Chương 136: The Man Who Remained After His Death

The impact did not only destroy the windows. It turned the capital into a clock. From that moment on, every second mattered. Maelor knew it. Zayn did too. The fused scythe slammed into the archmage's staff with a double scream. The black edge wanted to cut matter. The white edge, born from the spirit blade stolen in Vhur, bit into the invisible lines of the spell. Maelor stepped back. Only one step. The tiles beneath his feet were immediately covered in blue circles.

"Third Circle Barrier." Maelor's voice remained calm. Too calm. Zayn smiled through the red smoke rising from his veins.

"You announce your spells now?"

"No." The circles exploded into chains of light around Zayn.

"I'm giving you a chance to understand why you're wasting time." The chains closed in. Zayn raised his right hand. Avarice opened in his palm.

"Right of Seizure." The Locks of Ghelkar pulsed. The chains resisted for a second, then their anchor points tore apart. They were not destroyed. They simply fell, stripped of the right to hold. Maelor observed.

"Cassiel left you something."

"I took it from him."

"That is not the same sentence." Zayn attacked. Maelor raised two fingers. Space folded. Zayn reached him and struck an absence. The archmage had shifted the room around himself, not his body. The floor beneath Zayn turned into a spiral of glass. Thousands of runes lit up in the walls. The bubbles protecting the Council members were pulled farther away, behind several layers of defense. Zayn understood immediately. Maelor was not fighting to win quickly. He was fighting to keep the room from dying too soon.

He was still protecting them. Those who had signed. Those who had condemned. Those who had let it happen. Zayn's hatred found that unbearable. He beat his wings. The black edges ignited. His blood turned blazing, torn from Drakhar's core. The heat tore through his body like a punishment he was using to strike harder. He brought his left wing down. A red wave swept through the room. Maelor planted his staff into the floor.

"Preservation Wall." A blue dome rose up. Zayn's fire crashed into it. The dome held. But Maelor's arms trembled. Not much. Enough for Zayn to see it.

"Can you block Drakhar too?"

"No." Maelor raised his eyes.

"But Drakhar is dead." Zayn smiled.

"Because I killed him." He placed his left hand on the scythe. This time, he used neither flame nor possession. A dark pressure spread along the shaft. Corrupted aura. It was not the true aura of the beastfolk. Not that pure, instinctive, burning will of body and combat. It was a filthy imitation. A thing born of Gluttony, of eaten flesh, of the memory of devoured warriors, laid over the scythe like a layer of living darkness. The blade grew heavier. More present.

As though it no longer wanted merely to cut the body, but to weigh down the survival instinct itself. Maelor felt it. His eyes darkened.

"So you even took that from the beastfolk." Zayn attacked. The scythe covered in dark aura struck the dome. This time, the barrier did not break. It knelt. The blue light sagged beneath the weight of the impact, like a living shield forced to bow. Maelor gritted his teeth.

"So that is what you became." Zayn pushed harder.

"No." The dome cracked.

"It's what I had to learn." The barrier exploded. Maelor stumbled back, his cloak torn, a line of blood across his cheek. The members of the Council screamed behind their bubbles. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Zayn raised the scythe.

"First blood." Maelor touched his cheek. Then looked at the blood on his fingers.

"Yes." He closed his hand.

"First day." Zayn frowned. Too late. The whole room changed. The circles beneath the capital activated. Not only beneath the building. Beneath the streets. Beneath the walls. Beneath the temples. Beneath the ancient foundations. Maelor had prepared the capital like an open grimoire. The sky above the palace turned blue. An impossible blue. Archmage circles appeared on several levels, stacked like the rings of an invisible tower. The fight had left the room. On the first day, Zayn destroyed the central palace.

Not in one blow. Piece by piece. Maelor prevented it as much as a man can prevent a catastrophe from choosing where to place its feet. They tore through walls in explosions of light. They crashed into the inner courtyard. They rose back into the air, Zayn carried by his flaming black wings, Maelor by platforms of runes forming beneath his feet with each movement. Zayn struck with a savagery that had become technical. Fused scythe. Dark aura on the blade. Fire in his veins.

Territory Extension threatening to isolate Maelor, but the archmage pushing it back through anchors prepared throughout the capital. Right of Seizure to rip the locks from spells. Ruined Time to wear down barriers. Maelor answered with almost inhuman precision. He never cast a useless spell. Every circle had a purpose. Every barrier protected a street. Every teleportation moved a group of civilians. Every attack aimed for a joint, a mark, a badly closed wound. He was not merely trying to kill Zayn.

He was trying to survive long enough for the heroes to return. By the eighth hour, Zayn understood. They stood above the great eastern avenue, in a sky full of broken circles. Maelor was finally breathing hard. His staff was cracked. Zayn had lost half his right wing, and it was already growing back with a wet pain. His torso was covered in blue burns, white cuts, runes still trying to bite into his flesh.

"You don't want to win," Zayn said. Maelor raised his eyes.

"Yes."

"No." Zayn smiled.

"You want to last." Maelor did not answer. Zayn laughed.

"They're far away, aren't they? Your heroes." Maelor's silence was answer enough. Zayn descended on him like a black meteor. Maelor raised a defensive circle. The scythe laden with dark aura crushed it. They both fell through the roof of an empty basilica. Statues of human saints shattered around them. Zayn rose first.

"How many days?" Maelor pushed himself upright, one hand against his ribs.

"Enough." Zayn laughed louder.

"You think you can last several days against me?" Maelor looked at him. There was neither arrogance nor illusion in his eyes. Only a decision made before the beginning.

"I think I have to." And that sentence hurt Zayn more than an insult. Because it was simple. Because it was true. Because Maelor had stayed. On the second day, the capital stopped trying to function. The civilians had been evacuated to the outer underground shelters. The soldiers no longer shot at Zayn. They formed rescue lines, carried the wounded, held secondary barriers while Maelor and the Demon King turned the sky into a battlefield.

The members of the Council had been moved into an underground chamber by Maelor's spells. Zayn had seen them vanish. He could have pursued them. Maelor had stepped in front of him. Always. Every time. Always between him and them. Around noon, Zayn hurled him into the Archivium tower. Maelor's body crashed through three floors of stone and books. Zayn entered after him. The archives were already burning. Ancient documents drifted through the air like dead birds.

Maelor was kneeling in the middle of the burning pages. Zayn walked toward him slowly.

"Why are you still protecting them?" Maelor coughed blood.

"Because someone has to."

"Even them?"

"Yes."

"Even the ones who locked me up?" Maelor raised his head. His face was covered in dust and blood.

"Especially them." That answer stopped Zayn.

"You think that absolves them?"

"No."

"You think that comforts me?"

"No."

"Then what is it for?" Maelor was silent for a second. Then he said,"To stop you from deciding the whole world deserves to burn because a room full of cowardly men condemned you." The fused scythe growled. Zayn tightened his grip on the shaft.

"You speak as if you were above them."

"I'm not." Maelor smiled faintly.

"I was in that room." Silence fell. Fire devoured a row of books behind him. Zayn did not move. Maelor continued,"I said you should not be killed. I said we should wait. I said we should understand." His voice trembled for the first time.

"But I did not open the door." Zayn felt something tighten in his throat. Anger would have been easier. Maelor was not giving him that. He was giving him the exact truth. The kind that was not enough.

"You protected me," Zayn said. The words came out like an accusation. Maelor closed his eyes.

"Not enough."

"You were the only one."

"Not enough." Zayn raised the scythe.

"Stop." Maelor reopened his eyes.

"No." The fire reflected in his pupils.

"If you're going to hate me, hate me properly. Don't make me better than I was." Zayn attacked. The scythe cut through the flames. Maelor raised his cracked staff. The clash made the Archivium explode. By the third day, neither of them had much human shape left. Maelor was still standing only because circles had been carved directly into his flesh. Every spell pulled at his body like a rope worn too thin. His hands shook. His breathing was irregular. His gray hair was covered in dried blood.

Zayn, meanwhile, was a living ruin. One whole wing had grown back crooked. His left arm burned every time he activated forge-blood. His right palm no longer closed. The mark of Pride around his neck pulsed like an infected crown. The fused scythe now spoke with three voices at times: its own, the trapped spirit's, and something the Throne had awakened within the metal. They met again on the western ramparts at sunrise. The whole capital was covered in blue barriers, smoke, ruins, and silence.

Far away, very far to the east, no one was arriving yet. Maelor knew it. Zayn did too.

"They won't get here in time," Zayn said. Maelor raised his staff.

"Then I'll last longer." Zayn burst out laughing. Not mockery. Fatigue.

"You don't have a body left."

"I have enough left to stand in the way."

"You don't have any strength left."

"I have enough left to raise a hand."

"You don't have any luck left." Maelor smiled.

"I never counted on it." Zayn stared at him. Then lowered the scythe. For a second.

"Why are you doing this?" Maelor did not answer at once. The wind passed between them, carrying the ashes of three days. Then the archmage said,"Because you were a boy." The sentence entered Zayn like a slow blade.

"Not a title. Not an anomaly. Not a future catastrophe. Not a Demon King." Maelor tightened his grip on his staff.

"A boy. Afraid. Alone. Surrounded by adults who were afraid to read a black window." Zayn did not move. Maelor continued,"And now I stand before what we allowed to happen to that boy." Zayn's face tightened.

"You think that changes anything?"

"No."

"You think I'll stop because you pity me?"

"No."

"Then why say it?" Maelor looked straight into his eyes.

"Because I don't want to die lying to you." The silence was immense. Then Zayn smiled. A broken smile.

"I hate myself too, Maelor." His voice was low.

"Not because I became this." He raised his eyes toward the ruined capital.

"Because some part of me still wanted someone to tell me I didn't have to." Maelor closed his eyes.

"You don't." Zayn laughed.

"Too late." He raised the scythe. The dark aura concentrated on the blade. Forge-blood ignited in his arm. The Locks of Ghelkar opened in his palm. The Pride around his neck forced space itself to tense. Maelor understood. He gathered everything he had left. Not to kill. To hold. The last exchange of the third day lasted less than a minute. But it seemed longer than all three days together. Maelor opened seven circles at once. Zayn shattered two with Ruined Time. Took one with Avarice. Passed through one with fire.

Cut one with the aura-laden scythe. Took one directly into his flesh. The last exploded against his heart. He kept moving. Maelor raised his cracked staff. Zayn slipped under the guard. The fused scythe entered the archmage's chest. The world went silent. Maelor looked at the blade inside him. Then at Zayn. He did not seem surprised. Only sad.

"You see," he murmured. Blood ran from his mouth.

"I bought… a little time." Zayn still held the scythe embedded in him. His hand trembled.

"Not enough." Maelor gave a weak smile.

"That's… the whole story, isn't it?" Zayn did not answer. The archmage raised a hand. Not toward him. Toward the capital. One final blue circle spread out. It passed beneath the ramparts, beneath the streets, beneath the shelters, beneath the wounded, beneath the guilty, beneath the innocent. A final barrier. Zayn understood. Maelor was dying while still protecting. The rage rose. Then broke against something more painful.

"Stop," Zayn said. Maelor looked at him.

"I can't."

"You're dead."

"Not enough yet." Then his heart stopped. The system appeared. [Maelor Asterian — vital force interrupted.] Zayn remained motionless. Scythe in a corpse. The capital silent. Wind on the ramparts. For one second, he thought it was over. Then the circles carved into Maelor's flesh lit up. One by one. Blue. Then white. Then black. Zayn stepped back. Maelor's body did not fall. It remained standing, held upright by forbidden lines coming out of his skin, his bones, his soul. His face grew paler. His eyes opened.

They no longer held the warmth of the living. But they still held the decision. The system trembled. [Forbidden spell detected.] [Post-mortem anchoring: active.] [State: Archivium Lich.] [Residual objective: protect the capital until the heroes return.] Zayn stared at Maelor.

"No." The voice that answered was drier. More distant. But it was still his.

"Yes." The archmage's corpse raised its broken staff. Around the capital, the final barrier strengthened.

"I told you I had to last." The fused scythe murmured,"I hate this man." Zayn said nothing. He was looking at Maelor. The man who had protected him not enough. The man who had not entirely let him fall. The man who had just died. And who still refused to stop standing in the way. Zayn tightened his grip on the scythe. His face closed.

"Fine." The black wings opened behind him, burning, torn, smoking.

"Then I'll kill you as many times as it takes." Maelor answered with the voice of a dead man who had chosen his duty before his rest.

"And I will hold you here until they arrive." Far away, very far to the east, the heroes were still walking. And on the ramparts of the human capital, the fourth day began.