Chapter 247: The Truth Revealed
The blackened iron doors groaned, emitting a deafening screech of metal grinding against stone as Lucien and Kael forced them open.
The Grand Underground Hall was a cavernous expanse of polished obsidian and reinforced masonry. It was originally built as a secure bunker for the Imperial faculty. Right now, it was a staging ground for an apocalypse.
The air was so saturated with corrupted mana that it felt like walking into a deep, freezing ocean. Breathing required conscious effort.
In the absolute dead center of the hall, suspended over a massive, glowing purple runic array, was a raised stone altar.
Three figures were chained to the heavy pillars surrounding the altar.
Princess Celestia of the Aurelian Empire was bound on the left. Her stunning ice-blue gown was torn and stained with dirt. Her wrists were locked in heavy suppression cuffs, neutralizing her high-tier ice magic. She was fully conscious, her jaw set, glaring absolute murder at her captors.
Alicia Valemont was chained on the right. The Crimson Witch looked like she had been dragged through hell. Her combat tunic was shredded, her silver hair was matted with dried blood, and her wrists were bruised purple beneath the iron restraints.
And Prince Leon Valemont was chained in the exact center.
Unlike the girls, Leon wasn’t beaten. But his face was pale, his eyes darting frantically around the room as the horrific reality of the situation finally began to set in.
Standing before the altar, holding a staff dripping with concentrated dark mana, was the Valemont Chancellor. Surrounding the perimeter of the runic array were twenty Infernus mages. Their hands were pressed flat against the stone floor, chanting in a guttural, dissonant tongue that made the air violently vibrate.
"What is this?" Leon’s voice trembled, echoing across the massive hall. "Chancellor, you said we were using the ley lines to break the Imperial capital’s wards. You said we were restoring the throne!"
The Chancellor didn’t even look at the boy. He continued drawing complex runes in the air with the tip of his staff. "The throne is dust, boy. It has been dust for ten years."
"You swore an oath to my father!" Leon yelled, straining against the heavy chains. "You said my royal blood would revive the Valemont Army! Why is Alicia chained like a prisoner?!"
The Chancellor finally paused. He turned to the naive prince. A cruel, mocking smile stretched across his wrinkled, scarred face.
"Your father was a weak, idealistic fool," the Chancellor sneered. "And your ’army’ is nothing but a distraction. Infernus does not care about dead kingdoms. We only care about the Gate."
Leon froze, the color completely draining from his face. "The Gate?"
"The dimensional rift," Alicia spat, her voice hoarse and bleeding with pure rage. "You absolute idiot. They aren’t restoring our home. They are sacrificing us to summon a Calamity."
The Chancellor laughed, a dry, grating sound that cut through the chanting. "The Crimson Witch is far more perceptive than the False King. Yes, Prince Leon. Your pure royal blood, combined with the extreme elemental purity of the Aurelian Princess, is the perfect catalyst. You aren’t a king. You are a battery."
Leon’s entire worldview shattered in a single instant. The desperate hope that had kept him sane for a decade crumbled into absolute despair. He looked at the Chancellor, then at his sister, realizing he had walked her straight into a slaughterhouse.
Lucien didn’t care about the family drama. He cared about the objective.
He stepped through the iron doors, raising the Lumeveil Enforcer.
"Kael," Lucien whispered, his eyes locked on the Chancellor’s skull. "Clear the mages. Do not touch the altar."
Before Kael could even move, Lucien pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The hyper-compressed bullet tore across the length of the hall, completely bypassing the chanting mages, aimed perfectly between the Chancellor’s eyes.
It didn’t hit.
A fraction of a second before the bullet connected, a thick, liquid crimson barrier erupted around the entire altar. The armor-piercing round slammed into the blood-shield, flattening against the dense magical pressure and dropping harmlessly to the stone floor.
The Chancellor turned, his eyes locking onto the strike team standing at the entrance. He didn’t look surprised.
"The Golden Generation," the Chancellor mocked. "And the Ashborne rat. You survived the Vanguard. Impressive, but ultimately useless."
He slammed the butt of his staff into the stone floor.
The shadows along the walls of the grand hall separated. Thirty elite Infernus cultists, heavily armored and wielding dark-mana-infused weapons, stepped into the dim light. They formed a solid, impenetrable wall of steel between the students and the altar.
"Kill the cadets," the Chancellor ordered coldly. "Do not let them interrupt the chant. The Gate opens in three minutes."
Kael ignited his Sovereign Aura. It was weaker now, flickering from exhaustion and severe blood loss, but the Golden Boy still stepped to the absolute front of the formation.
Lucien checked the cylinder of the Enforcer. Eleven rounds left.
"Conserve your mana," Lucien commanded, his voice completely devoid of fear. "We only need to break through the center. Bordon, you are the battering ram. Elisha, cover our blind spots. Mariella, stay directly behind me."
"For the Empire!" Kael roared, charging straight into the cultist line.
The clash was brutal. Kael swung his glowing longsword in a wide arc, severing the first cultist’s halberd and slicing across the man’s chest. Bordon didn’t have a shield anymore, so he used a heavy piece of the splintered steel strapped to his forearm as a bludgeon, slamming it directly into a cultist’s face with a sickening crunch.
Lucien didn’t charge. He walked methodically behind Kael and Bordon, picking off targets with ruthless efficiency. A cultist raised a crossbow to shoot Kael in the back. Lucien fired from the hip, blowing the man’s knee out before he could pull the trigger. Another operative lunged at Mariella. Lucien sidestepped, grabbed the man by the throat, and fired point-blank into his stomach.
But there were simply too many.
A heavily armored cultist vanguard bypassed Bordon and slammed a mace directly into Kael’s side. The Golden Boy coughed up blood, stumbling hard onto the stone floor. Elisha desperately threw a raw wind-bolt, but it splashed harmlessly against the vanguard’s dark armor.
"The chanting is accelerating!" Mariella screamed, watching the purple array on the floor begin to violently bleed into a blinding, toxic violet light.
The heavy runic chains binding Leon, Celestia, and Alicia began to glow white-hot.
The Chancellor raised his hands toward the ceiling. "The toll is paid! Open the Abyss!"
The blood-shield around the altar suddenly retracted. It didn’t disappear; it condensed, wrapping tightly around the three hostages, actively sinking into their skin to forcefully extract their mana cores.
Celestia screamed as the dark mana invaded her veins. Alicia thrashed violently against the iron pillars, her crimson eyes burning with helpless fury.
Leon stopped struggling.
He looked at the Chancellor’s fanatical grin, and then he looked at his sister. Ten years of hiding in shadows. Ten years of being groomed, manipulated, and fed lies of grandeur. He thought he was restoring their family’s honor, but all he had done was deliver the last surviving Valemont to be slaughtered by a madman.
He was an absolute fool.
But he was still a brother.
"I’m sorry, Ali," Leon whispered, his voice incredibly calm amidst the deafening roar of the dark mana.
Alicia’s eyes snapped toward him. She saw the look of absolute resignation on his face. She knew exactly what he was doing.
"Leon, no!" Alicia screamed, her voice tearing her throat. "Don’t do it! Please!"
Leon didn’t try to break the iron chains. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused all of his remaining internal mana into his chest. He took the pristine, royal mana core that he had cultivated for a decade, and forced it into a violent, reverse spiral.
Leon shattered his own core.
A massive, concussive shockwave of pure, untainted royal mana erupted from his chest. The blast bypassed the Chancellor’s blood-shield entirely. The sheer kinetic force of the detonation hit Alicia point-blank, violently shattering the runic chains binding her to the pillar.
The shockwave threw the Crimson Witch completely off the altar, sending her crashing onto the stone floor outside the primary ritual circle.
The Chancellor’s eyes widened in absolute horror. "No! The catalyst is incomplete!"
But it was too late to stop the reaction. The dark mana of the massive runic array immediately surged into the violent vacuum left by Leon’s shattered core.
Leon didn’t even have time to scream.
The corrupted energy consumed him instantly, turning his body into a charred, empty husk.
As the last drop of Valemont royal blood burned away, the ceiling of the Grand Underground Hall violently tore open.
A dimensional rift, pitch-black and bleeding with apocalyptic gravity, manifested directly above the altar. The Gate was open.
Comments