Chapter 95: The Golden Puppet (Part 2)
The atmosphere in the Grand Hall of Durmount was a physical weight. It was saturated with "Royal Nectar"—a cloying perfume distilled from ten thousand crushed jasmine blossoms, designed to mask the scent of a dying world. Outside, the commoners were reduced to boiling leather scraps just to fool their stomachs, but within these gilded walls, the only thing allowed to wither was the spirit of the servants.
On the throne sat a creature that was less a king and more a monument to decadence.
He was draped in layers of [Ghost-Silk], a fabric so impossibly fine it required the weavers to be blinded to ensure the patterns remained "sacred." He didn't sit; he slouched, his soft, bloated face resting against a fist adorned with rings that cost more than a coastal province.
"Your Majesty..." The Prime Minister's voice was a pathetic tremor against the marble. "The southern levies... the people are dying. If we could release just one percent of the emergency grain—"
The King didn't deign to look up. He was preoccupied with a golden mechanical bird perched on his armrest. With a bored, casual flick of his finger, he snapped the bird's delicate clockwork wing.
Crr-ack.
"One percent?" the King mused. His voice was high and airy, devoid of the gravel of a true ruler. "If I give them one percent today, they will demand two percent tomorrow. Hunger is a marvelous motivator, Minister. It keeps them too weak to plot, yet just desperate enough to pray. And I do so enjoy being the object of their prayers."
He swirled a crystal goblet of deep violet wine, spat it directly onto the Minister's bowed head, and sighed. "Too acidic. Execute the sommelier. And tax the southern provinces again for the 'insult' of their poor harvest. It has dampened my mood."
He was a vacuum of a man. A parasite that had convinced itself it was the host.
"White hair... Red eyes? It's him! It's LEORNARS!" Jessica's scream shattered the tension of the battlefield. "He's the target! Attack him all at once! He's alone—we have the numbers!"
The heroes leapt, steel flashing in the sun. Leornars didn't flinch. He simply looked up at the descending blades.
"[Awaken]."
The word was a tectonic shift. Instantly, the shadows lengthened and solidified. His knights materialized from the void, intercepting the heroes with brutal efficiency. Before Jessica and Jennifer could recover, a familiar, lethal silhouette emerged from Leornars's shadow.
Zhyelena.
Her daggers were a blur of cold silver. Jennifer managed to erect a [Light Barrier], but Zhyelena was faster, vaulting the shimmering wall and carving a jagged red line across Jennifer's back.
Leornars raised a single finger toward the sky. The mana in the area began to scream.
"From the depths of the unknown lands, the logic and reason for existence is bound by thy final justice... [GATE KEEPE—]"
Before the erasure spell could complete its chant, a distorted ripple of space-time swallowed Leornars whole. An unknown power had forcibly snatched him from the battlefield, teleporting him away into the blue.
Meanwhile, at the Lurtra border, the King of Durmount was enjoying his "campaign." He sat atop a golden chariot, his armor polished to a mirror finish, watching as his men razed small villages.
"How long until we arrive at the kingdom of Lurtra?" the King asked, preening.
The knight beside him looked confused. "Your Highness... we are already in Lurtra."
"Oh. Yeah. I knew that," the King lied, his eyes wandering toward a nine-year-old girl being dragged from a burning hut. His smile was sickening.
But as he moved to claim his latest "prize," the sky split open. A flaming object, trailing smoke and fury, plummeted from the heavens like a dying star.
While Leornars was being cast across the map by the teleportation trap, the borderlands of Lurtra were experiencing a living nightmare.
The King did not lead his army from the front; he sat atop a literal "Mountain of Comfort"—a massive, gold-plated carriage pulled by twenty oxen. From his velvet seat, he watched the village burn through a specialized mana-lens that highlighted the blood in vibrant, entertaining hues.
"Your Majesty, the village is secured," a knight reported, wiping gore from his visor. "We have executed the men and the elderly as ordered."
"And the 'livestock'?" the King asked, his tongue darting out to lick his lips.
"Gathered in the square, Sire."
The King descended from his carriage, his heavy, jewel-encrusted boots stepping onto the face of a fallen villager to avoid the mud. He walked through the smoke with a sickening air of boredom until his eyes landed on a nine-year-old girl clutching a tattered doll. She was trembling so violently her teeth rattled.
"This one," the King whispered, his voice dripping with a foul, oily lust. "Her terror has a certain... purity. Bring her to my tent. I find that the screams of the young are the best accompaniment to a vintage wine."
"Please..." the girl sobbed, her voice breaking. "My mother... let me go to my mother..."
The King laughed, a high-pitched, wheezing sound. He reached out a soft, pale hand and gripped the girl's hair, yanking her head back to look into his bloated face. "Your mother is currently being used for target practice by my archers, child. You should be grateful. You are about to be touched by royalty."
He began to drag her toward his pavilion, his eyes gleaming with a disgusting, unchecked hunger. He didn't see the villagers as humans; they were merely toys to be broken for a moment's amusement.
"The world exists for my pleasure," he muttered, forcing the girl to her knees. "And today, you are the world."
He raised his hand to strike her—not out of anger, but for the sheer thrill of seeing a fresh bruise—when the sky suddenly turned the color of dried blood.
The air pressure dropped instantly, shattering the windows of the King's nearby carriage. A whistling roar grew from a hum to a deafening scream.
"What is that?" a knight yelled, pointing at the sky.
A flaming object, wreathed in black-and-crimson lightning, tore through the clouds. It wasn't a meteor. It was a man wrapped in the concentrated fury of a god.
BOOM.
The impact didn't just kick up dust; it vaporized the surrounding tents and sent a shockwave that snapped the legs of the nearby horses.
From the center of the crater, a pair of crimson eyes ignited. Leornars stood, his cloak flapping in the heat of his own aura. He looked at the dead villagers, then at the crying girl, and finally at the King, whose hand was still buried in the child's hair.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than the explosion. He saw the king dressed in a golden armor.
"So that's him, advertising himself. How bold" Leornars said coldly
"Althelia," Leornars said, his voice so cold the moisture in the air turned to frost. "Tell me... is there any part of this man's soul worth saving?"
[Scanning... Result: Zero. The subject's 'Malice Quotient' is 100%. He is a biological waste product.]
"Understood," Leornars whispered. He took a single step forward, and the ground beneath the King's feet turned to ash. "I'm going to make you pray for the death you just gave these people."
Leornars hit the earth like a kinetic bombardment.
As the dust cleared, he looked around. Ten thousand knights. Seven hundred archers. And at the center, the King of Durmount, surrounded by the charred remains of a village.
Leornars's eyes didn't just glow; they burned. Crimson veins throbbed across his arms like living circuits of rage.
"Althelia. Analysis. If I attack them all at once?"
[Probability of success: 99%. Note: Ensure 'Void Reaper' form remains sealed to prevent total regional collapse.]
"Good," Leornars whispered. "[Aura of Depravity: 100%]."
A tidal wave of black-red energy erupted from his body, manifesting as a colossal, three-headed serpent of pure malice. The knights rushing toward him didn't even reach his blade; their skin began to peel, their armor rusting into flakes as they rotted alive in his presence.
"A turbulence of wars... endless chaos is not needed," Leornars said, his voice a freezing wind. "Fear can break anything."
He vanished.
A flash of steel, and the front line was severed. He leapt into the air, dodging a volley of arrows with a contemptuous twist, then unleashed [Purgatory Flames]. The archer towers didn't just burn—they turned to ash in a heartbeat.
"Zhyier."
The shadow mage appeared in his signature crimson cloak.
"[The All-Might Hand of Eternal Death]," Zhyier intoned.
The very mana the Durmount mages tried to channel turned into lethal poison within their veins. They coughed up blackened blood, their bodies melting into piles of bleached bone before they could finish a single incantation.
Leornars didn't stop. He moved through the remaining ranks like a god of ruin.
"[Skill: Bubble—Endless Decay]."
Iridescent spheres drifted into the crowd. Upon contact, metal, skin, and bone simply... ceased to hold form. The King of Durmount scrambled back, his smugness replaced by a mask of primal terror. He released the girl he was holding; she ran toward Leornars, who summoned Bellian to whisk her away to safety in a flicker of shadow.
Only two thousand soldiers remained. Leornars pointed a finger.
"Die. [HELVARIA: FULL BLAST]!"
A void-black sun ignited above the army.
[Warning: Void Flame temperature exceeding 54 million degrees Celsius,] Althelia reported.
The heat turned the knights to ash before the flame even touched the ground. As the King attempted to flee with a few hundred survivors, Leornars summoned Ayesha Truelah.
"Ayesha. I want the King off his horse. Kill the rest."
Ayesha's hands trembled as she looked at the carnage, but she drew her bow. "Target is four miles out. Easy."
Thrum.
An arrow pierced a soldier's skull. Thrum. The King's shoulder exploded in a spray of red as he was knocked from his saddle. Thrum. The horse dropped dead instantly.
Leornars descended on the survivors. He didn't use a sword. He used his fists.
"Full power! Give me more!"
[Calculating... Adaptability increasing... Output: Island-level impact.]
The punch didn't just break the knight; it disintegrated him. Leornars turned to the last few standing, his voice dropping into the register of a True Law.
"[Auditor: The True Law]... Kill yourselves."
The knights' eyes went blank. Unwillingly, they turned their own blades inward, carving out their hearts in a gruesome, synchronized suicide.
The King squirmed in the dirt, a pathetic pile of silk and broken bones. Leornars gripped him by the throat, his hand activating [Touch of Decay]. The King's neck began to blacken and rot, his screams muffled by his own decomposing flesh.
Leornars grabbed the King's arm and ripped it from the shoulder with a sickening pop.
"A king with no remaining throne," Leornars spat.
He kicked the King's jaw with enough force to detach the bone, then reached down and tore the lower mandible away entirely. He ripped out his left hand slowly,then poured some acidic solution on the king's mouth,it passed through the mouth pouring down, then a headbutt breaking his cranium open. Blood began to flow from the king's forehead, he headbutt him again. Punched him on his mouth breaking his teeth as they dropped like rocks, the king's mouth bloodied, he used his threads to cut out the king's tongue which he swallowed.The King's muffled gurgling was music to the silent battlefield.
"You thought you could rape, murder, and thrive on suffering? No. You are going to suffer beyond redemption. Althelia—deactivate [Heartless]. [Share the Pain]."
[Warning: Sharing your accumulated pain with a mortal soul will result in total psychological collapse. Proceed?]
"Do it."
The link snapped into place. The King's eyes widened to the point of tearing. Every wound Leornars had ever taken, every soul-crushing agony he had endured, flooded into the King's sensory nerves at once. He grabbed him by his hair pulling it out angrily recalling the little girl he helped.
"I WANT A WORLD THAT DOESN'T WANT TO EAT ITSELF!!!" Leornars shouted his voice cracking
"You are a wasted soul," Leornars said, his eyes now a bottomless black.
The ground buckled. A two-thousand-foot monolith—the Gate Keeper—tore its way out of the earth. Its stone tablet read: Fate is a dark lie.
" How much blood is needed to end wars? How much souls are required to bring peace?" Leornars asked
The Gate Keeper's maw opened. Purgatory chains lashed out, dragging the King's screaming soul into the abyss where he would be torn apart and burnt for eternity.
Leornars turned back to the sea of corpses. He raised a hand, his voice echoing across the wasteland.
"[AWAKEN, UNDEADS!]"
Ten thousand knights and two hundred villagers rose. Bone snapped and flesh stitched together as they stood in horrific, perfect formation.
"KNEEL."
As one, the army of ten thousand fell to their knees.
[Undead conversion successful. New count: 83,454 units. New job title.... the fallen messiah]
Leornars climbed onto the back of his wyvern, his generals—Zhyelena, Zhyier, and Bellian—appearing at his side. He looked toward the horizon, where the capital of Durmount sat unsuspecting.
"Head to the kingdom," he ordered. "Leave nothing standing."