Chapter 261: Destroy The Cursed (77)

Chapter 261No way... it can’t be, Magus thought, eyes narrowing.

The dark smoke cleared and a figure stepped out. Burnt flesh dotted his body like fresh wounds. "Shut the hell up already," he snapped, voice tight with barely restrained fury.

The small purple glow in his eyes confirmed it. Ronan. Still alive. Still refusing to die.

Ronan looked at Magus, dug into his palm, and swallowed a white pill whole.

The System answered instantly. Restoration pill consumed. All status restored to peak.

Power surged through him... bone knitting, burns sealing, every tendon and tendon-mind flickering back to life. HP. Energy. Exhaustion, all were gone like they’d never been. And then the impossible: Onslaught’s timer blinked back to life.

Onslaught skill activated. Host damage increased a hundredfold.

Ronan’s hands trembled as he stood. He looked up at Magus and spat, "You should shut your mouth. You talk about the greater good, about sacrifices so countless others may live but you serve the cursed. You and your order have caused those deaths. You’ve ruined lives... men, women, children. How do you justify that?"

Magus didn’t answer. He only watched.

Ronan let out an angry chuckle, raw and ugly. "You can’t answer because there’s no justification. What the cursed have done, what you’ve done deserves death. All of you."

"I’ll get rid of you. And the others. Today, the cursed must fall."

He activated the dread crown.... the artifact he had gotten after killing the Dreadlord. It merged into him, weaving itself into an intricate suit of armor that wrapped his frame. Plates locked like a knight’s shell, edges honed and dark as a moonless night. The thing radiated power and a quiet, grinding dread.

Ronan’s purple eyes flared. A cold, violent aura bled into his blades. He raised them and crossed them in front of his chest, an X of steel and shadow.

In a low, icy whisper that tasted like a promise, he said two words:

"LET’S ROLL."

Far from the blazing battlefield, high up the mountain, a cavern sighed with a false calm. The fighting inside had raged for hours now it lay quiet. Not the kind of quiet that heals. The kind that waits. The calm before the storm.

Quint’s eyes twitched. His whole body trembled with disbelief.hat finished her.

She hit that limit hard. Clara collapsed to the floor, slick with blood, lungs burning. She breathed in tiny, ragged breaths. She was surviving on sheer will and nothing else.

Aiden stepped forward and grabbed her head in a strangling, tender motion. His face was hollow.... empty but there was depth in the pain there too. He trembled as if pulled between two currents.

"So... this is it, then?" Clara forced a smile through the blood and grit.

Aiden’s body convulsed. He was fighting something inside him. For a sliver of a second, light flashed in his eyes then Quint’s voice cut through the cavern like a blade.

"Kill her," Quint ordered. Cold. Merciless.

Aiden’s frame shook. He didn’t want to obey. He tried not to. But the puppet strings snapped taut. There was no choice.

One hand shifted. A second limb, sleek and black morphed into an obsidian dagger, dark as a void. The essence wrapped itself around the blade and turned it into something frighteningly alive. It fell toward Clara’s throat.

Silence swallowed the strike. No pain. No cold steel. Only an impossible stillness.

Clara opened her eyes and saw something she didn’t expect: Aiden, face wet with tears that were almost... horribly.... happy. The dagger hovered inches from her skin. He smiled.

"You did well, Clara. You bought us enough time," he whispered.

Her chest stuttered. He’d broken free, he’d snapped the strings, even if only for a breath. But the puzzle solved itself from across the room.

Quint stood a few metres away, confusion flickering across his face. Red liquid trickled from his mouth to the stone floor. Clara’s gaze followed the stain and then looked up.

A bladed limb.... Aiden’s severed limb had impaled Quint through the throat. The scene moved in staccato: Quint’s eyes widened with shock, rage warred with pain, then his face slackened. Aiden’s stare went cold, shadowed.

"The one who deserves to die... is you," Aiden rasped.

The bladed limb tore free on its own. Quint’s pupils rolled; his hatred faded into nothing. He collapsed with a dull thud.

One of the Dark Emissaries was dead.

TO BE CONTINUED.......

AUTHOR’S NOTE

That’s the Chapter, everyone!

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– Ultra