Chapter 273: Like a Heretic
Voranthar’s composure completely shattered. He slammed his fists against the splintering wood of the war table and leaned forward, his face contorted in an ugly, desperate rage.
"You fools!" Voranthar screamed, his voice cracking as his aura flared wildly. "You blind, arrogant fools! Do you not understand what I have done for this continent? I have sacrificed everything! I bled my own kingdom dry! I slaughtered millions to forge a weapon capable of saving us all!"
He began to pace frantically behind the table, gesturing wildly with his hands. His golden crown sat slightly crooked on his graying hair.
"I am the proxy!" he shouted to the vaulted ceiling. "The Radiant Monarch chose me! The Silver Wing chose me! You think your southern garrisons matter? You think the Morval Dynasty matters? The Vanguard is a plague, and I am the only cure! If we don’t fire the pulse, The Spiral will consume us all, and you will die screaming for the gods who abandoned you!"
He stopped pacing and pointed an accusing finger at Marcus Thorne and the rest of the Earthlings.
"Look at them!" Voranthar bellowed, spittle flying from his lips. "When we ripped them from their pathetic world, they were nothing! They possessed no power. They were weaker than the lowest goblins in the dirt! They wept and begged for their lives! But look at them now!"
He swept his arm toward the glowing broadswords, the silver battle-robes, and the raw elemental power radiating from the Heralds.
"My mages gave them that power!" Voranthar boasted, his chest heaving with exertion. "My knowledge forged them into champions! I took useless garbage and shaped them into weapons capable of shattering mountains!"
Emperor Kronos watched the Tarnstead king throw his tantrum. The massive ruler did not look intimidated, rather he looked profoundly bored.
"Stop yelling, Voranthar," Kronos rumbled, his deep voice easily cutting through the hysterical rant. "You are embarrassing yourself. I do not care about your stolen pets or your delusions of grandeur. You are a king without a kingdom."
Voranthar’s eyes went wide. His breathing grew heavy and erratic. He gripped his own hair, completely abandoning any semblance of royal dignity.
"You don’t understand," Voranthar hissed, his voice dropping to a frantic whisper that echoed unnaturally through the hall. "The Spiral... the foreign god marching upon us... he was one of them!"
He pointed a shaking finger directly at Marcus Thorne.
"He was summoned with them! He was trash! He was discarded! He served nothing and no one!" Voranthar yelled, his voice rising back to a fever pitch. "But he became a god! A being capable of rivaling our own divine creators! He did it by devouring souls!"
The entire grand hall fell dead silent. Even the Tarnstead guards stopped breathing. The revelation hung heavily in the suffocating air.
Voranthar stepped toward Kronos, his eyes burning with a terrifying, heretical madness.
"If someone not of this world can become a god," Voranthar whispered rapidly, a manic smile stretching across his face, "someone with absolutely zero inherent power... then what about us? We are native to this world! We are blessed! We serve the true gods! If we slaughter enough Vanguard soldiers... if we absorb their souls and drain their power... we can ascend too! We can all become gods!"
Kronos stared at the manic king. The Emperor’s expression shifted from boredom to absolute, visceral disgust.
"You are insane," Kronos stated flatly. He took a slow step backward, as if Voranthar carried a physical disease. "You accuse me of abandoning the teachings of our creators, yet you stand here openly plotting to usurp their thrones. You are the only heretic in this room, Voranthar."
"I will not share a room with a madman," Kronos stated.
He turned his back on Voranthar. His star-iron armor scraped against the marble floor as he marched directly toward the oak doors.
The three Morval kings followed him immediately. Their crimson robes glided across the floor. They completely ignored the drawn swords of the Tarnstead knights.
No one dared to stop them.
Voranthar watched his grand coalition crumble. He stood frozen at the head of the war table. Marcus Thorne and the remaining Heralds exchanged panicked glances. The continental decapitation strike died right there in the grand hall.
Novus stepped away from the cracked kitchen doors. He tapped Hawl’s arm.
"We have everything we need," Novus whispered.
They casually returned to their wooden carts. The royal cooks were too busy panicking over the shouting in the grand hall to notice the disguised merchants slipping out the back entrance.
Novus and Hawl walked through the courtyard and exited the palace gates. They successfully melted into the starving crowds of the capital.
Once safely inside Duke Lupis’s estate, Novus pulled the communication crystal from his coat. He channeled his mana to open the link to the orbital sanctuary.
"Lord Rubedo," Novus reported. "The summit collapsed. Emperor Kronos and the Morval Dynasty severed all ties with Tarnstead. They are leaving the capital right now."
Novus detailed the entire confrontation. He explained Voranthar’s heretical rant, the mention of the Radiant Monarch, and the enemy king’s insane plan to achieve godhood by harvesting Vanguard souls.
Loud, genuine laughter echoed through the communication link. Up in the sanctuary, Rubedo leaned back in his throne. He laughed at the absurdity of Voranthar’s desperation.
"He wants to become a god?" Rubedo asked. A wide smile stretched across his face. "He broke his own alliance because his ego could not handle the pressure. The paranoia worked perfectly."
Rubedo tapped his console to open a secondary channel to the western front.
"Dravox. Odrin," Rubedo commanded over the network.
The two Vanguard commanders answered immediately from the swamps.
"Halt the march into Gildreath," Rubedo instructed. "Emperor Kronos is rushing back to defend his territory. Leave the Gildreath Empire as it is for now. Use the black stone fortress you just breached and establish your forward base there."
"We are stopping the western invasion?" Dravox asked through the comms.
"We are isolating Tarnstead completely," Rubedo explained. "Kronos will sit in his mountains waiting for an attack that will never come. Morval is effectively neutralized. Voranthar will face Iron-Scale’s army entirely alone."
Rubedo closed the channels and looked at the digital map of the Fourth Continent. Tarnstead was completely cut off from all reinforcements.
The trap was perfectly set.
