Chapter 98: The Fallen Messiah's Verdict part 2
The air in the cathedral was thick with the scent of cheap incense and expensive fear. Leornars stood amidst the flickering candlelight, his gaze fixed on the trembling man before him.
"I'll ask you one more time," Leornars said, his voice a low, dangerous hum. "What god do you serve?"
The priest's hand shook as he fumbled for the silver rosary hanging from his neck. With a panicked shriek, he hurled it at Leornars. "Be gone, devil! Light of the heavens, strike him down!"
Leornars caught the holy symbol mid-air. He looked at it for a moment with genuine pity before tossing it aside like common trash.
"Tell me, Priest," Leornars began, his voice echoing in the hollow chamber. "A man who has tasted nothing but death and despair has nothing left to lose. But a newborn child? They have the whole world. So, tell me the logic of your faith—what is the point of a forced birth if you are the very one responsible for the child's suffering? If a life is a gift from a god, can it be taken by anyone else? If a man does it, you call it murder. If he does it to himself, you call it suicide. But if your god does it..."
Leornars leaned in, his crimson eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Is it 'Divine Will,' or just a higher form of hypocrisy? Answer me. I'm dying to know."
"THE GODS WILL SMITE THE EVIL THAT HAS RUINED OUR NATION!" the priest screamed, spit flying from his lips.
Leornars let out a long, weary sigh. "Well... this is just embarrassing. For you, mostly."
Fwoosh.
In a flicker of black mana, Leornars vanished. He reappeared instantly behind the priest. Before the man's scream could even leave his throat, his head was sliding off his shoulders. Leornars didn't even wait for the body to hit the floor before he vanished again, leaving only a lingering trail of soot.
The Sunken Throne
While the capital of Durmount drowned in a sudden, unnatural deluge, Princess Selrose sat upon the throne. Her posture was perfect—the very picture of royal grace—as she watched the sunrise hit the rising floodwaters outside.
Below, in the bowels of the castle, King Selamendra was trapped. The dungeon was flooding. He could hear the muffled screams of his citizens as the currents swept them away.
"No... my life's work... everything is gone!" the King wailed, clutching the iron bars.
CRACK.
The ceiling of the dungeon was torn open like wet parchment. Above him, silhouetted against the blinding morning sun, Leornars levitated in the open air. Wisps of grey soot escaped his lips with every breath. He looked down at the King, his eyes two glowing embers of malice.
"How I have waited for this day," Leornars said, his voice colder than the rising water.
The dungeon doors burst open. Two knights rushed in, steel ringing as they drew their blades. "Your Majesty! We're here!"
Selamendra let out a manic, wheezing laugh. "Ha! I am safe! You can't touch me, boy! I am the King! I will always be—"
The doors opened again. Selrose walked in, her royal silks gleaming.
"Princess!" one guard shouted. "Get back! It's dangerous!"
The guard moved to escort her, but a shadow flickered. Harribel, the Princess's personal shadow, appeared behind him. A flash of steel, and the guard's head spun through the air. In the same heartbeat, Selrose herself moved—not with grace, but with lethal, practiced violence. She plunged a hidden blade directly into the second knight's throat.
"Prin...cess..." the knight wheezed, clutching his neck as he collapsed into the rising water.
The King, driven to madness, grabbed a jagged shard of metal from the rubble and lunged at Leornars. Selrose was faster. She drove a dagger into her father's leg, pinning him to the floor. Leornars descended, his boot crashing down onto the King's face, grinding his cheek into the wet stone.
"Are the preparations complete?" Leornars asked, not even looking down at the man beneath his heel.
"Yes," Selrose replied, her voice devoid of any daughterly affection. "I've tracked the Queen. I'll have her by tomorrow's dusk."
"Good. Then everything is proceeding as planned."
"You... you bastard..." Selamendra hissed through broken teeth. "You will address me as KING! Or I will have your head!"
Leornars chuckled. It was a dry, hollow sound. "Your threat is as empty as your title, Selamendra. You lack principle, and more importantly, you lack common sense. Did you really think I'd play a fair game? I was honestly surprised you drank the aphrodisiacs I had Selrose slip into your meals. To think, your downfall wasn't economical or political... it was just your own lust."
"I knew it..." the King groaned. "I knew something was wrong when you started taking my side, Selrose. As your father—"
"You are not my father," Selrose interrupted. "You never were, old man."
Even Harribel looked confused. Leornars raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do tell."
"What are you talking about?!" the King screamed. "I saw you born! I—"
"I said," the girl began, her hand reaching for her own ear, "you were never my father."
Then, she began to tear her own face off.
It wasn't a mask of wood or plastic, but a layer of perfectly crafted magical flesh. She ripped it away with a wet, tearing sound. The blonde hair and blue eyes were discarded like a used costume, revealing a mane of chocolate-brown hair and sharp, amber eyes. From the top of her head, two furry beastkin ears twitched, shedding the illusion.
"My name is Natalie Sulina," she spat. "Do you remember the family you slaughtered, you foul worm?"
The King's eyes widened in pure, primal horror. "A... a beastfolk? In my palace?!"
"You burned my little brother and his friends alive just for the 'crime' of being demi-humans," Natalie said, her voice trembling with a decade of suppressed rage. "I have lived in your house, served your food, and breathed your air just for the chance to see you crawl."
Leornars tilted his head. "Leux? Your brother was Leux?"
A flicker of a memory crossed Leornars' mind—a small boy who had helped him escape years ago. "Ah. I see now. The circle closes."
The King tried to scramble away, but Leornars didn't even move a muscle. He simply fired Threads of Abstract—invisible lines of force that severed the nerves in the King's legs instantly. Selamendra collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Leornars began to laugh. It wasn't a hero's laugh. It was a fractured, schizophrenic cackle that echoed off the damp walls.
"And here I thought I was the only one carrying such a burden!"
Leornars began to stomp. Over and over, his boot crashed into the King's ribs and face. Crunch. Crack. Splat. He summoned his spirit, Zhyier, who erected a shimmering light barrier around them. Inside the barrier, a cruel miracle occurred: the light healed the King's body as fast as Leornars broke it, trapping him in a loop of infinite agony.
"Please! Spare me! I'll give you everything!" the King pleaded, his face a ruin of pulp and bone.
"You have nothing, old man," Natalie said, looking down at him with disgust.
Inside Leornars' mind, the voice of Althelia drifted from his core. [A bit of déjà vu, isn't it?]
Leornars stopped. He looked at the King with eyes that had seen the end of the world. "You cannot have 'nothing' and claim you have 'something.' You cannot fabricate existence out of a void and expect it to have meaning. Your kingdom, your gold, your legacy... it's all nothingness."
"I spent months planning this," Leornars continued. "Economically, I bankrupted Durmount. Emotionally, I manipulated you into exiling your own wife so you could lust after your 'daughter.' You were a puppet, Selamendra. A puppet dancing on threads of your own greed."
He looked at Natalie. "By the way, what happened to the real Selrose?"
Natalie's smile didn't reach her eyes. "She was just as spoiled as her father. I disposed of her the same way my brother died. I burned her to ash. And then... I mixed a tablespoon of her ashes into your meals every single day for a month, 'Father.'"
The King began to retch. Leornars didn't give him time to vomit. He snatched Harribel's blade and, with two surgical strokes, sliced the King's feet off.
"That's for Shuelt," Leornars said.
Another two strokes. The King's arms fell away.
"That's for Grok."
"You... you're a monster..." the King wheezed. "Just like me..."
"No," Leornars said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The difference is that I am a King who understands. I am the White Plague—the disease needed to kill the infection of this world. I am the Fallen Messiah. I'm not here to save this world, Selamendra. I'm here to fix it."
Leornars closed his eyes. "Althelia. It's time. The second form."
[Finally,] Althelia purred. [Repeat after me...]
Leornars extended his hand. The very fabric of reality began to groan and tear.
"From the depths of nothingness, where existence becomes an abyss of despair... the labyrinth of lies compiled into a new fabrication... I release the eclipse!"
The ground shattered. Not into dirt, but into a void of swirling purple and black.
"GATE KEEPER AZRAEL: THE LABYRINTH OF ETERNAL DAMNATION!"
A two-thousand-foot monolith erupted from the earth, a terrifying tower of bone and obsidian. A massive skeletal hand reached out from the abyss. The monolith bore a single inscription in a dead language: ALL FACE THE VOID FOR THE CRIMES THEY COMMITTED.
Chains of white-hot fire lashed out, wrapping around Selamendra's soul. He wasn't just being pulled into the ground; he was being erased from history.
"You will suffer for eternity!" Leornars shouted over the roar of the inferno. "No redemption! No end! Your existence itself is a curse!"
Inferno monsters—creatures of pure shadow and flame—emerged from the cracks, tearing at the King's flesh as he was dragged down into the maw of the Labyrinth. His scream was cut short as the earth slammed shut, leaving the dungeon in a ringing, terrifying silence.
Leornars turned to Natalie. The glow in his eyes faded slightly. "I presume you still want to rule what's left of Durmount?"
"That was our deal," she said, though she couldn't stop staring at the spot where the Gate Keeper had appeared. Even Harribel was trembling, her sword forgotten on the floor.
Leornars began to float upward, his cloak billowing in the wind. "Then have your fun. I've gotten what I came for."
"And what was that?" Natalie called out.
Leornars looked at the rising sun, a small, sad smile touching his lips.
"A little bit of peace for some old friends."
And with a flicker of light, he was gone.
Natalie Sulina part X
The Durmount slums weren't just a place; they were a death sentence. While the high-born nobles in the spires debated the philosophy of "Divine Will," Natalie, her younger brother Leux, and their friend Shuelt spent their days sifting through the castle's garbage for scraps of moldy bread.
"Look, Nat! I found a whole potato!" Leux had cheered that final morning. He was small for his age, his lynx-like ears always twitching with a misplaced sense of wonder. He didn't understand that the world hated him for the fur on his ears.
"Shh, keep your voice down," Natalie had whispered, pulling her hood lower. "If the Golden Knights see us this close to the gate..."
But Shuelt, older and more cynical, was already looking at the sky. "The King is coming out today. The 'Purification Parade.' We need to leave. Now."
They didn't make it.
The King's carriage was a monstrosity of gold and silk. When a wheel hit a puddle, splashing mud onto the pristine white robes of a high priest, the parade stopped. The King, Selamendra, didn't even look at them with anger—he looked at them with boredom.
"The filth is clogging the gutters again," the King had sighed, waving a manicured hand. "Clean it up. Use the holy fire. We mustn't be late for lunch."
The Knights didn't use swords. They used oil and torches.
Natalie had been pushed into a drainage pipe by Shuelt just as the first wave of fire hit. She watched through the iron grate as Leux—little, innocent Leux who just wanted to show her a potato—was turned into a screaming pillar of light. Shuelt had tried to shield him, his own body melting into the cobblestones as the knights laughed about the "smell of burning vermin."
Natalie didn't scream. If she screamed, she would die. She stayed in that sewer for three days, hugging the charred remains of her brother's scarf, until her soul turned into a cold, hard diamond of hate.
She didn't just survive; she became a ghost. She spent years apprenticed to a back-alley flesh-weaver, a disgraced mage who taught her how to stitch skin and mask mana.
"If you want to kill a god, you must first become his angel," the weaver had told her.
The process was agonizing. To fit the "Princess Selrose" mold, Natalie had to bind her beastkin ears flat against her skull every day until they bled. She practiced the noble dialect until her throat felt like it was full of glass. She studied the real Selrose from the shadows for years—learning her gait, her sneer, her favorite scents—until the day she finally slit the real girl's throat and stepped into her skin.
Back to the Present: The Dungeon
The flashback faded from Natalie's eyes as she stood over the limbless, sobbing King. Her brown beastkin ears, finally free from their agonizing bindings, twitched in the damp air.
"You called us 'vermin,' didn't you?" Natalie asked, her voice a jagged edge. "You told the knights to 'clear the gutters.' Well, look at you now, Selamendra. You're the one in the gutter. You're the one leaking into the floorboards."
She reached into a pouch at her waist and pulled out a small, leather-bound locket. Inside wasn't a picture, but a pinch of grey ash.
"This is all that's left of Leux," she whispered, her eyes brimming with a terrifying, hollow light. "He was six years old. He thought the sun was a golden coin the gods dropped for the poor. He was so much better than you. And yet, you ate your own daughter's remains because you were too arrogant to notice a 'beastkin' was the one feeding you."
She leaned down, her brown hair falling over her face, masking her expression from Harribel.
"I didn't just want you dead, King. I wanted you to be the vessel for your own bloodline's extinction.
Leornars, hovering near the exit, watched her. He felt no disgust—only a grim, reflected recognition.
"You've been dead a long time, haven't you, Natalie?" Leornars asked.
Natalie didn't look up from the ruin of the King. "I died in that drainage pipe ten years ago. This thing standing here... it's just a debt that needed to be paid."
"A debt paid in blood is never settled; it's just moved to a different account," Leornars mused. He looked at his own hands, which still smelled of the King's gore. "But I suppose in a world this broken, debt is the only thing that's real."
He turned his back on the throne room, on the drowning city, and on the girl who had traded her soul for a mask.
"Rule well, Natalie Sulina. Or don't. The world is ending anyway. I'm just the one making sure the right people are at the front of the line for hell."
With a crack of displaced air, Leornars vanished into the morning mist, leaving the new Queen of Durmount alone in the dark with her ghosts.