Chapter 78: The tainted light
Leornars, walked with a measured, almost ghost-like pace. His long, tailored coat, the color of twilight ink, settled perfectly over his lean, commanding frame. Every line of his face, from the sharp, almost painful angle of his jaw to the cold, distant gaze of his crimson eyes, was a testament to precision. There was no looseness, no flicker of indecision, only the quiet, deadly resolve of a honed blade.
He had barely taken ten steps when a flash of bright color and frantic movement shattered the somber ambiance.
"Uncle Leornars! Wait for me!"
A little girl, shot out from the side path. This was Shullah, a whirlwind of boundless, innocent energy. Her hair, the vibrant gold of a summer sunrise and her black dragonian horns, bounced with every skip, and her eyes, wide and perpetually curious, were the only genuine blue he ever cared to look upon.
She ran, a tiny blur of bright silks, and with a surprisingly powerful leap, she launched herself right at him. Leornars, without breaking his stride or changing the flat, unreadable expression on his face, caught her seamlessly, lifting her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather.
Shullah, nestled securely against the cold, expensive fabric of his coat, tilted her head back, her fingers gently touching his cheek. She studied him with the earnest, unforgiving scrutiny only a child could muster.
"Uncle Leornars," she began, her voice a soft, innocent chime that seemed impossibly loud against the silence of his spirit. "Why do you never laugh? Aren't you happy?"
Her question was a tiny, sharp needle, pressing directly onto the deadened nerve cluster of his soul. Leornars held her gaze, his eyes reflecting her image with detached clarity. His mouth remained perfectly level.
"Happy?" he echoed, the word feeling utterly alien on his tongue. It was less a question and more a philosophical query about a state he could not comprehend. He walked slowly now, carrying her toward the outer perimeter where the great road began.
"I lost my childhood, Shullah. Every second of it," he said, his voice low, steady, and entirely devoid of warmth. "I never got to experience it like you do, never knew the silly joy of a summer day or the comfort of a mother's hug."
He paused, a flicker—not of pain, but of cold, clinical remembrance—passing across his mind.
"I spent my entire youth in a cage, little one. Nine years of it. I was merely an object for them, a subject to be experimented upon, to be broken and remade."
He looked away, across the bleak, meticulously cultivated garden that was a cruel mimicry of nature.
"I cannot laugh or cry, Shullah. I cannot mourn the dead or genuinely confide in the living. Those mechanisms—the emotional feedback loops that make a person human—were stripped away, systematically destroyed."
He adjusted his grip, a tiny gesture of protection for the light in his arms.
"I try my best, though. I mimic the right expressions. I work relentlessly to make everyone around me—especially you and the others who follow me—happy. Because I never got to be happy myself. My life is now a compensation for the void within me."
Shullah's brow furrowed, a tiny crease of confusion.
"But you did smile that time," she insisted, remembering a moment weeks ago.
Leornars exhaled, a silent, almost mechanical release of breath.
"I only mimic the expression I see people use," he clarified, his voice brutally honest. "I registered that the visual cue of a mouth curving upwards, accompanied by an exhalation, signifies amusement to others. I am nothing but a tainted light, Shullah. A beacon of vengeance born from the purest darkness. Ironic called the white plague, isn't it?"
He lifted her a little higher, a sudden, almost fierce possessiveness in his grip. The cold façade cracked slightly, revealing the burning core of his ambition.
"But this deadness… this numbness… it makes me perfect for what must be done. I will make sure no one—no child, no victim—ever feels the dehumanizing pain I did. I will tear down the rotten foundations of this world. I will erase the corrupt noble factions, and the foolish human species that enabled their atrocities will atone for their sins."
He put her down gently, his eyes scanning the road ahead, toward the distant glow o a town..
What would I sacrifice for my emotions? What wouldn't I give away for genuine happiness? The thought was a relentless, silent scream in the sterile chamber of his mind. To feel a genuine flicker of joy, a rush of true anger, a single tear of true sorrow… I would trade every kingdom, every undead soldier, every drop of power I possess.
He began his solitary walk, a dark, imposing figure against the ancient cobblestones of the royal road. Shullah remained at the gate, a tiny spot of sunshine watching her 'Uncle' fade into the distance.
Beside him, materializing from a shimmering, obsidian swirl that looked like a tear in reality itself, was Ascian, Leornars's undead inferno wolf
The road wound through low, rolling hills dotted with sparse, wind-battered pines. The air grew cooler, carrying the faint, metallic scent of distant construction and the earthy smell of unworked soil.
Leornars paused at the crest of the first hill, his gaze sweeping over the landscape. He took a slow, deep breath, not for life, but for the practice of sensation.
"I don't know if everything that is going on is a dream," his inner monologue began, a stream of consciousness that was both intensely philosophical and deeply personal. Am I in the dungeon still, hallucinating this grand facade of power? Is everything I've done—the bloodshed, the betrayals, the rise of Avangard—been for the better good, or merely the self-justification of a madman?
He tilted his head back, looking toward the indifferent, grey sky. Have I made my mother proud? I execute her murderers, but does my path of darkness honor the kindness she was slain for? What would I give to reclaim the one thing they stole: my happiness?
He walked on, his boots clicking a steady rhythm on the stone.. "
He is already accelerating the pacification of Lurtra's last holdouts. If I'm not wrong Stacian will be anticipating to meet me in the Kingdom of Seraphim within four days."
Leornars merely nodded, his mind already drifting back to the relentless, looping patterns of his internal philosophy.
Everything has a beginning and an end. That's the single, unforgiving truth of this plane of existence. The only thing that truly matters is our present—the single, fleeting moment we can control. Our past is the immovable, unchangeable record; our future is a foggy promise. Our present is our responsibility.
He glanced down at a small cluster of moss clinging defiantly to a rock face.
Everyone craves to see a man's future, claiming it will be perfect, bright, and heroic. Yet, none of them are truly ready to see him fall, to weep, to fail in his moment of greatest weakness. They focus so much on a man's future, the glorious destiny... and yet, no one ever asks about a woman's past. A person's past defines who they were; their future defines who they will be. As for our present... it defines who we are supposed to be right now.
He stopped again, the silent philosophical pause his only indulgence. He looked into the sparse, ancient forest bordering the road. The sun, finally struggling to break through the clouds, cast long, distorted shadows of the pines.
Someone who betrays you once—they will absolutely do it again. It's not a mistake; it's in their fundamental nature. He clenched his empty hand slightly, the memory of noble faces and hollow promises a cold burn in his non-existent heart. Don't drink the entire sea to confirm it's salty—one sip is enough. But humans, they crave denial. They'll drown just to confirm what their intuition already knew.
He sighed, a sound that was less emotional and more the friction of dry air against his throat.
Betrayal and manipulation are key, defining aspects of our lives. We constantly invalidate them, claiming they are illusions, products of paranoia. Yet, they exist more vividly, more tangibly, than the fragile concept of love we hold dear.
He kicked a small stone across the road, sending it skipping into the ditch.
So why does it hurt, still, to see someone who betrayed you get away with it? Is it that we perceive justice not doing its needed, inevitable work? Is it merely our own fundamental misunderstanding of the world, or is it our saddened, willful ignorance to accept what is true: that good often loses, and the vile often thrive?
He shook his head slowly. I don't know. You can't kill a man and expect him to apologize for it afterward. How is a corpse supposed to apologize? A dead man feels nothing, expresses nothing.
He looked to Ascian, who was patiently and silently waiting for his Lord's journey to continue. Leornars pat him on the head.
All life is unique, and all forms are different, but all are equal when it comes to fear. Fear defines us; it reconstructs us. We hate it, despise it, but we learn more from it than from any hollow victory. That's just the true, ugly way of life.
As they continued, a fresh, cold breeze whipped past, rustling the dry leaves in the ditch.
As we cling to the fantasy of enlightenment, know this: even the purest souls had a dark, violent beginning. No one is pure. No one is truly innocent. Ignorance and prejudice are equal forces in their embrace for glory, as we watch false heroes rise and the truth hidden by the sickly light of deception. Sounds deeply ironic coming from my mouth, the Archon of Shadows, I know.
He walked on, his thoughts concluding their dark symphony.
But even the concept of darkness itself has a future, had a past, and has its own present. It has its own conclusion and its own beginning. For nothing truly appears out of nowhere. Pride, wrath, sloth, lust, and even greed—they are not outside forces. They are the true, core attributes of our own ways, because we claim nothing is our fault, yet cling fiercely to falsehood and our own delusions. That is the true, unforgiving mirror of our core.
With that, Leornars stepped over the final crest of the hill. Below him, nestled in the valley, began the outer settlements was a regional town . The air here was slightly warmer, the scents a mix of woodsmoke, livestock, and the heavy perfume of an old, established civilization. He had a mission to execute in Seraphim kingdom, and the cold calculations of strategy replaced the hot, fruitless rage of philosophy.
He took out a small, folded map from his coat and gave it a cursory glance.
"Ascian. We detour around the main trade routes. We enter through the eastern settlement of Signiah. No fanfare, no attention."
The beast nodded.
The two figures—one of flesh and shadow-magic, the other of pure, devoted shadow-construct—veered off the road and began their descent toward the distant, bustling sound of human life.
They had walked for hours, cutting across rough, uneven terrain. The sun had long since begun its slow, orange descent, painting the clouds above Signiah in hues of desperate, beautiful color that Leornars barely registered.
The settlement of Signiah was a cluster of modest stone and timber houses, a frontier town that served as the first point of civilized contact for travelers coming from the north. The air was thick with the evening clamor of people closing shops, cooking, and the distant, raucous laughter from a tavern.
They walked a narrow, deserted side path that led directly into the heart of the settlement. Ascian, as always, moved like a wisp of smoke, utterly silent, his presence barely displacing the air.
It was the sudden, overwhelming density of ambient human emotion—the collective noise of Signiah's people—that hit Leornars. Normally, his Heartless skill (Calamity Core: Nullification), a passive state forged in the crucible of his torture, would filter out the noise, keeping his mind in a state of cold, sterile calm.
But as he took the fifth step into the alleyway, the skill deactivated.
It wasn't a failure of magic; it was an external interference. A massive spike of unfamiliar, raw energy, radiating from the nearby town, had momentarily overloaded and suppressed his internal suppression mechanism.
"Anti magic?! No, this is different, feels like Pollium drug as a barrier spell" He groaned.
The silence in his mind shattered.
The world instantly dissolved into an auditory and visual assault. The laughter from the tavern turned into shrill, echoing screams. The smell of cooking food became the stench of burning wood and decaying flesh. The entire, brutal loop of his mother's execution—the single memory his mind was constantly fighting to subdue—replayed in his mind in agonizing, hyper-realistic detail.
The fire. The rope. The faces of the sneering nobles. The sight of his own ten-year-old self, powerless, bleeding in his cage, forced to watch.
A sound escaped Leornars—a raw, strangled gasp that was entirely involuntary. His vision tunneled.
He fell to his knees on the rough, dusty path, the sudden, cataclysmic influx of genuine, unfiltered grief and guilt tearing through his meticulously constructed calm.
His hands slammed onto the ground, his body arching in silent agony. The cold, mechanical focus in his eyes was replaced by an oceanic tide of overwhelming sorrow.
And then, his eyes began to cry blood.
Thick, viscous, black-red tears streamed from his eyes, staining his pale cheeks like twin scars His body, his magic, and his will had forgotten the mechanism. But the shock was so profound that his eyes, unable to produce normal tears, hemorrhaged under the psychic pressure.
"M-Mother..." the word was a rasp, a broken whisper.
Ascian instantly went rigid, his form coalescing into an imposing shield of shadow around his master, his void-eyes scanning the surrounding buildings for the source of the interference.
Leornars, driven by pure instinct—the desperate, primal need to make the agony stop—scrambled toward the shadows of a narrow alleyway between a butcher's shop and a storage shed.
It's the chip. It's the experimental control chip the nobles implanted! The one I thought I disabled! It's still connected to something!
In a moment of staggering, desperate violence against himself, he snatched a razor-sharp, ceremonial knife from his inner coat pocket.
There was no time for careful surgery, no time for spells. Driven to the brink of utter madness by the returning trauma, he jammed the point of the blade into his own scalp, cutting a deep, ragged slice across the crown of his head.
In unimaginable pain—a scream that was purely internal, a silent explosion of agony that shook the very air around Ascian—he clawed at the incision. With a final, desperate tug, he pulled something out and threw it onto the ground.
It was a glistening, disgusting object: a worm-like chip of dark, biological technology that pulsed with a faint, sickening orange light.
His hands shook violently. Black blood, now mixed with the red from his scalp wound, was dripping onto the pavement with a bloody scream.He gasped, falling back against the cold, grimy stone wall of the shed, the physical pain a blessed relief from the psychic torture.
He instantly channeled his own dark magic—Dark cure—into his palm, pushing concentrated healing energy into the wound. The bleeding slowed, the deep cuts sealing shut.
But the worst cut—the one across his scalp—didn't fully close. It healed to a dull, throbbing raw redness, but the skin refused to knit together.
A sickening realization washed over him, a cold dread that pierced through the residual fog of his pain.
"Damn that Pollium drug I can't use magic till three hours from now" he said.
His wound would not heal quickly.
He tore open the fine fabric of his shirt, a garment of exceptional make, and pressed the thick cloth against his head to clot the flow of the hot, sticky blood.
He took a few steps, leaning heavily on the wall. The ambient noises of the town began to filter back in, but now, a fresh horror began.
Voices. Not outside voices, but a cacophony of sound blooming inside his damaged skull. They began to argue, to accuse, to scream.
"YOU were the one whomade mother get executed , Leornars!"
"You are a MONSTER, a vile creature of darkness! Your mother's death is on YOUR HANDS!"
"You are a sin, An anomaly in this world!"
—"She died because you were WEAK! Her sacrifice was in vain! IN VAIN!"*
The voices amplified, twisting the innocent background noises of the town—a child's cry, a dog's bark—into agonizing screams of pain and blame. The entire world was accusing him of his mother's death.
"Shut up,SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!!!"he shouted
He stumbled forward, his hands flying to his head. The mental torment was worse than the knife. The lack of proper healing in his scalp, combined with the removal of the chip, had left a psychic vulnerability.
Stop it. Make it stop!
With a final, desperate surge of self-annihilation, Leornars bashed his head on the alleyway wall. Hard. The sickening thud was followed by a ragged exhale, and his body slumped.
He fell unconscious, his cheek against the cold, dusty ground, blood oozing steadily from the unhealed wound.
The last thing he saw before the world went black was the pulsating, worm-like chip lying just inches away. With the final sliver of his conscious will, he forced his latent magical ability—the Threads of Abstract—to manifest.
Ethereal, glowing-black threads shot out from his hand, wrapping around the chip. They sliced the biomatter into a hundred tiny, useless pieces. Then, with a roar of silent, focused power, he incinerated the remnants with a burst of Dark Aria, reducing the entire thing to a pile of black dust.
"At least I was able to remove it," he thought, his consciousness finally succumbing to the darkness.
While Leornars lay motionless in the grimy alleyway of Signiah, far away from the kingdom of Seraphim , events were moving rapidly .
The Royal Audience Chamber, a room normally radiating with the gold-and-crimson arrogance of the Durmount Royal Line, felt smaller, colder. The Crowned Prince had just completed his coronation. He was now King—an insultingly rapid ascent to the throne, as his father, King Selamendra, was currently in the custody of the Royal Knights, facing charges of corruption, abuse of power, and—most crucially—treasonous association with dark forces.
The new King was everything his father had been accused of, and worse: lazy, arrogant, and easily manipulated. He sat heavily on the throne, adjusting the crown that was several sizes too large for his ambition.
The massive, carved doors of the chamber opened, and Princess Selrose entered. She was an iceberg of a woman, outwardly beautiful and regal, but possessing an internal coldness,she glided across the marble floor with unnerving poise.
"Brother," she said, her voice dripping with the careful, synthetic respect reserved for puppets.
"Selrose. The crown is heavier than I thought," the new King complained, scratching his nose.
"It is the weight of responsibility, your Majesty," she replied, stepping closer, her demeanor shifting to one of serious counsel. "I have reviewed the current state of the surrounding kingdoms. Your Majesty, the Great Powers are expanding their territories. To remain stagnant is to become a target."
She leaned in slightly, a subtle, enticing move.
"The minor kingdom of Lurtra, to our south, is currently fragmented. They are rich in iron ore and prime farmland, and are now weakened by internal strife. They are ripe for the taking, Brother. An easy, glorious victory on the foreign stage would cement your rule as a powerful and decisive new King."
"But didn't father send knights to Lurtra and were utterly humiliated?"he asked
" That was father's flaw he attacked them when they were using Pollium,if we gave it to our troops and you were willing be stronger than them adding that now they are weakened" Selrose lied
The King's eyes, dull moments before, widened with the glint of easily won glory.
"Lurtra, you say? Weakened?" He puffed out his chest. "Yes! A new era requires a bold action! An order will be issued immediately. The Royal Army is to invade Lurtra Kingdom Seize their assets and claim their land for Durmount!"
"An excellent, decisive move, your Majesty," Selrose purred, dipping into a deep, elegant curtsey. The smile she wore was perfectly regal.
She backed away and, upon exiting the grand chamber, the smile dissolved, replaced by a cold, triumphant smirk.
"Just as planned," she whispered to herself, the victory tasting like bitter wine.
" Poor fool will find seventy thousand Avangard knights and twenty thousand Lurtra knights waiting for him , adding that Stacian is there I kinda almost feel bad for him but it's for the greater good. We can't be ruled by a boy with no motivation,that's ludicrous like following a blind man in the dark" she thought.
"Now, the only thing left is for him to die tragically in the ensuing war in Lurtra, which Lord Leornars has already thought of and set in motion." Her thoughts were precise, brutal, and utterly devoted to the white plague. "His arrogance will lead him to the front line, the fighting will be unexpectedly fierce thanks to Leornars's disruption, and a stray enemy blade will solve all our succession problems. Finally, the royal family that murdered Leornars's allies will be fully extinct. The debt will be repaid."
Back in the dark, blood-spattered alleyway of Signiah, Leornars laid motionless. His body, bruised and unconscious, was a testament to the sheer destructive force of unresolved trauma.
Suddenly, a faint, crystalline blue light emanated from the spot above his chest. It was the glow of a hidden mana source.
A cool, ethereal female voice, one Leornars had never heard and yet felt deep within his core, echoed in the silent chamber of his mind. This was not the chip; this was a foreign, sentient system.
[Host Body in Critical Danger. Blood loss at 18%. Severe Psychic Trauma Detected. Heartless Core Integrity compromised.]
The voice, calm and utterly professional, continued its assessment, a hint of something resembling annoyed human emotion entering its tone.
[Beginning immediate conversion of residual host mana reserves to Adaptive Healing Energy. System parameters indicate this level of self-harm was not anticipated. Seriously, all this trouble over a memory loop? This is not what I signed up for, huh? Oh, well.]
The voice sighed—a soft, computer-like exhale.
[Beginning Adaptive Healing Protocol. Prioritizing Neural Stabilization and Physical Wound Closure. Prepare for energy consumption spike.]
"Suddenly you grew an attitude you damn system" Leornars struggled saying.
A wave of pure, concentrated energy—not Dark cure, but something brighter, cleaner, and far more potent—flowed into Leornars's body. The unhealed incision on his scalp, which had resisted his Dark cure due to the Pollium, began to swiftly knit itself back together. The black blood ceased its flow. The chaotic voices in his head instantly vanished, muted by the systemic reboot.
"job done, just don't do anything reckless"Althelia said
Leornars awoke to the gentle, rhythmic sound of rain against a windowpane and the faint, comforting scent of dried herbs and woodsmoke.
He blinked, his vision clearing. He was lying on a makeshift bed of straw, covered by a rough, wool blanket. The room was small, dimly lit, and smelled strongly of fertilizer and earthy growth. He was in what appeared to be a small farmer's or herbalist's shop.
He sat up quickly, his hand instinctively going to his head. The wound was gone. The skin was smooth, fully healed, leaving no scar, as if the injury had never happened.
The door to the back room opened, and a kind-faced, stout woman with calloused hands walked in, carrying a bowl of steaming porridge.
"Ah! You're awake, young man! What a dreadful state you were in! Luckily, my son found you just as we were closing up. Don't you worry, my husband is a wonderful healer—he fixed you right up," she said, setting the bowl down.
Leornars, his mind already running diagnostic checks on his body and magic, immediately noticed the woman's casual mention of her husband's healing.
"Thank you for your kindness," he said, his voice flat, but polite. "I must have overexerted myself."
"Nonsense, you were struck down by something fierce! Look, have some porridge. It'll put the life back in you."
He looked at the bowl, his face utterly devoid of hunger or interest.
"I refuse to eat," he stated simply, already sliding off the bed and retrieving his meticulously folded coat and weapon from a nearby bench. He glanced around but saw no sign of Ascian.
"Well! Suit yourself, then. But you should know, the entire village is talking about the new danger. The Swamp Monster. The creature is on its way to Signiah; several travelers saw it heading this way from the fens. Stay inside tonight, young man. It's too dangerous out there."
Leornars paused at the door, the word 'monster' catching his interest. He had only one destination in mind: the nearby town of Seraphim. But a delay for an exercise was not unwelcome.
"Thank you for the warning," he said, pulling on his coat.
He walked out into the cool, damp night. He moved with purpose, heading not toward the main road, but toward the marshy, western perimeter of the town, the direction the villagers feared.
It took him less than twenty minutes to reach the edge of the Signiah Fens—a dark, stagnant swamp where the air hung heavy and thick with moisture and the smell of rot.
He stood on the edge of the stagnant water, the faint sound of the town already behind him.
Suddenly, a low, guttural growl echoed from the deepest shadows of the swamp. It was a sound of massive size, of predatory hunger.
Leornars turned slowly, his eyes cutting through the darkness with unnatural clarity.
"That's right, I'm not a puppet,I wasn't born to be attached to strings of fate, I'm Leornars Servs Avrem the white plague ruler of Avangard kingdom,son of Emalian Seers Avantris the nightmare witch"he said as he created a dark aria and blasted it on his skull as it regenerates to recovery.
A figure emerged from the veil of hanging moss and mist. It was taller than an average man, undeniably female, and hauntingly beautiful in a terrifying, monstrous way.
It had long, raven-black hair that looked perpetually wet, and skin that was unnaturally pale, almost luminous against the dark foliage. Its eyes were a chilling, void blue, utterly without pupils, like polished lapis lazuli. Thick, thorny vines were tightly wrapped around its arms and torso, serving as both armor and weapon. It wore a tattered, mold-stained white garment—a kimono—that contrasted eerily with its monstrous nature.
The creature's stance was predatory, its muscles taut, its growl rumbling in its chest.
" By now the annexation is almost complete,I need to hurry to Seraphim kingdom. Be seen as an ally of the kingdom while strategizing on their downfall. Also I need to quickly finish up on Seraphim kingdom and go to Durmount kingdom,wage a war let Selrose the ruler and behead the king then finally if I have adequate time pay Queen Selalyndra a visit" he said
Leornars's unreadable expression finally smirked—a rare, brief, and utterly chilling curving of his lips that was closer to a predator's snarl than a man's amusement.
"All that in less than two months ,seems do able afterall I'm Leornars I ended The old monarchy of Lurtra in three weeks this will be a bit difficult but interesting"
"Finally," he murmured, the cold satisfaction in his voice genuine, a relief from the endless politics and philosophical agony.
"A practice dummy."
In a seamless, instantaneous move, he activated his power. The air around him dropped twenty degrees.
* Dark Aria: The crimson-black, swirling energy of pure dark magic roared to life in his left palm.
* Helvecklev: The pale, icy-blue flame of void energy—the absolute zero of magical power—ignited in his right palm.
The void flame and the crimson energy crackled, tearing at the damp air. Leornars crouched slightly, his stance aggressive, the two chaotic forces dancing at his fingertips.
"So I finally understand it now, the villagers erected a Pollium barrier because they thought it would keep the swamp monster out due to it being made of magic and mana, I didn't realise Pollium could be used like that" he whispered, before lunging into the swamp with mach 70,000 two daggers drawn.