Chapter 41: "The Fall of Aurethys"

Xeroth cornered Zenith against the tide of Plague, using his arms as an inescapable prison.

Faced with the situation, she turned her will toward an unrelenting devastation: she no longer sought only to finish the Lord of Flagellum, but to raze everything in her path, consumed by despair.

Her hands danced in an endless series of gestures as she writhed in the air, evading Xeroth. Thus she moved the invisible threads of the world, consuming it in a slow destruction.

Then, in a blinding clash of power, space faltered and I emerged onto one of the neighboring islands.

"Weren’t we falling?" I asked Jix, confused, unable to believe that out of nowhere we had been transported to another part of the field.

"Yes, but look around you." Jix pointed out as he reinforced my gloves with brambles and dry thorns.

Chance was what saved me. My heart raced: I could not believe I had been on the verge of being swallowed by one of the fissures.

Aurethys was not only plunged into chaos by the destruction of the Order of the Infected, but the laws of the universe no longer obeyed as they should.

The sky was collapsing: a storm of contradictory colors like no other loomed over our heads. There were floating blocks of water, houses overlapping one another, as if they were fusing yet simultaneously repelling.

Are these the powers of the Gods? And can the Feather challenge them? How terrifying.

"Space no longer functions properly." Jix noted, showing me how bolts of lightning pierced invisible barriers and their light struck unpredictable places.

"And Darek? Where is the Feather?"

I lost sight of him. No, that’s better. If I don’t see him, he doesn’t see me. That gives me enough time to…

"Jix, cover me!" I shouted as time ran against us. At any moment, the Plague would reach us or a God would crush us like insects.

Or worse… Darek would kill me, as he did Corin and Lodric. No, I will not allow that; I will not let their deaths be an empty collection in his mind.

I closed my eyes and delved into the abyss within me: the power that, as a Daughter of Silence, had been granted to me.

I traced the flow of the world, invisible and fleeting paths drawn like ephemeral trails in a realm alien to man.

That is the path the Intermediaries navigate to hunt down souls in misfortune.

In that space, dominion belonged to them: their unreal shapes traveled in an endless sway where they claimed the helpless.

Not only did their amorphous bodies disturb me, but the bizarre way hundreds of thousands of Intermediaries piled into a grotesque mass.

This is not normal: their numbers are overwhelming. I had never seen anything like it before. Does it herald the twilight of Aurethys? Is the scourge inexorable? Or does human despair concentrate in this place with gargantuan intensity?

"Do not dare seek new Pacts if you have not settled the one you contracted with me: your debt still hangs over your head." Said the Intermediary who, since I revived Darek, has always been watching me from that dimension, unperturbed.

"Do not despair, abomination. Soon I will repay your vigil." I replied calmly, while his eyes circled my body, demanding that the price be paid now or never.

I made a motion to put my hand into the amalgam of Intermediaries. However, I hesitated.

Come on, courage up. Don’t let the situation overwhelm you. Yes, they are many, too many, a catastrophic number, but this will not make my purpose here fade.

I plunged my hand into their ranks and tore one of them out.

"I wish to be strong and swift. Bow before me and grant my request." I said firmly though images of the brutality of the Pacts swirled in my mind.

"I accept, human. The price will be that your courage falters, slowly." the Intermediary replied, baring his jaws in glee.

My body accepts his blessing… I feel light, free.

I woke, opened my eyes. Before me, Jix struggled trying to hold back Darek. His movements were frantic, voracious. Not even the strength of an ancient World God could stop him.

I leapt between islands, lunging at him. My movements were dizzying and the impact of my fists overwhelming.

This time I will make you bleed out: you will pay for your crimes with death.

A blaze of punches and slashes set his face alight; a cloud of thorns lashed him and embedded in his flesh. With my will, I reduced his freedom of movement.

A powerful feeling of adventure and action ran through my veins, giving me the drive to keep fighting: I was hunting prey.

Even though I take some of his attacks, I feel I could go on like this forever.

We jumped from island to island, hunting each other to kill. We battled in a deadly dance, matched in fury, where our blows canceled each other and the thin line between life and death was grazed in an instant.

I saw him brandish the sword inches from my face, its edge brushing my cheeks. Still, he did not yield. With Jix at my side I gained ground: I cornered him at the precipice, forcing him to fall back.

I am dominating him. If I continue like this, he will give in to the pressure. I face him as a rival, not as before, when he seemed an unstoppable force.

He wielded his sword wildly: blinded by rage, he could no longer endure how I oppressed him. Jix created around me a base of frogs that helped me hurl myself at him one last time.

Slowly, the storm descended. Soon it would reach the ground wrapped in a constellation of lightning and ruins: it would finish everything.

Now then, you will not escape.

He covered himself with the sword. However, my speed had taken him by surprise: he did not manage to adopt a solid stance, so with one strike I broke his guard.

I saw him stagger, retreat uncontrollably, and avert his gaze from mine.

Hurricane winds swirled across Aurethys, tearing even the city’s grandest buildings apart. Along with them, a thick, incomprehensible fog swallowed the red sun on the horizon.

Not even the night understands what is happening.

A fissure interposed itself in my path, showing me the void I had almost fallen into: not even eternity would be enough to escape it.

Seeing inside it, fear invaded me, the strength in my hands faltered and my legs shook. My courage was deteriorating, just as the Intermediary had foretold.

"Zera, watch out!" Jix cried from afar, weaving a barrier of fungi around me. However, Darek’s speed overcame it.

His face lunged at mine, rising face to face. His sword pierced one side of my abdomen and the serpent sank its fangs into his wrist.

What is happening? Why doesn’t he react? Does he not feel my pain? His expression has not changed; he smiles as if enjoying my panic, my horror.

The tide of Plague had submerged Aurethys. No inhabitant remained alive: only the corpses of the Knights floated in the immensity of that sea.

This is not the time to give up. I will never have him this close again. That mark on his forehead has weakened him: I can see his brain pulsating. That is his weak point.

Despite my agony, I grabbed his sword still lodged in my body and, feeling my organs tear, I used my other fist to try to strike his forehead.

Finally, this is what I was looking for.

I couldn't help but smile—the happiness killing him would bring me and thus being able to rewrite his past, extinguish his story: to write one where his existence had never infested this world.

At that moment, when my gauntlet was about to collide with his skull, Zenith’s will once again swept everything away.

An overwhelming pressure struck my body, wrenching it apart. Darek’s sword lodged in my belly. I was flung until I crashed against one of Kaleron’s rings, and I lost sight of Darek again.

Xeroth did not fall behind: he emitted a shriek that made my eardrums vibrate as he writhed madly. Mountains of horns suddenly rose from the ground, ripping themselves from the earth like living beasts.

The Feather… I almost managed to obtain it.

The world shook again, the storm descended suddenly and, as fate had decreed, the ruins of Aurethys rose as the last vestiges of what once was.