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 announcement of my imminent 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 explained to me what was happening: I had accessed a part of his power indirectly, releasing the Life Aspect, which healed most of my injuries and regenerated 70% of my mana. However, it was a temporary effect. As soon as the Life Aspect ended, I would return to my previous state, slipping into a coma due to extreme mana exhaustion. What I had gained was not a solution, but just a few minutes of consciousness.

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 similar 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 out right here, where I would be killed.

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

I tried to use the Time Aspect to reach Nikolaus Wolves, but I failed. The explanation came quickly and sharply.

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

Meanwhile, Nikolaus 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 weapons, while others just displayed grotesque claws and teeth. The dim light of the place illuminated their 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 transforming my body, it granted me the unique ability to create a clone: the Specter. Made of pure mana, white and semi-transparent, it had the same abilities as my mana gem: wind and thunder. Something that impressed Cylla.

I could see and feel everything the specter did, as if my senses were shared. It was exhausting, like looking in two opposite directions 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 storage bracelet I took from the fire mage’s corpse and threw it to the Specter while summoning the Cursed Blade to my hand. We both stared at the advancing army like a wave of destruction.

"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 monsters trying to subdue it, while I spun, knocking down everything in my reach.

I advanced, cutting down every monstrosity that dared cross my 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 conjured the Thunder Whip. Our movements were synchronized, destroying everything in our path. Each lash of the whips generated 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 wrapped in lightning. I stomped the ground, sending electrical 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 monsters trying to surround me.

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

I threw the Cursed Blade into the air, and it spun like a boomerang until it landed in the Specter's hand. He began spinning with both swords, transforming into a tornado of wind and thunder. Meanwhile, I jumped between the creatures, generating gusts of wind that opened my path. The synchronization between us was perfect: the Specter threw the Cursed Blade back to me, and I caught it in the air, executing 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 in less than 10 minutes!

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

“Handle these things!” I ordered the clone, my voice filled with determination. With the Thunder Mantle activated, my body was enveloped in pure electricity, every creature that tried to touch me being thrown away by the shock. My only priority was Nikolaus Wolves.

He wouldn’t escape.

Nikolaus 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 clone stayed behind, holding off the creatures as he charged directly at me.

Damn it! Stupid, damn creatures!

I ran desperately, creating walls and sending giant thorns to block him. But each of my 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, completely covered in blood, walking calmly towards me. That look. Those orange snake-like eyes. They paralyzed me.

"Stay away!" I shouted, throwing stone thorn balls at him. He countered with precise kicks, sending everything flying through the air. I slammed my hands on the ground, summoning a gigantic thorn next to him, but he created a wind barrier and dodged. A second 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 convince myself that I was in control. But he stared at me with pure hatred in his eyes, and in that instant, my body betrayed my courage. I involuntarily took a step back.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

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 saw a rope 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 an emitter, my body had no resistance. I wasn’t like the other mages who could reinforce their bodies with mana. "Shit..." I muttered, gasping, trying to get up.

He approached slowly, his snake-like eyes glowing with contempt. I knew I was finished, but desperation made me try one last time. I touched the ground, summoning a collapse. 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 collapsed 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, touching the ground to create a hole, but before I could continue, 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 blade 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, forcing me to remain still.

“Now it’s just you and me, no interruptions,” he said, and the burning in my tongue intensified, driving me to the edge of agony. The sword he wielded, an enchanted 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 blade pierce my flesh, but he just stepped on my other hand, immobilizing me.

“I’ve thought about coming 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 overwhelming determination. “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 intensity of his presence almost suffocating. “Today you will face my judgment. You can run, you can hide behind laws, 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 person or god in this world who can stop me from coming to kill you.”

Then, he drove the sword into my eye.

“Ahhhhhh!” The scream escaped me uncontrollably as the blade burned what remained of my sight. Even so, he continued to look at me coldly, as if it was nothing. Slowly, he removed the blade, 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 next is your nose,” he stated, as I tried, in vain, to escape. With a firm step, he crushed my back, pinning me to the ground like an insect, with no chance of escaping.

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

“Stop! Help!” I screamed in desperation, as he continued. 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 hand entering my back, exploring my flesh.

“Do you know what the sound of a bone breaking is like? You should know… you’re experienced in combat,” he commented, 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 was paralyzed. All I could feel was the growing agony and the despair of losing all control 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 can’t use fire right now,” he continued, “but I can burn things with electricity. Let’s use a little imagination, shall we? Pretend it’s the flame of fire.”

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

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed, unable to contain the agony.

“Now, the ear. Don’t worry, what I’m going to do is different. I want your ear canal,” he said coldly, inserting a finger inside without hesitation.

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

‘THUD!’ My ear exploded inside. The sound of ligaments tearing echoed, and soon I felt the blood trickling. 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 intensity, an incandescent orange light emanating from his irises. They weren’t normal eyes. Those eyes, the color of crackling fire, were those of a serpent—deep, cold, and calculating. 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 orange 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 collapsed with the explosion of lightning, as purple discharges struck the clouds, forming a spiraling storm that tore the sky with thunder.

"I am the GODSLAYER! I am the SOVEREIGN!" he declared, his voice cold and merciless.

His orange eyes, cold and empty, never wavered from me. Purple energy crackled around him, radiating destruction. The weapons scattered on the ground began to slowly rise, but the only thing I could feel was the crushing despair and the excruciating pain consuming everything.

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

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

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

"AAAHHHHHHHH!” Each impact felt like pieces of my 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 urine. It was as if my body had been destroyed from the inside out.

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 contempt as he rubbed my face into the grotesque pool.

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

With his foot planted firmly on my chest, he kept me pinned to the ground. The pain was overwhelming, robbing me of any chance to fight back, as the storm roared in the sky heavy with black 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 laced with a chilling, inevitable threat, as if narrating a final sentence.

I struggled, terror sinking its claws 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 insignificance I had when I saw the Illuminated ones: a primordial fear, the fear of something incomprehensible, something that saw me as nothing more than an insect.

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

The black 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, suffocating.

"That man made the gods themselves tremble."

He stared down at me with glowing orange eyes, reflecting 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 an entire pantheon.”

Thunder boomed in agreement. The rift in the sky widened, growing into a hungry abyss that threatened to consume everything.

"And this..." He stepped forward. "This is but a fraction 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, declared:

"Be annihilated, you worm!"

The heavens roared in response. The rift erupted, and a purple lightning bolt descended, 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, consumed, as I felt myself bursting from the inside out.

And then... everything vanished. The world was ripped away from me.