King Ruken tossed and turned, plagued by a terrible nightmare. With a gasp, he shot up out of bed, cold sweat on his face.
“What’s wrong, my love?” The red-haired elf laying beside him asked after she was awoken by the man’s sudden movement.
“I’m not sure. Something… doesn’t feel right.” He glanced out the window. It was unusually cold in the Kingdom of Blades, despite it being early spring. A terrible, unexpected storm had hit the capital that night with violent gusts of wind and a mix of rain and ice. Lightning struck repeatedly in endless cacophony, making near-constant noise all night. The precipitation peppered the window relentlessly.
Something else was wrong. Storm clouds hadn’t been on the horizon at all when the sun had set. The ferocity of the weather seemed abnormal to him. It was like it had a will of its own. He blinked in surprise as he focused beyond the hissing rain. Despite the midnight hour, but his sprawling castle was well-illuminated by… The king’s heart raced. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the catastrophe and horror visible through the window. His castle, his home, was ablaze! Vast, roaring fires spread across the towering stone building as well as the surrounding structures. The royal quickly reached out mentally using his abundant mana pool as fuel, scanning for the presence of minds over the gargantuan structure in a matter of seconds. The fire was not due to some mere chance lightning strike. There was a coup afoot!
“Get your robes,” he said to his beloved, grim tone brooking no argument.
Surturia quickly complied, equipping her enchanted gear, blood-red robes, and magic staff of spiraling wood that emanated a subtle heat. “Pretty audacious, an attack in the heart of your kingdom, don’t you think?”
“Only one person I know of would dare attempt something like this,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“van Blaine,” the elf spat. “That dog! I will melt his wretched bones for this treason!” She slammed the butt of her staff against the floor, momentarily causing a ring of fire around her.
“No, my love, you mustn’t,” Ruken replied, oddly calm. As he stepped toward the fiery woman, he extended his mana from his core and drew his equipment onto his body. In a matter of seconds, the king was fully adorned in a legendary suit of armor adorned with jewels and made from a lightweight, flexible metal. He reached out his right hand, drawing the last piece of equipment to him: a small, strange ceramic jug that looked like it would hold wine.
Ruken placed his other gauntleted hand on Surturia’s abdomen, “You must leave. Only you can ensure that our son will survive.”
The elf’s eyes widened in surprise, and tears began to form, her anger quickly turning into despair. “It’s a boy? You know?”
The king gave her a gentle smile. “I’m a psion. It’s easy.”
“Come with me,” she pleaded, tears leaking from her eyes. Her lower lip quivered in concern. “Let’s leave this place. We can rebuild, reorganize those loyal to you, then we can reclaim your kingdom.” She said as she placed her hand against his head, her fingers running through his black hair now mixed with some grays.
Ruken shook his head, “If van Blaine has amassed an army large enough to take the castle, then most of my allies are either subdued or dead. There is no way my subordinates would abide such destruction to my home. Besides, it’s my kingdom. If I don’t fight for its survival, who will?”
“We can, together, later. Help me raise our child. Together–”
“No,” he cut her off. “I am a target. They will never stop hunting me. However, they do not know of our child. We must ensure his survival. Please, Surturia, do this not only for me, but for our boy. If he’s anything like either of us, he’s going to need your strong will to keep him in line!”
Ruken inhaled in a deep breath to calm his mind for a few seconds then quickly took the magic circlet he’d summoned off his head. He closed his eyes and wrapped his hand around the single jewel on it, transferring a piece of himself into it. His entire body glowed slightly and he grunted in pain as the process taxed him. Despite the complicated process, the expert cultivator accomplished it in a matter of seconds. The king looked slightly exhausted and had a nosebleed, but aside from that, he was still prepared. He placed the circlet in her free hand, “When he’s ready, give him this. Let him know it’s from me,” he said, glancing at the wide fireplace. With a flex of will, he twisted one of the stone lion statues beside it and triggered the secret exit to open.
The man pulled in his beloved to give her one final kiss, only for a loud banging on the doors to their room to interrupt him. “Go now, and hurry,” he whispered, turning his back to her to face the door.
Surturia pursed her lips, but did as requested. She pulled the hood of her thick robe over her head and disappeared into the dark exit.
Ruken didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. As a psion and an Onyx-rank cultivator of mental mana, he could sense the presence of her mind with his own. Once she began descending the stairs to the hidden exit, he flexed his will once more to close the secret passage.
The human uncorked the jug in his hand. He telekinetically drew out a stream of liquid metal from the container. With a flex of his will, the metal hardened and took shape, forming King Ruken’s fabled blade. It curved slightly into a katana, an ancient sword used by the humans of Midgard before the realms merged. With a powerful swing of his arm, he used the blade to bisect the statue to the secret passage, ensuring no one could follow them. No one would hurt his woman or his boy, not while he lived. Not sure how much longer I have, but I’ll make it count. He thought.
As soon as he flicked the dust from the statue off his blade, the doors burst open. In rushed a group of twenty cultivators, all of them young, Sapphire-rank at most. They were much too weak to pose a real threat. With no ally nearby to consider, the king fully unleashed his aura. A surge of mental mana rushed out of him, engulfing the sizable chamber with his intent and will. The twenty grunts all stopped in their tracks, their bodies collapsing to the ground as the king’s mana effectively broke each of their minds at once.
Another wave charged in behind the now-dead cultivators. This time, it was a contingent of Emeralds. A row of ten dwarves adorned from head to toe in heavy plate mail formed up in front of the king. Many dwarven were some sort of metal mana cultivators, and these seemed to be no exception. They interlocked their shields and activated the same technique. The ten tower shields fused and expanded together to form a wall. Each end dwarf’s shield embedded into the stone of the room’s walls, preventing the king from flanking the soldiers.
Right after the wall formed, a dozen human and elf archers appeared behind the dwarves, trying to catch the king by surprise. They failed. The archers fired a volley of arrows, empowering their velocity with a mix of air and nature mana. Using his telekinesis, the king redirected all the shots to make a ninety-degree turn out the window, shattering the ornate painted glass. The archers nocked their bows for another volley, and the dwarves raised their maces in preparation for a unified technique attack. Ruken gave a slight smile as the arrows he’d directed out the window… returned!
From one of the windows behind the dwarves and archers, the dozen projectiles broke through the glass. They flew in and killed most of the flabbergasted archers plus a few of the dwarven foot soldiers. Just as Ruken had hoped, the sudden attack delayed the soldiers’ next move. With some of the dwarves now dead, too, their unified shield wall technique broke down, making them vulnerable.
In a flash, Ruken had closed the distance. His sword carved a bloody path through the fighters.They fought back, but it was an act of futility. His weapon sliced straight through the enhanced bodies of the cultivators like butter. Despite the archers’ lean bodies and quick speed, it wasn’t enough to evade the psion’s retribution. He easily dodged their attempts to fight back, even with arrows empowered by air mana. The king also ignored their pleas for mercy, as some dropped their weapons upon realizing how outmatched they were. The cowards dared attack him and his beloved. He would eliminate them, draw out their leader, and kill them too.
By the time Ruken was done, there was just one archer left, the rest of invaders now carved up into fleshy chunks and spread across the room. The archer just stood there with his arrow nocked. His face was pale, and his arms trembled in fear. “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen,” he managed shakily.
“What did you think would happen?” Ruken asked, casually dodging the archer’s arrow by moving his head. “That you would kill me?” He slid to the left to avoid another shot. “That I would be murdered by some whelp?”
The archer backed up and shouted in fear as he dropped his bow. In sheer desperation, he stuck his palm out and let loose a Nature Mana technique. A beam of purple flame shot out toward Ruken.
Instead of dodging this time, the king stood still. His pupils constricted as he glared at the beam of fire. It shattered before it could touch him, as if it had struck a solid wall of stone.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The archer just stood there, dumbstruck.
“Let me teach you your final lesson.” Ruken said, and the strength of the king’s aura slammed the elven archer to his back. Slowly, the psion walked toward the encumbered archer. “If you have great goals in life, you will have great opponents. If you have great opponents, you will need even greater strength to defeat them. To get that strength, you must do what is necessary, and you haven’t. Done. Enough.” He punctuated his last words by pointing the tip of his blade at the archer’s throat.
The prone cultivator sputtered idle threats to the king in desperation, going on about how “he came from a great house” and “his family would seek retribution.”
Ruken ignored his words. He stood over his opponent, and in one quick motion, drew his blade across the bleeding archer’s neck. Just as he finished, he sensed the sudden presence of two more people now in the entrance thirty feet in front of him. These two were different, with their forms shrouded by darkness, only now revealing their power. The king was an Onyx, a rank second only to those the most powerful and the very ancient. Both the forms were now exuding a force comparable to his.
Without pretense, one of the figures fired out a beam of ice and frost at the king. Ruken gasped in surprise. If he didn’t dodge or intercept, the technnique could seriously harm him. Despite being caught off-guard, the man was resolute and had been trained for moments like these.
Sensing the imminent attack, Ruken quickly activated the enchantment on his chestpiece, empowering it with his mental mana. A semi-translucent shield emerged around him, rebuffing the attack completely. Instead of the ice striking him, it spread out in all directions, encasing most of the room in a thick layer. The soldier, whose neck Ruken had nearly bisected, was struck from the recoil and frozen into a solid shell of ice. He was still alive, but wouldn’t be for long once Ruken was done with him.
When the beam of ice stopped, a dry, hoarse laugh came from the entrance. The two figures came into the light, revealing Lord van Blaine and his bride. He was an ugly, thin, wiry human, but a savage ice cultivator from a noble family in the northern part of the kingdom. Ruken let out a low growl of anger. Of course van Blaine would be the leader. He thought. The most distinctive factor to thin human were his trademark wings that seemed to be made from feathers of pure ice attached to his back. No other cultivator within the kingdom possessed such an enhancement.
She was a tall, beautiful human woman with rich olive-toned skin. The king did not know much about her, aside that she was a rumored death cultivator and that she was from some supposed rich merchant family. He had never actually discovered where she was from or even her name, though the marriage clearly had to have been arranged. Both husband and wife were wearing strange, conical, pointed helmets made from a maroon-colored metal.
“Good lesson there, Chromebane. Too bad for you, you are the one who hasn’t done enough, tyrant,” van Blaine spat.
“You are a misguided fool, van Blaine, and you have gone too far.”
“No, I haven't gone far enough. Your reign of terror is at an end, tyrant!” van Blaine retorted. “You, and your entire accursed line, have been using your foul mana to manipulate the minds of our entire country! You abominations have been no better than slave drivers with your mind control! Not that we have to worry about them anymore.” He gave a malicious grin as his wife threw two heads onto the icy ground.
The king’s jaw tensed as he looked at the heads. They once belonged to his royal guards–his friends and his fellow psions. Tears welled up in his eyes as he shook his head. van Blaine had coveted his throne ever since Ruken inherited it, and had threatened civil war on more than one occasion. It seemed the noble finally mustered enough courage, more likely enough benefactors, to finally go through with it.
Ruken’s nostrils flared in anger, but he forced himself to stay calm and aware of his surroundings. He did not want to get baited into some sort of trap. “Your greed has blinded you to the truth and led you to kill innocents,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at the man responsible for his comrades’ deaths. “My family has not only been protecting the Kingdom of Blades, but all of the Great Alliance from certain doom.”
“Cease your lies, tyrant!” van Blaine’s wife spat. Her accent was unfamiliar to Ruken, which was impressive, since he was well-traveled throughout Alterra.
“She’s right, Ruken,” van Blaine continued. “Your mad ramblings will not sway us.” He pointed to the odd helmets on their heads. “These helmets are made from Drotrium.”
Ruken reached out his senses to try and touch the couple’s brains. Sure enough, his reach was stopped. Drotrium was rare, exceedingly so, and the amount to make both of the helmets was likely the entire supply of the material in all of the world. What he hadn’t known was its effect against his mental powers. How did he know it was resistant to me? The ice cultivator must have some serious backers, indeed. The king exhaled deeply through his nostrils and readied himself. He knew he couldn’t talk sense to these two, and he didn’t want to, anymore. It was time to make them pay.
Throughout the night, the trio lost themselves amid heated combat. The three unleashed the full force of high-level cultivators, all of them nearing the zenith of cultivation ranking. Large swaths of the castle were obliterated from their fighting, many of the forces engaged around them dying due to the destruction and the rush of their formidable techniques’ power.
Unlike his opponents, however, Ruken did not fight recklessly. Being outnumbered wouldn’t normally force him to be on the defensive, but these two were different. Their strength was comparable to his. He also had the secondary goal of keeping his enemies focused in the opposite direction from where his beloved was escaping. That forced him to take some blows directly, where he could have dodged them. Despite his gear and high level of strength, each strike dealt significant damage to the king’s body.
The rising sun of the new dawn shone its first rays on the only structure still standing inside the royal courtyard–a tall, thin tower of spiraling obsidian. Incredibly, it had survived the wrath and ferocity from the three cultivators, when all else had succumbed. The magic spire was extremely durable, near indestructible, and it showed as it stood alone amidst the surrounding destruction.
The three Onyx-rank cultivators were the only ones still alive from the night’s fighting. Many soldiers loyal to both sides of the conflict were unfortunate casualties due to the scale and power of their fight. The stench of death and smoke surrounded the trio. The courtyard they stood in was littered with rubble and bodies that were either frozen, rotten and desiccated, or sliced to ribbons. Ruken was sure he could’ve taken van Blaine on his own, but his strange wife fought with battlelust that seemed to rival that of a berserker. She alone had given him pause.
All three were exhausted, and Ruken was on his last leg. He was breathing heavily. His body was covered in various patches of rotten sores and frostbite. His legendary blade was held lower, the strength needed to keep his form up was lacking.
Ruken hadn’t fought many Onyxes before. There weren’t many in the world to begin with, but the pair were truly some of the most fierce he’d ever went up against. Ruken couldn’t afford for the battle to go much further, but he could still end this coup. The king was confident that he wouldn’t live, but if van Blaine died also, his beloved and son should be safe. He focused most of his remaining mana into propelling his body forward for one final strike. If he could decapitate the ice cultivator, he would hopefully cut the head off the snake.
As the king surged forward, the usurper's eyes widened in horror. Van Blaine had thought king Ruken unable of such speed anymore. Caught off-guard, he raised his hands in a useless defensive gesture and closed his eyes as he braced for death. It did not come, though. Before the king could finish his swing, he was struck in the jaw by a fist covered in crackling green necrotic energy. The blow knocked him off-course, and he crashed into the obsidian spire.
Despite the speed of the impact, the spire refused to move. Instead, the king’s scapula fractured into shards, his left shoulder hanging uselessly by his side. The pain forced him to drop his blade. Ruken groaned and slowly turned back to face the couple, pressing his spine against the spire for support as he breathed heavily. Not only was his shoulder in ruins, so was his face. The necrotic energy from van Blaine’s wife’s attack had sent death mana into his flesh and bones. His face and neck were slowly beset with stabbing pain followed by numbness, and his jaw began to rot.
Seeing the sudden reversal of his fortunes, van Blaine smirked, “At last your reign is at an end, Ruken. Now, I will lead the Kingdom of Blades.”
The king furrowed his brow. He hadn’t been able to use his mental mana directly against them all night, and he desperately sought one last way to evade defeat. While the traitor was busy gloating in his all-but-assured victory, he tried one last attack. With a flex of his will, using the final remainder of his mental mana, the king telekinetically flung his sword at the weasel of a man. The blade stabbed through van Blaine’s left eye. It wasn’t deep enough to kill, but still adequately rearranged his ugly visage.
The wiry noble screamed in surprise and agony. He ripped out the blade then clutched at his ruined face. He shouted as more pain struck him from removing the weapon. Blood gushed freely from in between his fingers. After a few seconds of the king’s cries of distress, his anger helped him to quickly composed himself, and he froze over the wound to stop the bleeding. Van Blaine turned to the king and scowled. “I sense no more mana coming from your body any more, Ruken.” He growled.
With a glee creeping over his face, he used an especially cruel technique against his defenseless foe. “Let me give you a parting gift.” He reached out slowly toward Ruken, his hand encrusted with ice, and activated Icy Veins. It was a tortuous technique that van Blaine could only use now because he could actually get a hold of his opponent for more than a second.
At the look on van Blaine’s face, the thin noble’s hand extending inexorably toward him, King Ruken’s shoulders sank. He had nothing left to give. Van Blaine grabbed his wrist, and the king groaned in pain as his blood slowly cooled, crystallizing inside his body. His enhanced body was the only thing that extended his life long enough to listen to this imposter’s rant as the ice grew and solidified within his veins.
“You really believe your lies, don’t you, Ruken? You truly are mad,” he said. His wife confidently strode over to join him, the woman standing a good foot taller than the noble.
The king shook as the technique tortured his body slowly, his vessels rupturing from the cold, and his organs ceasing all function. Frost formed on his skin. Still, his mind put together the pieces of the puzzle. In a flash, his eyes widened in instant realization as to true motives behind this coup. “Your plan… will fail,” the king struggled to say. “The… dragons will fail be… cause…” He took one last desperate inhale but didn’t speak. He kept the last part to himself. I’m not the last…psion, he thought and smiled as the encroaching ice and frost overtook his whole body, and the king was no more. As soon as he passed, his enchanted items took on a life of their own, leaving his body and battlefield to fly off far and wide.
Though his lips twisted in confusion, the one-eyed ice cultivator laughed evilly. He had overcome Ruken and won the throne. Van Blaine used some of his remaining mana to refreeze his bleeding eye socket as it started hemorrhaging again. He looked down at the pathetic frozen body of the man in front of him and tightened his right hand into a fist, shattering the dead king into countless pieces. “Dragons? Preposterous,” he laughed at the dead king’s words. “You may not be the last, mad tyrant, but I will ensure that any of the wretches who followed you in life will meet the same terrible end.”