Realm of Monsters - Chapter 719: Rain of Light

Chapter 719: Rain of Light

  “Surround them!” the goblin captain yelled.

  Stryg closed his eyes and tilted his head to the sky. “Heed my call, Svartna.”

~~~

  In the guest chambers of Murkton’s castle, a staff lay at an angle on the bedside. The staff was made of old, gnarled wood, unremarkable to any but the sharpest of eyes. It lay still, forgotten and unnoticed by the guards who had ransacked the chambers earlier in search of their quarry.

  A voice, silent on the wind, rippled through the city, and whispered its name. Something was different. It had slept for so long, the millennia passing by without its notice. Until a boy had called out to it with a broken heart filled with rage.

  That night, a link had snapped into place between the weapon and titan. Yet it was weak, uncertain. But something had changed. Where once the bond was a tenuous tightrope, now it was a bridge, echoing a call. A request from a kindred soul. A promise of bloodshed and death. A call to war. And Svartna would heed.

  The gnarled wood melted away, transforming into a sleek spear of black steel, translucent at the edges like glass. Svartna shot off the bed and through the window, an arrow in flight. Power surged through the orichalcum as it picked up speed, until it was nothing but a flash of a shadow amidst the clouds.

  Svartna cut through the air, even sound itself was left behind in its wake. Like a meteor, it dropped from the heavens and crashed into a goblin standing in front of its master. The spearhead split the goblin’s skull and drove through it. The sheer power and force of the spear ripped the goblin’s insides, eviscerating the goblin in a flash of power, leaving nothing behind but a black scorched crater where Svartna had struck the ground.

  “Captain!” another goblin screamed in horror at the sight, alongside the others.

  Stryg didn’t hesitate. He reached out his hand and before his fingers touched the spear, Svartna ripped out from the shattered earth and flew into his grip. The spear thrummed with excitement, its power amplifying his own as chaos flowed into the orichalcum.

  Taking a step forward, Stryg kicked off the ground and stabbed with Svartna. The spear sank through a goblin’s shield and punctured their ribs. The goblin’s eyes widened for a brief moment before his ribcage imploded with a sickening crunch. Stryg took a step back, surprised, as the goblin fell over, his green skin darkening into a deep grey. Black sand poured out from his leather breastplate where there had once been blood.

  Before Stryg’s eyes, the goblin’s body decayed, skin shriveling and crumbling to dust, leaving behind nothing but an ebon skeleton and a pile of black sand. 

  “Dear gods…!” screamed a goblin.

  “Mother Moon save me!”

  “Shoot him, shoot him!”

  The words of attack shook Stryg out of his surprise and his body snapped into battle, driven by instinct. Svartna batted aside another’s spear and slashed at the goblin’s wrist. She screamed as her wrist began to degrade, her hand falling off before the chaos began to eat at her forearm.

  Time seemed to move slowly as Stryg cut through the goblins, Svartna moving not only with his wrist, but extending ever so slightly further in one direction or the other, perfecting his strike or parry with deadly efficiency.

  In a matter of seconds, Stryg had maimed every one of his enemies, but one. The last of the goblins watched in horror as her comrades screamed and dug their own claws into their bodies as if worms were crawling under their skin. Their flesh decayed before their very eyes. Some imploded where Svartna had struck deeply.

  Black sand, piles of bones, and gear were all that was left.

  “No, no, no, please, gods, no!” the last goblin warrior scrambled to get away.

  Stryg recognized her. She was the only one who had voiced objection to the captain’s order to kill the children.

  “I will not hurt you,” Stryg sighed and lowered Svartna.

  But the woman wasn’t listening. She staggered to her feet and ran down the street. An arrow shot out from the shadows and struck her in the chest, sending her careening to the ground.

  A platoon of orcs marched into the plaza, led by a man dressed in the black robes of a battlemage.

  “We got another, sir,” replied an orc archer, their bow in hand.

  “Search for others, these animals never travel alone,” ordered the battlemage.

  “Sir!” An orc spotted Stryg and Catherine’s family hiding a few paces behind him.

  “Let them go!” yelled the battlemage. Orange flames ignited over his palm as he pointed his hand at Stryg in a flat-palm gesture.

  “Sir, is that a drow?” asked one of the orcs.

  The battlemage hesitated. “Whom do you fight for?” he called out.

  “M’lord?” Anna said in a shaky voice. 

  Stryg turned to find the little girl looking up at him, trembling from head to toe.

  “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” Catherine reassured her daughter.

  Henry had buried his face in his mother’s side when the fight started and he hadn’t turned since. Anna had not, she had witnessed the entire battle.

  Stryg gave Catherine and Anna a calm smile and tried to keep his voice even, “No one will hurt you. You have my word.” He channeled Red and quickly wrote a few arcane sigils into the air, forming a red dome around the family.

  “Sir, he’s a mage too,” an orc said.

  “Yes, I can see that,” the battlemage narrowed his eyes. “Whom do you fight for!?”

  “I fight for neither Sylvan nor Murkton, only my own,” Stryg said.

  “…Let that orc woman and her children go and I shall let you pass,” said the battlemage.

  “This family is under my protection. You will not have them,” Stryg said.

  “They are my people, not yours, drow. If anything, I should be the one distrustful of their safety in your hands,” said the battlemage.

  Stryg glanced at Catherine. “Do you wish to go with them?”

  Catherine shook her head. “The soldiers care little for commoners like me and mine. If you will have me, I will follow you, my lord, and no other.”

  “Very well,” Stryg nodded. He turned back to the soldiers, “This family will not be going with you—”

  The battlemage thrust his hand forward and a funnel of flame exploded from his palm, engulfing Stryg. His instinct was to move, but something within him held him still. For the first time in his life, his hearts and mind were one. Holo had taught him that chaos reacted to one’s emotional state and Stryg had never felt more in control with the cold energy flowing through him.

  The fire engulfed him, the flames scorching his skin and devouring his clothes. It felt like a sunburn, his skin itching with tender pain. He kept his eyes closed, held his breath, and weathered the flames.

  A cold power flared to life from within the scar of Sigte. Icy mist erupted from his palm and doused the fire in a wave of cold. His clothes were gone, seared to nothing but ash. He raised his hand to eye-level and stared at his palm, watching in fascination as the tender blue skin healed itself from the superficial wounds.

  For a brief moment, Stryg was grateful that he wasn’t wearing the assassin’s cloak or Blossom. With a thought, he wrapped inky shadow around his body, forming a robe of darkness. He was reminded of another who had done the same. Caligo.

  The god of secrets was a monster in the eyes of many. A Monster in the Dark. Stryg supposed he was no different. That would have bothered him before, but now he felt comfortable with that moniker. A monster. 

  “How are you alive—? Attack!” the battlemage yelled.

  Stryg hurled Svartna. The spear left his hand and abruptly exploded mid-air with a pop, a ring of air bursting around it. Svartna bore through the mage’s neck, the surrounding flesh bursting from the impact, leaving behind a headless corpse.

  The orcs staggered back in shock. Stryg smiled wide, baring his teeth. If he was a monster, then a monster he would be. Starlight engulfed him and he shifted into a massive wolf. Frost-mist curled out in wisps from his thick, silver-white fur.

  “Retreat!” yelled an orc.

  Stryg ran on all fours and leaped, covering the entire distance of the plaza in one jump. He landed amidst the orcs, crushing one of them under his massive paws. The god wolf opened his maw wide and attacked.

~~~

  Above the clouds, a battle of titans ensued. With each clash, a spark of chaos rippled outwards, shaking the clouds themselves. Lunae’s orichalcum dress, Regalia, moved like liquid one moment, then hardened to steel in another, blocking Bellum’s flame sword with each strike.

  Despite her Aspects of war and over a thousand of years of constant battle against foes from all the Null Realms, Bellum could not find an opening in her aunt’s defense. Regalia, the treasure of the first Queen of the Titans, did not behave like any other orichalcum weapon. Even its silver-white color was at odds with other orichalcum.

  Each weapon of orichalcum carried slivers of the souls of the circle of titan smiths who had forged them. The amalgamation of souls created a weapon that resonated with a titan’s soul like no other. The bond was unique and the weapon answered to an emotion or higher purpose unique to itself.

  Bellum attacked once more with her orichalcum sword, the black flames growing only more powerful with her resolve, the source of her bond. Regalia rippled like water and expanded to form a circular shield, before hardening and blocking Bellum’s strike.

  Lunae flew away on a trail of frost-mist beneath her feet, Regalia transforming back into a dress before Bellum’s eyes, almost as if taunting her.

  “I don’t understand,” Bellum muttered. “Regalia answers to love, the source of her first master’s power. So why does it answer to you? You who only wish to destroy the people of Murkton.”

  “…I loved Lunis. I loved my city and her people,” Lunae replied. “But now I love someone more than I thought I could love anyone. It is for him and his future that I fight for. For the sake of his people, my people, I will do what I must.”

  “Then so will I,” Bellum raised her sword and prepared to strike.

  Lunae gave her a sad smile. “It’s too late.”

  Something in her expression stopped Bellum. “What?” Bellum recalled the last few minutes. Something had been bothering her ever since they had started fighting. Despite calming Regalis, Lunae had not once counterattacked; she had only defended.

  Why?

  In terms of close-ranged combat, Bellum was superior, but Lunae’s true strength never lay in claw and sword. And tonight of all nights, Lunae had the full might of the full moon behind her, so why hadn’t she attacked with her magic? 

  Bellum stared into the Watcher’s eyes and noticed the glimmer of white in her silver irises. She was using her Divine Sight. Why would she—?

  A cold pit of despair welled up in Bellum’s chest. “No,” she whispered.

  “It took me a while, but I have located them all.” Lunae raised her hand towards the heavens. The air grew frigid, not from frost-mist, but from the sheer amount of chaos welling up within Lunae.

  “Don’t do this. Stop! Please!”

  “Let the warlord look upon this city, and know what his ancestors’ and his own hubris have wrought. Let him and his people all witness who. I. Truly. Am.” Lunae’s eyes flared with silver power.

  “Stop!” Bellum rushed forward, but it was too late.

  Countless pillars of light rained down from the moon and fell upon the city. Cold light engulfed every general, commander, archmage, head of House, and reputable merchant that resided in the city. The divine light froze their bodies and surroundings before eviscerating them into nothing but icy dust. Only deep craters were left, alongside a wave of snow made from the dead that slowly fell upon the city.