Chương 98: Chapter 91: Apocalypse of a Crimson Night

The long gathering that accompanied the night had finally concluded, and all the guests were escorted to their private quarters within the royal castle of Gergrain by a procession of attentive maids. The crimson moon hung in the sky like a bleeding eye surrounded by a sea of darkness, with no stars visible anywhere across the horizon. It was unusual, yes, but no one panicked at the sight; such celestial anomalies occurred every once in a while across Mythara.

The tall windows bathed the suite's interior in the eerie, deep crimson of the moonlight, while a simple brass lamp resting on a wooden desk cast a quiet, overlapping warmth. It was identical to the rooms assigned to every royal attendee of this grand event—designed to suit the lofty presence of royalty, adorned with gleaming golden accents, expensive paintings, and even reinforced sound barriers woven into the architecture to prevent any eavesdropping.

The King of Rellion, Lockwane—now dressed in a soft, high-collared shirt beneath a long, open robe and loose trousers—reclined comfortably on the plush bed tucked in the corner near the window. He was quietly reading a book on Gergrain's history, a neutral, self-satisfied smile playing on his face. We lost the territorial war back then because the previous king of Crimvane interfered, and now he has doomed himself, leaving only his two children behind.

I know the current Queen very well from her childhood; she's just a fragile little princess who blindly followed her mother's orders. He closed the book with a soft thud, his eyes narrowing. I'll make sure to humiliate you for what you've done to us that day. Outside the suite, two elite palace guards stood before the double doors. Stationed beside them was a man wrapped in a black cloak, his eyes scanning the dim hallway like a hawk.

He was a specialized tracker, hired personally by Kaimon to prevent any sudden conflicts from erupting between Crimvane and Rellion. As they maintained their silent vigil, Itheira strode down the corridor, escorted by her personal knights until she stood before the chamber doors.

"Please open the door," she said, her voice low. The man in the black cloak immediately stepped forward. Activating his skills, his red eyes scanned her entire form for any illusions, manipulation, or shapeshifting. Finding nothing amiss, he gave a silent signal to the palace guards to open the entryway and allow her inside. As Itheira entered the room, Lockwane looked up, a smug grin spreading across his face as he set his book aside.

"Gergrain's king is generous enough to give us a free elite guard to watch our doors as well, huh?" He chuckled, walking toward her with a lazy swagger.

"So, have you washed up? If so, we can begin our long night together." His hand casually grasped her waist with a confident smile.

"Yes, we can begin as usual," Itheira whispered, stepping forward to wrap her arms tightly around him in a sudden embrace. Lockwane blinked, his smile faltering slightly at the tight grip.

"Why the sudden hug? You aren't usually—!?" Suddenly, a bright spray of blood erupted from his back. Itheira stood with a jagged dagger in her trembling hand, having plunged the blade—slick with a viscous green liquid—deep between his shoulders.

"Itheira… what are you…" Lockwane choked, his eyes widening in pure disbelief as blood bubbled past his lips. She wrenched the dagger out with a wet tear of flesh, her hands shaking so violently that the weapon nearly slipped from her grasp.

"This is a rare paralytic poison… it directly attacks the internal Aether veins, weakening your body to the point where you can't even stand," she said, her voice cracking as tears flooded her eyes. Poison?! Why is she acting like this? Lockwane thought as his legs buckled beneath him. He collapsed against the edge of the bed, his limbs growing numb as his veins went cold.

"But… she explicitly told me that it also heightens the victim's… physical senses tenfold," she added, her muffled voice shaking with her own horror. Lockwane's eyes darted wildly around the room; he had no time to process her words. Even though he couldn't comprehend this sudden madness, his survival instincts screamed at him to move. He desperately reached for the nearest object—a pillow resting on the mattress—hoping to throw it or use it as a shield, but his fingers lost all strength mid-motion.

His arm dropped limply against the sheets.

"HELP! GUARDS! HELP!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs, saliva flecking his lips.

"There's a sound barrier active… please don't resist. Don't make this any harder for me than it already is," Itheira said, her eyes completely hollow and unfocused as she stared through him. Lockwane stared at her empty expression, his own eyes wide with terror as he tried to crawl backward across the mattress, desperate enough to throw himself straight out the open window. But Itheira simply reached out, seizing the powerless king by his high collar and hauling him roughly back to the edge of the bed.

Her sobs deepened, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached into the leather pouch at her hip. She withdrew an iron flask reinforced with glowing protective runes from it.

"His mouth was sooo big, no? So it would be better to reward him for that achievement first." The playful words of that princess erupted inside Itheira's mind like a haunting melody. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"… I'm sorry, Lockwane," she wept. She squeezed Lockwane's cheeks with her free hand, forcing his jaw wide open, and uncorked the iron flask. No-no… STOP! Someone—help! Stop! Lockwane panicked internally, his mind screaming as he watched the glowing, amber liquid tilt toward his face. The boiling, molten lava spilled directly into his mouth, searing his tongue to ash before sliding down his throat, slowly and agonizingly liquefying his internal organs.

Lockwane thrashed with everything he had, but his paralyzed body refused to obey. His eyes turned bloodshot, veins bulging along his forehead and neck as the agony escalated. Heightened by the paralytic poison, the unimaginable pain was magnified tenfold, forcing his nervous system to process every excruciating microsecond of the heat. Lockwane's neck gave out. His head fell backward, his gaze drifting out the window. There, hovering beneath the bloody moon, a jagged fissure tore through space.

Peering through it was a massive crimson eye, gazing down at the castle like a god observing its toys.

"I'm so sorry…" Itheira blubbered uncontrollably, her vision blurred by tears.

"Oh, we can't let him die just yet, now can we? So after you're finished, heal him up and continue to the limbs." After a few excruciating seconds of burning, Itheira retrieved a high-grade healing potion and splashed the shimmering liquid over Lockwane's smoldering chest. The magic forcefully mended his failing organs and knitted his flesh back together, while still ensuring the agony remained intact.

"Itheira… let me go! Let me go! Please… please..." Lockwane wheezed, his ruined voice trembling as he struggled to lift his torso. A dagger sliced through his right arm, pinning it to the wooden bedframe. With another wet thud, his left arm was fastened as well. His left leg followed immediately after, before his right leg was skewered into the floorboards. He screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the soundproofed walls.

"We start with the fingers of the left hand, then the right, then the toes of the left foot, and finally the right." Itheira distinctly recalled how those pink lips had curled with such amusement.

"Oh, and make sure to stop the bleeding with a little fire, or he'll leave us behind too soon~" She reached out, grabbing a pair of iron shears, and clamped the blunt blades around Lockwane's left thumb.

"N-no, don't do—" He tried to beg for mercy, but drops of lingering lava and dark blood spilled out from his ruined mouth. Itheira turned her gaze toward him, her face slick with tears, her jaw clenched tightly shut.

"We… we shouldn't have touched what was never meant to be touched," she whispered. The blunt shears crushed the digit from both sides until bone finally snapped, and the screams rose anew. And so, beneath the ominous crimson moonlight and within the quiet, soundproofed walls of the royal castle, a silent bloodbath continued through the night. Outside the windows, a pitch-black owl circled the castle spires. Its brown eyes reflected the gruesome events unfolding behind the glass, serving as the lone witness.

Noa sat alone on the edge of a hill, the capital city of Gergrain stretching out far beneath him. He leaned back, planting his hands in the dirt behind him to support his weight. His jacket fluttered gently in the chill night wind, and his messy black hair fell forward, casting a shadow over his eyes.

"I don't know who you are, or why you're always watching me. I was only able to sense you when I unlocked [Nihility Decree], but it seems you've been observing me since long before that," he muttered to the empty air. There was no one around him. No sound of approaching footsteps, no rustling from the nearby bushes, and no trace of an active concealment skill. It was as though he were speaking to the emptiness itself. His smirk shifted slightly as his gaze drifted toward the distant spires of the royal castle.

"But for now, I want you to do a little favor for me: erase the name 'Rellion' from this world entirely." He tilted his head up, staring into the starless sky.

"And stop watching me in the future if you can help it, or I'll hunt you down and kill you myself." A silence fell over the hill. Then, as if answering his request, a string of strange, pitch-black runes materialized in the air before him. He had never seen this bizarre language before, nor had Vionette ever mentioned anything like it, yet he comprehended its meaning perfectly.

'If you wish, I shall.'

The citizens of the Kingdom of Rellion—lovers strolling the streets, rivals drinking in taverns, and old friends catching up—were enjoying the night just as they always did, laughing and sharing merry shouts. Then, just outside the main gates of the royal castle, the very fabric of space suddenly warped. As the surrounding air was dragged toward a single locus, a tiny sphere of nothingness formed. All ambient light ceased to exist the moment it touched that expanding speck of non-existence.

"What… is that?" As the nearby citizens stared at the anomaly in confusion, the vacuum sphere suddenly began to rapidly expand. At first, only the loose fabric of their clothes was tugged toward the black hole. Two armed castle guards rushed forward to investigate, and without a shred of mercy, the pair was sucked into the anomaly. Their bodies stretched unnaturally, warping like clay before the void devoured them whole.

Witnessing the horrific display, panic instantly seized the crowd as they realized an apocalypse had arrived, sprinting away in terror. But was outrunning such an entity even possible? All across the vast territory of Rellion—from the crowded capital where the black hole grew, to the distant dukedoms hundreds of miles away—every single citizen was suddenly frozen mid-motion. Pitch-black thorns erupted from the earth, warping around the people and pinning them to the ground.

From the heart of the capital, the anomaly exploded outward, silently consuming buildings, mountains, and the impaled citizens in its path. Everything within Rellion's borders—nearly two million square miles of land—was erased from Mythara, leaving behind nothing but an abyss of a crater.

Itheira stood trembling before the corpse of Lockwane, which by now could no longer even be called a corpse. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, and her tears fell endlessly onto the blood-soaked floorboards. The entire chamber was painted in dark crimson gore, and the moonlight bleeding through the windows only worsened the sight. Grabbing the same poison-laced dagger she had used to stab Lockwane, she pressed its sharp tip against her own throat.

The steel tore through flesh, and blood sprayed across the floor for one final time. As her eyes fluttered shut and darkness claimed her, the parting words of the princess echoed in her fading consciousness:"Lockwane Rellion and Itheira Rellion, I hope you live a far worse life next time." —Act Closed— King Kaimon strode down the polished palace hallway the following morning, dressed in a grand, ornate uniform specifically tailored for the academy's opening ceremony.

A retinue of high-ranking nobles and foreign royals allied with Gergrain followed closely behind him, murmuring in low tones. A royal knight sprinted down the corridor, his breaths ragged and frantic, before crashing to his knees directly at the King's feet.

"Y-Your Majesty! Urgent news! A massive problem!" the knight gasped, his face pale.

"What is going on? Catch your breath and explain yourself clearly," Kaimon commanded, his brow furrowing as he halted his stride. The knight swallowed hard. His face was slick with sweat, his jaw clenched tight with fear.

"The rulers of Rellion have both been brutally murdered inside their chambers…" His face was slick with sweat, his voice trembling as he delivered the report.

"The rulers of five other kingdoms have been found dead as well. And all of them… were those who publicly opposed Crimvane." What!?

"Your Majesty, urgent news!" Before Kaimon could process the grim report, another knight came sprinting down the hallway, completely winded, and dropped to his knees right beside the first.

"What is it this time?" Unlike his reaction to the first messenger, Kaimon's patience completely snapped, his voice booming as he demanded the report. The second knight trembled, his eyes wide as he delivered the final blow:"The entire kingdom of Rellion has been erased from the map… along with every single allied kingdom that stood with them."