dozens of eyes stayed fixed on Thoren, wet and unblinking, and the cavern seemed to shrink around that gaze.

Thoren’s hand rose slowly.

His fingers curled, and the mental link hummed in his mind.

The undead Horn Lizard King pulled itself upright at the edge of the ledge, and the undead Scorpion Men King gripped its dented gauntlets.

Behind them, the surviving undead vanguard shifted their weight, ready to charge. The undead rhinos lowered their heads, and the wolves bared their fangs.

’If it comes at me again, I will have to...’

He opened his mouth to give the order.

Then he stopped.

Something was wrong with the Mother’s skin.

The pale, swollen flesh that had healed from every wound now looked dull and gray.

Fine lines ran across its surface, thin at first, like cracks in dry mud. They crept over its arms and down its torso, spreading from one stitched seam to the next.

The black threads that held it together began to fray and snap one by one.

The Mother stopped walking.

Its mouths, which had been shrieking and sobbing a moment before, fell silent. The eyes along its body drifted down, as though only now noticing what was happening to them.

A hand rose in front of one face, and the fingers trembled. A flake of skin peeled away and drifted to the ground.

"...D-dry..."

"...so...dry..."

"...Mama’s...cold..."

The cracks widened.

Pale flesh crumbled at the edges, and the stitches burst open along its ribs. Its giant frame swayed.

It tried to reach for the empty lakebed, but its arm broke off at the elbow and fell to the stone in pieces.

Thoren’s breath caught.

His hand froze in the air, the command dead on his tongue.

The Mother lifted its head, and every one of its eyes found him once more. They were no longer filled with hunger or rage.

They were soft and exhausted, full of sorrow that had been carried too long.

One by one, the mouths stopped speaking, and a quiet that felt almost like peace settled over its face.

Then its body began to shatter.

It started at the feet.

Its legs split apart in a hundred places, and the cracks climbed upward until its torso and shoulders were covered in them.

Dust poured from every seam.

The rib cage in its chest opened like the doors of an old cage, and the pale light of its eyes dimmed, flickered and went out, one after another.

Bang!

The Mother burst apart.

Its body crumbled into a cloud of gray dust that rolled across the ledge, swirled around the pillars and sank into the empty lakebed.

Fragments of bone clattered onto the stone.

Scraps of black thread floated down like ash. The dark blood that had soaked the ground a moment ago had already dried to powder.

Silence fell over the cavern.

The undead stood in place, their weapons still raised, their soul fires burning steadily in the stillness.

Thoren stared at the spot where the Mother had stood.

’This...’

He could not finish the thought.

He had braced himself for a fight that would grind on until his legion was ground to nothing.

He had expected a final charge, a last desperate scream, something that would test every ounce of strength he had left.

Instead, it had simply fallen apart.

The abomination that had crushed his best undead, healed from every wound and nearly broken his nerve, had died without a single blow.

’It died so easily...’

He stood there for a long moment, listening to the quiet drip of the last water draining into the dark.

The dust settled slowly around him.

His heart, which had been pounding since the Mother first rose from the lake, began to slow.

A long breath left his chest.

The tension that had gripped his shoulders eased, and his fingers uncurled at his side.

The red had faded from his eyes, and what remained was weariness. The cold fear he had carried through the fight dissolved, leaving only a hollow ache behind.

And a faint sense of relief settled over him.

It was over.