Chapter 578: Futility

  Ravellan stood alone, he stared in fear at the boy whose eyes glowed with cold light.

  “I am your Death.”

  Lana convulsed on the ground next to the boy, her eyes wide in panic as she gasped for breath, blood leaking out of her eyes and ears. Syrak stumbled towards her and fell to his knees. He reached out and yelled weakly, “Lana!”

  Death glanced at Syrak and Lana, then flicked his finger. The air condensed into a sharp blade and sliced Syrak’s neck clean off. The vampire’s body collapsed, blood spouting from the headless neck.

  “No!” Lana cried out hoarsely.

  A pinprick of silver-blue light condensed at Death’s fingertip. He pointed at Lana and the light exploded in a flash, searing a giant hole in her chest. Lana’s voice caught in her throat and she went limp. Stryga stared in mute shock at the sight. Lana’s wound was the same as the dead woman lying next to her, the drow they had assumed was the boy’s mother.

  No, Stryga realized as terror filled her veins. The woman wasn’t this creature’s mother. He was never a part of this village. He had slaughtered the entire village.

  Stryga looked around desperately. Every one of her soldiers near the village square was on their knees, struggling to breathe. The rest of the army standing further away seemed less affected by the monster’s power. They were still standing, their swords drawn but they were unsure of what to do at the sight of their downed comrades.

  She wanted to yell for them to retreat, but Stryga could hardly form a whisper. Death ignored the cries of the dying and closed the distance to Ravellan. The Ebon Lord was on his knees, struggling to stand.

  “W-What are you!?” Ravellan gasped angrily.

  “It’s futile,” the boy said in a voice far older and deeper than a child’s. “You cannot stand in my presence, just as a mortal cannot withstand that which is inevitable.” His hand reached out towards the drow’s face.

  A scarlet blade cut in between them and Stryga jumped in the way, standing tall in a warrior’s stance, Krikolm in her grasp. “Get away from him,” she said steely.

  Death cocked his head to the side, eyeing her unknelt position. “Interesting.” He flicked his wrist and a heavy wind slammed into her like a wall of iron and sent her flying across the square.

  Ravellan watched, eyes wide, as Stryga disappeared over the crowd of his dying soldiers. He turned back to the boy, anger blazed within him. “You fucking bastard.” He gritted his teeth and summoned forth all ten Colors, prime magic flowing through his veins. Something cold pushed into him, trying to diffuse the mana flow, but he held the chromatic energies with a fiery will, refusing to let go.

  “Your kind overstepped, mortal,” said Death and he placed his fingertips on the Ebon Lord’s forehead. Ravellan gasped a hollow breath as his eyes sank into his sockets and his skin sagged. His hair grew thin and his mouth went slack with a last agonizing moan.

  Ravellan’s body deteriorated into dust until only his bones and armour remained and clattered to the ground. Death stood alone, his fingers clasped around Ravellan’s skull.

  A furious scream broke through the dyings’ cries.

  Death glanced at Stryga, standing in the distance, blood dripping down her forehead, dark purple eyes burning with rage. “Still standing, are you?” He tossed the skull aside.

  Stryga gripped Krikolm with both hands and held the blade to her chest, sword pointed to the sky. “I will be the Sword of our Blood…” she huffed and gritted her teeth, “And the Bane of our enemies…”

  Krikolm glowed a bright sheen of red, blood rose from around the ground and swirled around her, scarlet ribbons in a small hurricane. “Be it Monster or Man, I shall end them all!” She screamed a warcry and charged at him, a scarlet storm rushing through the village square.

  Death flicked his wrist and an overwhelming wall of compact air slammed down on her, but this time she was ready. Stryga braced for the impact and held her ground, her knees bending underneath as her feet sank into the dirt and grass. She glared in defiance at the monster, refusing to kneel.

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  The soldiers in the distance saw their general standing against the enemy and a righteous anger overtook them. They raised their weapons and shouted their own warcries, before charging into battle.

  Death glanced at the men and women rushing towards him, a sea of warriors like few he had seen. He snapped his fingers calmly and a wave of invisible energy echoed across the village. The bodies of the dead villagers and soldiers rose to their feet and turned in unison towards the rushing soldiers. The living faltered at the sight, before being swarmed by the dead.

  “No…!” Stryga watched in horror as Lana shambled to her feet and Syrak reattached his head, small black tendrils of energy holding his head to his neck. They charged her with a low groan, eyes glazed over.

  Despite their lack of magic, Lana and Syrak moved with a speed and strength they hadn’t had in life. Stryga cried as she dodged their strikes and blocked with Krikolm. With burning tears, she closed her eyes and struck them down in a swirl of red.

  “I’ll kill you…” she muttered, head bowed. “I’ll fucking kill you!” She leaped backwards and slashed down at Death. The boy disappeared and reappeared a centimeter from her blade. She hadn’t seen him move, almost as if he had teleported.

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t care. All she saw was red. Krikolm flew in a flurry as she fell into the Cascade Stance, her sword moving faster with every strike. The boy didn’t move, his body simply appeared in one spot, then the next, each time narrowly dodging her assault, almost as if taunting her.

  “Mutations, is it?” he muttered curiously between her strikes. “A strengthening of your skeletal structure and muscles. And you possess some form of natural resistance to chaos, an accelerated healing, perhaps.”

  A hoarse hateful scream ripped out from Stryga’s throat. Krikolm shined with glee and battle hunger, it glowed like a scarlet fire. She swung down in a final strike, all her energy focused on the edge of the blade. Death stood still and simply watched as the blade slashed into his neck, but it didn’t cut.

  Stryga felt all the force of the attack reverberate back into her arms as if she had swung a club into a steel wall. Krikolm slipped from her numb hands and clattered to the ground. She stared at her bloody, chafed palms.

  This couldn’t be real.

  He couldn’t be real.

  The boy grasped a strand of cut hair from his shoulder and held it between his index and thumb. “Koval’s weapon is quite remarkable.”

  Death dropped the strand but it did not fall. It floated into the air as did droplets of blood and small nearby debris. Stryga watched, confused, as the tall grass flattened around them.

  Inner silver light began to leak from the boy’s body as his eyes glowed a brilliant lilac. He raised his hand into the air, fingers outstretched. “Heed my call, Ruin.”

  A black staff flew out from the bonfire and landed in his palm. The staff inhaled the light from his body, igniting strange sigils all across the orichalcum. With a single fluid motion, Death slammed the staff into the ground and Ruin flared like the sun.

  Stryga fell back as the silver-blue light consumed her vision and a thunderous roar deafened her hearing. The world shook like the sea in a storm and her consciousness teetered close to oblivion. Then it suddenly fell silent. The cries of the living, the shambles of the dead, the clash of steel, and the crackling of the bonfire.

  An unsettling fear fell over Stryga. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Everywhere she looked there was nothing but scorched earth. The village was gone. Her soldiers and friends were gone. There was nothing but the hills in the far-off distance and the patch of grass underneath her feet.

  “They’re gone…” she mumbled in disbelief.

  “Yes, they are,” said the boy. He turned around and walked away.

  “Why!?” she cried out. “Why did you spare me?” she whimpered.

  The boy looked back and his visage fell away like sand and shadow. A figure rose in his place, higher and higher, until he loomed over her. Corded chiseled muscles wrapped in deep blue skin like the sky above. Silver white hair that shone like starlight. He was the most beautiful being she had ever seen and her words left her mind at his sight.

  His eyes undulated with an inner light, but where one might lose themselves in their warm gaze she only found cold apathy. His indifference broke her from her captivation and she found herself staring at the ground, at her trembling blue hands.

  She’d never dare compare her looks to his own, but she had never seen someone else with purple eyes like her own, let alone one that had azure skin and silver hair like herself. “You’re eyes, they’re the same. Why?” she whispered, uncertainty and fear heavy in her voice.

  Death cracked a small amused smile, “You mortals, always trying to equate yourselves to the divine. No, we are not the same. I was here long before the first of your species came to be.”

  “Who are you…?”

  “You already know. You simply refuse to believe it.”

  Stryga dared to look up and stared at the black staff and at the man holding it. “Y-You’re the Traveler… The ebon god of the stars, Stjerne,” she whispered slowly. As soon as she spoke the words she knew them to be true.

  The gods were real, her mother was right.

  “What do you want?” she asked quietly. “If you are angry about Lunis then why let it happen in the first place? Why? Why did you kill my friends? My lover… My soldiers… Why spare me?”

  “A life for a life.”

  “Whose life? I don’t understand. The gods are meant to guide mortalkind, aren’t they? If so, was this part of your plan? Was letting us destroy Lunis what the gods desired? Is this war, all these countless deaths, what you want?”

  “You desire answers. You will not find them here.” He raised his open palm to her eyes, “Sleep.”

  Her vision swam and darkened, then she knew no more.