Before Blazkowicz's steel boots could even make a sound, a roar filled with infinite surprise and fear echoed through the Throne Hall.
Isaac, who was monitoring King Nowick's thoughts, sensed that terrifying idea.
He was terrified, deeply afraid of the horrible idea that King Nowick was about to put into action.
The man sitting on the Throne, with a blade of light at his throat, smiled with relief. The moment the demon's attention shifted to Blazkowicz, he made a decisive move without hesitation.
His body, decaying like a withered tree, erupted with a surge of power—a power that had accumulated for a long time, a power he was ready to unleash for the idea that had just appeared in his mind.
Nowick didn't see his son's full figure, only half of his majestic, powerful, and defiant posture, and he smiled with relief.
He finally saw that his son possessed the strength to resist the gods and to command the Sentinels.
Using his last reserves of strength, before Blazkowicz could fully comprehend, Nowick's neck was torn open, and dark red, defiled blood gushed from the smooth wound.
The Sentinels possessed by the demon recoiled his blade of light in horror, but saw Nowick smiling at him.
"Thank you!"
The King's lips moved, silently expressing his gratitude, thanking the demon for helping him complete his final act.
The demon frantically withdrew his spear. Blood sprayed from Nowick's artery, like scattering crimson diamonds, shimmering with an eternal, crystalline brilliance.
Isaac choked. This scene terrified him so much that he assumed his half-human, half-demon form. In his panic, he silently chanted a spell.
He wanted to reverse time again, just as he had done with Ennio, to prevent this horrifying scene!
The Lord of Change responded to him. Before the incantation was even finished, the magic of time reversal had already been activated.
The blood, still suspended in the air, those dust motes within the radiance, began to retreat along their original paths. The light of life returned, flowing back into King Nowick's gradually dying body.
Isaac shed tears, tears of joy at having salvaged everything.
But in his joy, he subconsciously overlooked one person, the man who appeared at the entrance of the Throne Hall, the focus of all eyes.
Blazkowicz's mind was considering the possibility of negotiation. The City of Truth taking hostages was nothing more than an attempt to bargain.
Seeing Elise unharmed, he felt a slight relaxation. As his gaze gradually moved past the obstacles, he saw a sight that brought his extraordinary mind to a halt…
A large hand, named "Terror," pierced Blazkowicz's tough, bullet-resistant body and seized his heart.
He saw his beloved father, his throat cut by the traitor's blade!
"No!!!!!!!"
A roar tore through the air, a deafening cry of grief and indignation, yet it was only astonishment, eyes wide, watching this horrifying scene unfold unstoppably.
Blazkowicz felt a sense of helplessness. His lightning-fast brain had crashed, and the power surging within his extraordinary body could not prevent the terrible images his eyes were seeing.
Like a Mortal, excessive sorrow drove his instincts. He instinctively rushed towards the Throne, wanting to support his father's slowly falling body.
Time began to flow backward. Before Isaac could feel a sense of relief, a tall figure burst into the Throne Hall.
He was so unstoppable that, to the priests' horrified expressions, he shattered the time spell with a single step, making everything irreversible!
Blazkowicz was too powerful. As one of the few powerful entities in the universe, his timeline could not be shaken, nor easily reversed.
Even if a Chaos God personally intervened, it would be difficult to hastily reverse the linear flow of reality's time, to make time constantly rewind until they achieved their desired outcome.
Once a choice was made, it could never be changed.
Especially for powerful entities, their choices influenced the course of history, affecting the destinies of too many people, leaving no room for regret.
It's over!
Isaac despairingly closed his eyes. The tears welling from his eyes were no longer joyful; only endless regret remained.
The moment Blazkowicz stepped into the Throne Hall, past history was etched, remaining in the eternal memory of the universe until the moment of its entropy.
It could not be erased, could not be reversed!
Behind the veil of reality, in the Warp. Tzeentch's body transformed into countless arms, celebrating the occurrence of a massive change.
Blazkowicz's destiny had changed, not following the path planned by the gods. Instead, due to a Mortal's schemes, he embarked on a different path.
He gesticulated wildly, reveling in change, in impermanence, in the constant yet inconstant nature of destiny.
The scene before them unfolded within a single second, yet it felt as if centuries had passed.
In this insignificant, unreal second in the universe, the fate of the real universe underwent countless changes.
Those superfluous destinies, waiting for Blazkowicz to choose, completely vanished with King Nowick's death, and destiny was brought to a conclusion.
In the instant of his death, King Nowick pruned the wrongly grown branches from the tree of destiny for his son.
"No!!!!!!!"
When everyone in the Throne Hall heard Blazkowicz's grief-stricken roar,
that intensely painful roar even pierced the essence of the Keeper of Secrets Great Demon, forcing them to manifest their unclean demonic bodies from within the Sentinels' forms.
"Demons!!!!!!!"
The moment the demonic entities appeared, his sorrow and indignation found a target.
The demons had killed his father!
Blazkowicz's killing intent surged from his grief, taking on a tangible form, like countless sharp blades in space, locking down all of the demons' movements.
His desperate movements were so fast that he appeared before his enemies before his mind could even register it.
Sharrash Helbane materialized, and before it could fully steady itself, an iron fist smashed into its head, knocking off its ram's horn crown along with it.
The demonic weapon in its hand was snatched away. A shield, imbued with savage power, bisected a Keeper of Secrets, and a twin-bladed sword pierced a Slaanesh Great Demon.
Trailing afterimages, the Slaanesh Great Demon, proud of its speed, couldn't even clearly see the afterimages before being kicked into fragments and sent back to the Warp.
Before his father's blood could even touch the ground, and while the demonic soldier was still stunned, Blazkowicz's unstoppable fist arrived, carrying with it the intent to kill.
The Sentinels' power armor was like paper before his absolute strength.
A punch to its chest shattered the power armor, and the body inside, along with the armor fragments, was violently forced out through its back.
The Keeper of Secrets Great Demon's dying gaze was filled with extreme astonishment. It couldn't understand why the young god was so powerful and it was so fragile.
Even without the existence of the Warp, the ritual array inscribed on its body should have given it some power to resist.
By the time the humans and demons in the Throne Hall reacted, a massacre had concluded, and Blazkowicz came to his father's side.
"Father!" As the surrounding demons returned to the Warp, Ennio's expression changed, and he cried out, rushing towards the Throne.
Harlan, in the brief moment Blazkowicz rushed to the Throne, had a clear view of the situation in the Throne Hall.
He should have rushed to protect Queen Elise, but a strong physical instinct told him that Blazkowicz's side was where he needed to be.
"Father…"
Kneeling on one knee before the Throne, those large hands that had slain Great Demons as easily as chickens trembled helplessly, not knowing where to place themselves.
His voice was choked with sobs, his tiger-like eyes filled with mist. Finally, his trembling hand covered his father's neck, trying to staunch the blood that seeped through his fingers, carrying life along with it.
One hand supported the frail body, preventing him from falling from the Throne.
In the inevitable moment of death, King Nowick's body relaxed instead.
He felt incredibly weak, yet so real.
In his final moments, the gods departed from his mind, granting a father the right to bid farewell to his son.
"I am proud of you…"
His lips moved, his severed throat unable to produce sound, but he smiled and mouthed a simple farewell before peacefully closing his eyes.
Blazkowicz's body trembled violently, his mind a blank.
It felt like a long time before he realized the irreversible fact of his father's death.
"No! No!"
His palms pressed harder, wanting to force the gushing blood and vitality back into the body, but it was futile.
For the first time, Blazkowicz felt a profound helplessness. The power capable of challenging the gods could not save a Mortal's life.
His eyes could not hold back the torrent of tears, and painful tears streamed down his face as Blazkowicz looked at his father.
He hadn't seen his son achieve great deeds, hadn't seen the people of Argent Nur leave Argent Nur, and the thousand-year-old ideal he carried had yet to be realized.
Blazkowicz's grief was uncontrollable, his body trembled, and his angry eyes were bloodshot!
"Boom!"
Thunder rumbled in the clear sky, and blood-red lightning flashed out of nowhere.
The excessive grief of a powerful entity had forcibly torn open the barrier between reality and the Warp, drawing a resonance from the Sea of Souls.
Blazkowicz picked up his father, only to find his body terrifyingly light. His bloodshot eyes turned to Isaac, and he gritted his teeth, saying:
"I'll slaughter…"
Before he could finish speaking, Blazkowicz felt a sense of weakness in his body. He looked down and saw a dagger plunged into his waist.
Looking back, his elder brother withdrew his arm.
His familiar face was a mix of joy and sorrow. Half his face showed an eerie excitement and pleasure, while the other half was a twisted, distorted expression of regret and pain.
A silver rune dagger, adorned with blue magic lines and inlaid with red, purple, and green gems, was plunged into Blazkowicz's back from his lower waist.
His brother, whom he had never guarded against, delivered the most insidious strike.
When King Nowick was killed, the Keeper of Secrets, possessing Ennio, used a sorrowful "Father" and the original owner's soul aura to deceive the anxious Blazkowicz.
At the crucial moment, it used the divine artifact bestowed by the Four Gods to stab Blazkowicz in the lower back.
The rune dagger vanished, an entity condensed from the pure malice of the Four Gods, carrying the concepts they imbued, and surged into Blazkowicz's body.
His murderous face froze in bewilderment, his eyes wide in surprise, as if questioning, "Why, my brother?"
The priests joined forces to erect a psionic barrier, blocking the Throne Hall guards from entering, buying time.
Seeing the Keeper of Secrets' successful sneak attack, Isaac suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.
The plot arranged by the Lord of Change should not have unfolded this way. King Nowick should have lived, and continued to live.
He and Queen Elise were the strongest chains, meant to bind Blazkowicz with their love and bring him back to the City of Truth.
Nowick's perfectly timed performance had completely transformed Blazkowicz's previously unknown attitude towards the Four Gods into hatred.
Fortunately, the Keeper of Secrets possessing Ennio succeeded.
The rune dagger created by the Four Gods in its hand helped the demon maintain its form amidst Blazkowicz's roar, and Ennio's soul helped the demon evade detection, striking Blazkowicz at the critical moment.
The divine artifact, personally forged by the Four Gods, would plunge Blazkowicz's body into a weakened state, making it easier for the psionic teleportation ritual to take him away.
As long as he returned to the City of Truth, there was still a chance to salvage everything.
Isaac stood in place, chanting magic spells with the priests, preparing for long-distance teleportation.
The Throne Hall was very unsafe; the guards outside would quickly breach the barrier, so they had to leave quickly.
Harlan and the guards were being held back by the Keeper of Secrets, and the guards needed to rescue the Queen, which would buy enough time.
The Four Gods' ritual would continuously corrupt him, using endless time to wear down Blazkowicz until he submitted to their feet.
Blazkowicz stared in shock at Ennio's twisted face—a mix of sorrow and pain, yet tinged with a strange pleasure, forming a bizarre half-crying, half-smiling expression.
When the silver rune dagger pierced his body, it transformed into a mottled mercury, flowing deep into his body through the wound.
An extreme sense of weakness came over him; Blazkowicz knelt on one knee to avoid falling, his remaining strength insufficient even to hold his frail father in his arms.
An overwhelming sense of weakness swept through his entire body; although the Four Gods could not shake Blazkowicz's will, they were eroding his flesh through the divine artifact.
"Harm not my Lord!"
With a furious roar! Harlan, holding his spear, forced back Ennio's hand reaching for Blazkowicz, the glowing blade pointing directly at the traitor, his face filled only with scorn and killing intent.
Blazkowicz's mind was ringing, the world in his eyes began to spin, alarms blared from all over his body, and all his functions began to disorder.
He could clearly feel a strong magical curse weakening him, and two different viruses had entered his body.
The toxins marched through his blood vessels like ten thousand ants, every nerve screaming sharp warnings.
Every cell in his body was resisting a powerful, devouring virus, and various immune systems were fighting the virus at a microscopic level.
There was also another type of toxin that began to paralyze his nervous system, disrupting his various senses, bringing infinite fatigue and sensory lag.
Gasping for breath, Blazkowicz tried to expel the discomforts, and the viruses and immune systems in his body were evolving.
The two sides seemed to be engaged in a tug-of-war within his body, attacking fiercely, neither able to eliminate the other.
Along with the confusion of his reason and bodily functions, an infinite rage surged up, destroying the dam built by his sanity.
Blazkowicz knew it was fake; it was the Blood God attempting to control his anger and seize his soul.
In a flash, the situation in the Throne Hall reversed again.
Blazkowicz temporarily lost his ability to resist, and the priests chanted spells to erect a psionic barrier, blocking the Throne Guards from entering.
Before the psionic barrier rose, only two people followed Blazkowicz into the Throne Hall.
Harlan's spear thrust out, parrying Ennio's defiled arm, the flashing spear phantom building an unbreakable wall between the two.
No one could approach Blazkowicz before he fell.
The Throne Guard Captain charged towards the Queen, his Guard Halberd incomparably domineering; his full wrath needed an outlet.
Shameful traitors! Under the very noses of the Throne Guards, they had abducted members of the royal family and killed the King they protected!
"Let her go! Scum!"
The Guard Captain's roar was like thunder, his cloak swirling behind him, carrying a furious rage as he charged towards the Queen, whom a priest was about to grab.
Elise stood there, numb with grief, not noticing the priest approaching from behind her.
From her husband's lips, she learned of her eldest son's death, and then watched her husband die before her eyes.
The monster manipulating Ennio's body had wounded her youngest son, and the tragedy of brother fighting brother unfolded before the throne.
This series of painful shocks made the strong woman totter, standing there in a daze.
Her emerald eyes were clouded with ash, her once elegantly tied long hair falling over her shoulders, as if all vitality had been drained from her in an instant.
She wore a long blue dress, her pale face numb from excessive grief. She was like a lone boat in a storm, ready to be swallowed by the surging waves of emotion at any moment.
The Guard Captain's roar made Elise's body tremble slightly, awakening her from her grief.
After understanding the situation on the field, she made her judgment.
The Queen saw the Captain charging towards her, shook her head gently at him, and pointed a finger at Blazkowicz, who was propping himself up with his hands, trying to stand again.
"Go help him!"
Elise didn't speak, but used simple lip-reading to order the Throne Guard to save her son.
"Hmph!"
With another muffled roar, the Guard Captain, having received his orders, did not hesitate, faithfully executing the Queen's command.
The "Restraint" technique of sudden braking instantly erupted, blood mist bursting from the armor's seams; his body completed a ninety-degree right turn in a straight charge, swinging his halberd to support the Champion Swordsman.
Harlan's spear shaft pressed against his left arm, the glowing blade pointing directly at Ennio, without the slightest concession.
"Imposter! Face me!"
The Champion Swordsman's attacks were fast and fierce, devoid of fancy techniques, all stemming from a powerful inner intuition.
The spear's thrusts repeatedly struck the Keeper of Secrets Great Demon's critical vital points, preventing it from getting close to Blazkowicz.
The Keeper of Secrets, possessing Ennio, felt a disharmony in its body at this critical moment, which required its full concentration.
The original owner of this body, a sealed soul carrying pain and sorrow, was constantly assailing the inner lock, attempting to regain control of the body.
Facing the white-armored warrior before it, the Keeper of Secrets Great Demon felt a pressure.
It was surprised; even without the support of a sorcerer's ritual, it shouldn't be so weak as to be suppressed by a Mortal warrior.
Its practiced techniques began to show countless flaws, forcing it to retreat repeatedly, gradually moving away from Blazkowicz.
However, it was not worried; the priests' ritual was about to take shape, and the combined psionic teleportation magic would transport everything here to the City of Truth.
This way, the Four Gods' will would still be executed, and taking Blazkowicz was the primary objective.
Harlan was equally anxious.
He repeatedly forced back the demon disguised as Ennio, but couldn't defeat it head-on, while the magic ritual outlined on the floor became increasingly clear.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Blazkowicz's skin color constantly changing, resisting the toxins in his body, and spitting out black blood, Harlan felt like cursing.
If he had killed the priests earlier, they wouldn't be in such a passive situation now.
Although he thought this, Harlan also understood.
Blazkowicz couldn't have known that his brother was a demon in disguise, and that it would deliver a critical blow that affected the battle.
"Go!"
Just as he was anxious, a booming roar came from behind, and at the most critical moment, the Guard Captain arrived.
With a tearing whoosh through the air, a great halberd was thrown by the Captain, piercing through a priest with immense force and pinning him to the ground.
The psionic barrier, due to the loss of personnel, showed a momentary flaw, swaying unstably.
Isaac dared not act rashly; the consequences of stopping the spell were even more dire—they would be besieged by the Sentinels.
The Guard Captain's steps did not falter as he charged towards the royal traitor; he was prepared for sacrifice.
Harlan seized the fleeting opportunity.
He swept his long spear, forcing Ennio back, then bent down, entrusting his back to the Guard Captain, and grabbed Blazkowicz's waist buckle.
"Shameful traitor! Await our vengeance!"
The Guard Captain did not activate his protective force field, allowing a longsword to pierce his body, and in the traitor's shocked eyes, his power armor went to full output,
clutching Ennio tightly.
"Up!"
Harlan exerted force abruptly, the power armor's servo motors whirring, and he lifted Blazkowicz by his waist belt, throwing him out of the magic circle's range.
The Throne Guards waiting outside the psionic magic circle carried Blazkowicz away quickly.
Taking one last look at Queen Elise in the distance, Harlan raised his hand to his chest, showing the highest respect to the Queen.
He leaped through the gap, jumping out of the psionic magic circle, and coldly looked at the terrified and unwilling Isaac, raising his middle finger:
"Screw you, sorcerer!"
As the light from the ground rose, flashing with psionic lightning, everything in the Throne Hall vanished.
King Nowick's corpse, Queen Elise, and all the traitors and priests were gone.
Harlan took off his helmet and slumped to the ground, breathing deeply the air of the Argentum.
Everything happened too fast; in less than five seconds, he had made too many choices and endured immense psychological pressure.