Chương 207: The Return of the Dead

"I am Dex Williams! Son of the great Lord Marcus Williams, the legitimate and sole heir to the throne of the West, and protector of Seiron!" Dex's cry rang out at the top of his lungs, using every particle of mana he possessed to amplify his voice. The palace's marble columns trembled from the force of the vibrations, and the glass windows of the surrounding buildings swayed as though struck by a mild earthquake.

"And I am here today to collect my debt. Not through appeals, not through gentle words, not through corrupt political trials, but through fire and iron!" In that decisive moment, Dex extended both his arms wide open in the air. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and allowed his heart to fling open the gates of energy to their fullest. The mana that had been accumulating and suppressed within him erupted like a mighty, unleashed torrent that had shattered its dam.

The blue flames surrounding his body swelled in a sudden and terrifying fashion. They were no longer merely an aura, they exploded toward the gray sky like a volcano of pure light. The flames took shape in the open air and, through his astonishing magical control, drew an awe-inspiring visual that could never be forgotten: a colossal blue phoenix bird, its wings extending to cover the vast span of the entire square.

This blazing blue light erased the gray sky's gloom, transforming the pale midday into a breathtaking celestial spectacle. The heat radiating from these flames was not burning or destructive as one would expect from fire of this scale. Instead, it was a magical warmth, carrying the healing and invigorating properties of phoenix fire. This warmth permeated the bodies of the oppressed citizens trembling from cold and fear, kindling sudden courage in their hearts, melting the ice from their veins.

And in turn, the sight itself, the pure and terrifying mana power, was sufficient to instill a genuine terror and temporary paralysis in the hearts of the traitors and mercenaries loyal to Sylvester. This was the agreed signal. Zero hour had struck. Down below, in the midst of the turbulent human crowds staring at the sky in astonishment, a sudden and violent transformation occurred that scrambled every military calculation.

Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of men who had been standing quietly with bowed heads, who had appeared to be simple peasants, exhausted mine workers, or beggars in tattered cloaks, rose in a single motion coordinated with military precision, tearing off and stripping away their rags. Beneath those frayed garments, steel gleamed and truth appeared. Polished silver armor had been cleverly concealed, interlaced with the original Williams family crests.

And in a synchronized motion that produced a deafening metallic ring, thousands of hands drew the razor-sharp Crystal Swords from their hidden scabbards. The clear blades reflected the blue flames' light from the sky, making each soldier appear to hold a piece of heaven in his hand.

"For Lord Marcus! For the Williams family! And down with treachery!" The veteran commander Okon roared in the voice of a wounded lion that had reclaimed its health, raising his broad sword high. His voice was the burning spark dropped into the heart of a barrel of gunpowder.

"Rebellion! Treason! Kill them all! Protect Lord Sylvester!" The commanders of the Shadow Organization's mercenaries responded, and the guard officers attempted to organize their ranks and issue orders. But they found themselves suddenly in the worst tactical position any military man could imagine: they were surrounded from within. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The Old Guard knights had not come through the city gates, they had appeared literally within the enemy's positions. And worse than that, the ordinary citizens, emboldened by the return of their legitimate heir, warmed by the phoenix flames, their fury ignited by the sight of their true army rising, abandoned their fear. The furious masses who had been oppressed for months began pelting the mercenaries with stones, shattering the wooden barriers, and even throwing themselves bare-handed at isolated soldiers.

Total chaos erupted in every inch of the great square. The ring of crystal swords slicing through leather armor, the furious battle cries, the groans of the wounded, and the officers' orders vanishing in the noise, all mixed together to form a bloody, harrowing symphony of civil war detonating in a single instant. On the palace's main balcony, Sylvester was watching this terrifying scene with eyes wide open and gasping breaths.

He understood in counted seconds that things had gone, completely, and in a manner beyond repair, off the course of control. The army was hesitating to fight its former comrades. The people he had believed he had terrorized were rising like a flood. And the mercenary elite for whom he had paid vast fortunes were being slaughtered, trapped between the hammer of the knights and the anvil of the masses. The fear that had overtaken him transformed into pure madness. The madness of despair.

"I will burn you all! I will burn every last one of you until nothing remains but ash!" Sylvester screamed hysterically, spitting blood from his lip that he had bitten with force. He seized the ancient Heart of Seiron necklace with both his trembling hands. He had completely forgotten the speech of nobility and sacrifice.

"Activate! I order a reverse activation of the array! Destroy the square! Fire the defensive lightning inward!" He began pumping his own mana into the necklace with total madness, indifferent to his magical veins tearing from the excess pressure. He was now willing to sacrifice half the city's population, and his entire army standing in the square, just to kill Dex, crush this rebellion, and escape with his life and his power. But the necklace, that mighty artifact, did not respond as he expected.

Instead of blazing with deadly, destructive red luminosity, and instead of summoning lightning storms to strike the square, the necklace emitted a muffled sound resembling the choking of an old engine. It began vibrating in an abnormal fashion between his hands, as though trying to absorb mana but encountering a wall blocking it. Then, with a faint crackling sound, every flicker within it extinguished completely. It became cold, dead, and useless, as though it were nothing but a cheap piece of worthless glass.

"What is happening?! Impossible! Why won't you work, you cursed piece of scrap?!" Sylvester screamed, striking the necklace with his other hand, then looking around in terror searching for a flaw in the mana flow surrounding the palace. By pure chance, he raised his eyes toward the opposite balcony, in the high eastern wing of the palace, a wing abandoned for years. There, amid the shadows, he saw a girl.

She was a young girl wearing a loose black garment that swallowed the light around it, her jet black hair fluttering calmly in the wind. She stood with absolute stillness, utterly unaffected by the chaos below. Her right hand was extended directly toward Sylvester, her slender fingers interlacing to form the complex geometry of a Void Seal. It was Lumia. The mana surrounding her was not luminous, it resembled a small black hole absorbing every magical energy attempting to form within the palace's perimeter.

Lumia was looking directly into Sylvester's eyes, and on her pale lips there was a cold smile, devoid of any mercy, and mocking to a lethal degree.

In that moment when their gazes met, the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place in Sylvester's mind, and he grasped the terrifying truth that shattered his pride entirely: his own mana was not reaching the defense array, not because of a malfunction in the necklace, but because this mysterious girl was absorbing the signal and isolating the array's frequency with a magic he could not comprehend. His knees gave way.

Sylvester collapsed onto the wine-soaked marble floor and felt a violent dizziness causing the earth to lose its solidity beneath him. His meticulous plan that had consumed years, his army purchased with money and deception, his mercenaries upon whom he had depended, and his ultimate secret weapon, the Heart of Seiron, everything was collapsing around him now like a house of thin paper in the face of a hurricane.

Sylvester looked upward at the fire-blazing Dex, then at Lumia surrounded by the void, then at Okon tearing through his army below. He grasped the full extent of his naivety.

"They, they planned everything..." Sylvester whispered in terror with staring, glazed eyes, as the screams of his slaughtered soldiers rose.

"I was not the hunter in this game, I was the stupid prey, the whole time."