Chapter 213: The Night of Walking Dead
[Music recommendation: Secession Studios - A Final Hope]
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"Outrageous!" Queen Elara snapped in anger. "You cannot treat a queen like this simply because you belong to the High Council! There is protocol!"
Lucian shifted his cold gaze to her and said, "Your Majesty, respectfully," he said in a cold voice, "during an investigation, we do not allow suspects the opportunity to flee, which they often do. This is protocol. And I trust Her Majesty will not interfere with matters of the High Council."
His eyes moved to King Solan, who remained silent with a grim expression, offering no opposition.
Elara, increasingly agitated by how things were progressing, turned to her husband. "Your Majesty! Surely you must say something!"
King Solan’s voice was low but firm, "I will speak when the time demands it. Let us observe how this unfolds, my queen." And Elara’s protest died instantly.
Moments later, Amara returned, her face slightly flushed from holding her breath against the rot inside, but her eyes burned with cold fury as she fixed her gaze on Queen Viva.
Lucian shifted only enough to speak, while keeping his blade still, "What did you find, Councilwoman Amara?"
"I think we’ve solved the case of missing women in this kingdom, Councilman Lucian. It is a disturbing sight down there," her voice turned colder as she added, "Not only are all their bodies down there, they are....dressed as...as dolls!"
The hallway fell into a pin drop silence as if what was being said was something they could not register for a moment.
Before gasps rippled through the crowd like a shockwave, nobles recoiled as if struck by lightning. Some covered their mouths, others stumbled back in horror, but not a sound escaped High Councilman Lucian.
He only turned his cold gaze to Viva, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
"Queen Viva," he spoke like a judge delivering a sentence, "you are hereby detained under suspicion of murder, dark sorcery, and profaning of life itself by the High Council."
Viva’s lips trembled, and her composure broke, "No! No, this is slander!" she shrieked.
"I am a Queen! I command you to-"
"Silence." Lucian’s cold voice cut through, "Anything else you do now to resist would be counted as an act to go against the council until your trial is over."
"No! You cannot do this to me! I am the Queen of this kingdom! You’ll pay for this!" Viva shrieked, her voice tore through the corridor as though volume alone could change anything.
Renwick, who had defended her only moments earlier, felt the ground being pulled beneath him. His face drained of colour, as disbelief hollowed his eyes. The bodies of the missing women had been beneath the castle all along....a simple fact he could not wrap his head around.
Even King Solan and Elara stood speechless at the turn of events. Septimus’s eyes hardened as he met Solan’s gaze accusingly, questioning what kind of family he had chosen to send his daughter into. But the king showed no guilt at all. Even in the face of this revelation, there was not a trace of remorse on his face.
Lucian kept his sword pressed to Viva’s throat while Amara withdrew magical restraints from her coat, preparing to bind the queen. She stepped behind her, while Viva was still shrieking like a madwoman. But suddenly, the queen fell silent.
Before anyone could process, she broke into hysterical laughter, making everyone instantly wary of her.
Everyone present thought the queen had truly lost her mind. The more she laughed, the more uncomfortable the room became. Amara frowned at her bizarre behaviour, and finally seized both of Viva’s gloved hands and pulled them behind her to fasten the magical restraints, when suddenly, a booming sound erupted from another part of the castle, making every head snap in that direction.
The wind began to rise, like a tempest swelling from somewhere unseen, sending goosebumps crawling across every spine. The ground trembled beneath their feet, and everyone knew in that instant that whatever had happened was no small event. Something catastrophic was unfolding.
Footsteps thundered down the corridor, and moments later, royal guards rushed toward the gathered crowd. One of them called out urgently, "Your Majesty! The west wing of the castle roof blew apart and intrud-"
He froze mid-sentence, and his eyes widened as he registered what he was seeing....his queen was being restrained like a criminal.
Viva’s hysterical laughter came to an abrupt halt, her pale green eyes widening at the mention of the west wing, because she knew there was no one else but Prince Ivan being held there. He should have been taking his last breaths by now, just like the last time she checked on him, he was struggling like a dying animal.
So what happened? How could the castle roof have blown away?
Knowing exactly how grave the situation had become, Viva realised that nothing she said or did could save her now. There was no repairing her image; it was already ruined beyond recognition. So instead of scrambling for mercy, she shifted her goal. If she was going to fall, she would fall in flames; she won’t go alone!
’Yes... that’s right. If I must go down, I will take the strongest man alive with me. Let history remember my name.’
Another wicked and unhinged laughter tore from her lips, and then everything seemed to slow....
Viva’s lips moved and whispered something venomous under her breath. In the next instant, a surge of violent black smoke burst from her hands that was still being held by Amara, knocking the councilwoman back and slamming her into the wall.
Seira, King Solan, and Septimus reacted instantly, sensing something terribly wrong in the air. Each summoned a powerful barrier around themselves as thick, sickening smoke spiralled upward, swallowing the corridor in blinding darkness.
Lucian swung his blade toward Viva’s throat, but the steel met nothing. Just like that, she was gone. He moved his eyes frantically to see through the choking darkness, but couldn’t make out a thing.
As the darkness slowly thinned, their eyes lifted, and horror settled over them. Viva hovered above them in her true form, her skin was wrinkled and ashen-grey, stretched over pulsing black veins like living roots beneath dead flesh. Her eyes were nothing but pitch-black, and her lips peeled back into a grotesque, jagged smile.
She raised her arms wide, voice warping as she sneered, "You dare try to capture me? Let’s see how you manage that....while you are all dead."
Malice dripped from her words like poison. Then, with a hiss, she spoke another spell, "Omraya asmatus decara."
Soon, every royal guard present was swallowed by the dark smoke surging from all directions around her. A malignant magic circle illuminated beneath Viva’s levitating form, its symbols twisting in ominous dark purple light.
Painful screams tore through the corridor, forcing even the bravest to freeze for a moment. Shock rippled through the crowd like a wave, while those prepared to fight steeled themselves, their eyes hardening as the horror unfolded before them.
Under the shroud of darkness, the guards’ bodies contorted and broke into grey flesh with blackened veins. One by one, they transformed and twisted into darkrots.
And it didn’t end there.
Viva whispered another spell, and the floor that was already trembling shook violently, stones splintering beneath their feet. Cracks spread like lightning across the entire corridor. Then, from those ruptures, shadows clawed their way out.
Shadowy, distorted bodies slowly rose from the earth as the cursed soldiers dragged themselves from their graves. Their dead eyes were hollow, armour rusted, their movements stiff and unnatural, as the army of the damned answered their queen.
Her distorted voice billowed across the corridor, "Hear my command, my army! Kill every single one of them!"
"By the gods..." one of the nobles gasped, his face drained of colour.
Moments later, deafening, monstrous screeches erupted, tearing through the crowd. Nobles, who were not used to violence or war, screamed and scrambled in terror, only to be cut off as the undead surged forward, blocking their escape.
One rotting soldier drove its rusted blade straight through a nobleman’s throat, then, with a wrench, tore his head clean from his body.
And all hell broke loose.
"Run! Save yourselves from the demons!" another noble shrieked, voice cracking with hysteria.
But as a darkrot lunged to kill him next, Gideon flashed forward with his steel and cleaved the creature’s head in half with one brutal strike.
The corpse split down the centre like shattered stone...filling the corridor with silence. Soon, the two halves began knitting together, shadows stitching the corpse back into shape. Within seconds, the undead soldier stood whole once more, unfazed and ready to kill again.
Gasps of terror swallowed the hall.
Someone whispered through shaking lips in disbelief, "Wh-what is this? Can they not be killed?!"
Viva broke into another manic cackle that sounded like nails screeching against a board, "You can’t kill what’s already dead....can you?" she rasped, her voice twisting with triumph.
The undead soldier turned on Gideon again, but before its blade could land, Oliver moved. In smooth, precise, he carved through the creature in one fluid arc with his blade glowing with his pale-green magic.
The creature shrieked and split again, but unlike before, its body crumbled into ash, dissolving into black dust at Oliver’s feet.
Viva’s laughter was abruptly cut off into stunned silence.
