Chapter 347: Bittersweet Reunion
[Music recommendation: R. Armando Morabito - Eternals]
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A shocked gasp escaped Clair’s lips and she wondered how he could possibly know.
After staying in Versailles for years, she knew that seeing through memories was King Iskara’s unique ability, but she had never heard of Ivan possessing such a power.
What had changed? Had he always hidden this capability? If so, why had he waited until now to use it?
But she did not get the chance to dwell on those questions.
Ivan loomed over her and stepped onto one of her hands with such brutal force that it was crushed into a bloody pulp beneath his foot.
"Aahhhhh!" Her agonising shriek carried across the land, but he did not stop. His blood boiled with escalating fury.
Death would be a mercy for a creature like her, and the memories he had glimpsed only added fuel to his raging fire.
He bent down to catch her other hand, and then, without mercy, he twisted it so brutally that the sickening sound of her bones snapping into countless fragments echoed through the air.
The woman continued to shriek, begging for mercy, but she was pleading with a man who no longer possessed a single shred of humanity.
"Death is too easy for you," he said softly.
He gripped her head, his hands covering her scorched face, and began slamming it against the rock behind her. He struck the stone again and again until blood painted the surface behind her, yet he did not kill her.
She remained very much alive, enduring the horrific pain coursing through her entire body. It was the demonic power within her, the same force that had sustained her for so many years, that kept her conscious when any normal human would have already died.
But Ivan still had a final blow to deliver. He unsheathed his sword and ran his hand along the blade, coating it with his divine blood.
As soon as he did, the steel ignited as if it had been dipped into molten lava. Then, with a single, merciless strike, he severed her legs at the knees.
Her painful shrieks echoed across the battlefield, though they were soon drowned out by the slaughter taking place nearby.
Blast sounds continued to resonate from different parts of the city as the dragon wreaked havoc and destruction.
In the midst of the carnage, Drake stood frozen.
He was still reeling from the shock of discovering that the woman he had obsessed over for so long was gone.
Clair and the Master had lied to him.
They had claimed that Evelyn’s blood would only be used in the ritual to turn her into one of them. After that, they promised he could finally have her without fearing that she would ever harm him again with her divine powers.
This was the sole reason he had remained at his post. He had been ordered to guard the entrance to the ritual site to ensure no one interrupted it, especially the young duke, should he happen to wake.
But it was not the duke who had barged in.
It was Ivan himself.
Drake had been thrown hard against the woman they called Master, and from the ground, he had watched the scene unfold. He saw the powerful prince break down in grief before transforming into nothing more than a bloodthirsty monster.
He had been trying to avoid Ivan coming his way, especially after witnessing how he had dealt with the colossal serpents, along with Clair, who was still shrieking in agony.
Seeing how she had been reduced to a mangled pulp, Drake felt a surge of primal fear and wanted nothing more than to run away before he became the next person to face Ivan’s brutality.
Looking around, he noticed that every single person was now engaged in battle, except for the woman responsible for all of this. Their Master.
She sat upon the ground, chanting spell after spell. The ground shook as more creatures began to seep out of the cracks.
Drake suspected those fissures led all the way to the depths of hell, opened specifically to keep Ivan occupied.
So he seized the opportunity to flee from her and the other members who were involved in the ritual. Because deep down, he knew that Ivan would eventually come for every one of them.
Looking across the field, Drake noticed that Ivan was not pursuing those already engaged in battle with his comrades.
From a distance, he spotted Ivan’s sharp-tongued sister, Cece.
Knowing he could not possibly face Ivan in a one-on-one fight, he began advancing towards Cece instead, intending to vent all his frustration over losing the one woman he had come so close to claiming.
Malice burned in his mind.
While Cece was busy defending herself from the constant attacks of Darkrots coming at her from every direction, he prepared to launch a sneak attack.
The skin on his arms began to split open until slimy, dark grey flesh was revealed beneath, exposing his true appearance. The form he had hidden behind Rowan’s face until now finally dissolved, revealing Drake’s face as he truly was.
His claws extended, dripping with a dark substance, the same vile substance that had once infected Ivan with and later Damien.
Moving silently, he advanced with a single purpose.... to plunge those poisoned claws into Cece’s back while her attention was elsewhere.
Just as he closed in on her, with a victorious grin on his face as he raised his sickly claws to attack her.
Something moved so fast and sliced through his darkened arm that he did not even realise his arm had been severed from his body until black blood gushed out.
For a moment, he did not even register that his arm had been severed from his body.
"Not again, you sick bastard. I think I have a lot of scores to settle with you. Not just for one, but... two sisters now." A deep, masculine and arrogant voice reached Drake’s ears.
He slowly shifted his scant red eyes from his severed arm to the man responsible for his condition.
Drake gritted his teeth and hissed, "You-"
Before he could finish his sentence, the man spun around and drove a powerful kick into his chest, sending him flying far across the battlefield.
At the sound of that voice, even Cece turned around.
Her crimson eyes widened in shock, then softened with relief as fresh tears filled them once more.
"Oh, Damien!"
She moved toward him without thinking, intending on throwing herself into his arms.
Just then, a Darkrot lunged from behind, but Edward intercepted and blasted the creature away before it could harm her.
"Cece! Don’t lose your focus now!" Edward barked as he turned around, only to be met with the sight of Cece already clinging to a familiar man.
Surprise flickered in his pale blue eyes at the sight of Damien standing there tall, strong and well once again.
As soon as Cece wrapped her arms around him, Damien smiled gently and hugged his sister back.
All the while, Edward’s heart softened, and he channeled his powers to form a barrier around the siblings, allowing them a brief moment of peace in the middle of the chaotic battlefield.
Damien felt the front of his shirt grow damp with her tears, so he patted Cece’s head lovingly. "There, there, sister. No more waterworks. I am very much alive and well!"
Cece pulled herself together and pulled back to scan him, her eyes searching for any sign of lingering darkness.
"Are you okay? How are you feeling? Is it painful anywhere? Do you feel strange at all?"
"Hush, sister! As I said, I am completely fine. I am a little hungry for some blood, perhaps, but otherwise, I am good." Damien flashed her his signature, arrogant grin.
Cece smiled slightly. "Are you sure?"
"Totally! Jeez, Cece, you’re being such a worrywart that you might give Evelyn competition in that area."
As Damien joked lightly, the smile disappeared from Cece’s lips, and they began to tremble. Her eyes blurred, and before she knew it, fresh tears began to stream down her face.
"Hey! Come on now, Cece, my joke wasn’t that bad. Tsk, come here." He muttered before pulling his sister into another hug to console her.
"Alright, fine, I won’t compare your worrying to Evelyn anymore, alright? Happy now?"
As he said that, Cece sobbed even harder and began shaking her head. And the smile on Damien’s face slowly faded as he watched his sister crying so intensely, and he realised it was not about some small matter at all.
Holding Cece by the shoulders, he gently pulled her away and asked in a serious voice, "Cece, what’s wrong? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?"
Cece heaved as she tried to control her emotions and shook her head. Her grip on his shirt tightened as she finally managed to speak.
"E-Evelyn..." she sobbed. "Damien... Evelyn is..." She shook her head again, as though she could not bring herself to say the words out loud.
Damien’s brows furrowed as he asked, "Evelyn is what, Cece? What happened while I was unconscious?"
Cece’s tear-filled eyes lifted to meet Damien’s, and he could finally see just how much pain they held.
He held his breath as he finally heard her speak, "Evelyn... is no more, Damien. She’s gone... they... they took her from us!" Her voice broke as she sobbed harder.
