Chương 1339: 1369 - Gates of Death

If he were honest, Anshu would say that he didn't miss the active fighting part of being in charge of a ship. His smugglers were a rowdy bunch who wouldn't have followed him if he hadn't been active in battle with them, so his hand had been forced in those years when he'd been exiled from the Indra Raj. Now, however, he much preferred staying in Storm Herald, managing fleets and coordinating maneuvers. The whole swinging about of swords was a business better seen to by younger warriors.

All of these thoughts flitted through his head as he barely dodged a slash from an eleventh-tier Diluvian mage, the vicious saber gleaming, his aura as wrathful as the sea during a storm. Anshu was pressed hard, hard enough that he would've been embarrassed if he had more time to reflect on his performance so far. His Adamant armor had saved him more than once, but so far, he'd spent this duel on the defensive, barely able to get in a few slashes with his own curved sword or unleash a blast of magic.

Sweat poured from him as the battle raged all around, lit from above by the Origin Spark and from below by the fires of thousands of stricken arks burning on the mountain slopes. A single mistake would cost him his life, a fact which was made particularly apparent when he blocked a hit and nearly lost his weapon as the intense vibrations sped up his arm. Still, the Diluvian Strategos pressed, sensing his moment.

Anshu's eyes widened behind his helmet, fear of death spiking within him as he wondered if this was it, if he was going to fall here and now. He supposed it was better than seeing everything he'd worked for with Leon drowned beneath the crushing waves… But a blast of golden lightning threw the Strategos off, and Anshu sprang forward, knowing that this was his chance—perhaps his only chance. He lunged into a mighty slash that caught the Strategos in the neck.

Anshu's weapon slipped past his neck armor but caught on the bones of his neck. The Strategos half-shouted and half-gurgled in pain. His aura raged as a hundred ice spikes formed around them, then launched themselves into Anshu from every direction. Anshu withstood the impacts as he sawed further into the Strategos' neck, desperately trying to finish the enemy mage off before his armor failed him. The other mage kept up his assault, fighting on long after a mortal would've died.

The fight came to an end when a slender sword was driven through the Strategos' visor, sparking with golden lightning, causing the man's heart to explode and finally kill him. Anshu, panting from exertion and mental exhaustion, pulled his sword from the man's throat with a wet squelch, letting him fall from there.

"Hey!" his savior called out from behind him.

"Couldn't even wait for me to retrieve my sword?" Theron caught the falling Strategos' body with elementless magic, pulled his weapon free, and then cast the Strategos aside like dead leaves in a storm.

"Thank you…" Anshu responded, his voice forcefully steady as he did his best to spare his ego the shame of having needed saving at all.

"Sure," Theron responded a little more warily, and Anshu instantly felt even more ashamed.

"No," Anshu responded as he straightened up.

"Thank you. I was hard pressed. It's hard to say what might have happened if you hadn't intervened, but I would've likely met my end."

"We do what—" Theron replied before a titanic wave of power washed over them. They immediately formed up as another mage joined them, his aura shaking the air itself. A twelfth-tier Diluvian mage, his armor covered in shimmering blue scales, his trident gleaming like polished gold. Anshu and Theron shared a look, brief but packed with meaning. The battle wasn't going well, so much so that both of them had had to take to the field.

But if this was to be their end, then they would face it with dignity and weapons in hand. The battle was short. Even with the two of them, they presented less than a true challenge to the Despot. They were able to keep from being instantly slaughtered, but Anshu's arms were broken in nine places while Theron was hurled into the mountainside like he'd been struck with all the weight of the oceans. Anshu felt the Despot's fingers curl around his throat as his sword slipped from his grasp.

This was the end now, he was sure. The only thing he regretted was his damned fingers letting go of his damned weapon. And perhaps not having any children with Red. They hadn't truly broached the topic, their relationship not going that far past the physical, but after nearly two centuries, their passion was the same as it ever had been, and there had been potential there. Potential that would now go unfulfilled. It was a hellish thing, to die with such regret fresh in his mind.

He wondered with what he believed to be one of his last thoughts if all deaths were like this—tinged with acute bitterness, his life marked more by what he'd lost than what he'd gained. As the Despot drew back, ready to drive his trident into Anshu through the gaps in his now-ragged armor, something happened. The battle between Leon and Triton hadn't gone well, and as Anshu fought, the rest of Leon's retainers bought time against him. But in the end, they weren't able to buy that much time.

Anshu himself hadn't even been out of Storm Herald for ten minutes, yet here he was, about to reach his end. Anshu hadn't had the luxury of keeping an eye on that fight, as much as he wanted to. A pulse of his magic painted a dire picture: most of those who'd come to Leon's aid were dead, dying, or heavily injured, with Triton himself walking toward Leon. Leon, however, was pulsing with power that felt like an invisible hand had reached into Anshu's chest and wrapped strong fingers around his heart.

Leon rose from where he'd fallen, his skin pallid, his normally bright golden eyes now dark, and only growing darker. Around Leon bloomed an aura straight out of a nightmare. Light dimmed around him as if even the sunrays from the Origin Spark wanted to avoid him. Wind gusted around him, but his body remained unaffected. From where he was, Anshu could feel his limbs losing power, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.

It was like he was staring into the open gate of something horrible, something beyond comprehension, and that something was staring back, staring directly into his soul, into the core of his being. Slowly, languidly, almost lazily, Leon raised a hand, Iron Pride shining between his fingers. Triton, standing so close to the center of this fell maelstrom of strange, unearthly power, was frozen, unable to do anything.

Anshu didn't blame him for that, not when he felt his own limbs turn to dead weight several miles away. A flicker of darkness—black lightning, though not haloed by even the soft silver light that Leon's 'normal' black lightning usually was—connected the gleaming blade in his hand to Triton. One flicker, and Triton fell. Where before the Basileus had been an unstoppable torrent of power, now his body was bones and meat, and little more.

The Despot holding Anshu—seemingly unconsciously—loosened his grip, but so captivated by Leon's display was Anshu that he didn't force himself free. Instead, he could only watch as Leon turned, his black eyes scanning the skies above him. He raised Iron Pride again, and that same profane black lightning, somehow even more terrible and malign than usual, flickered through the air. It came silently, without thunder, and where it struck, men died. Arks fell, their hulls untouched, but everyone within undoubtedly gone.

They fell in such numbers that they put the rain to shame, and the Despot finally released Anshu entirely and flew away as fast as his magic could carry him. Anshu fell, barely able to catch himself with his body so depleted of power. But even still, he was able to catch out of the corner of his eyes a black flicker, and the Despot fell. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Theron surged back into the sky, catching Anshu, and together, they watched as Triton's mangled fleet rippled in shock as the entire center was cast down, falling as if it weren't just the crews within that were struck but the arks themselves, too. And then, it stopped. Leon vanished, no speck of power remaining. Anshu couldn't even begin to describe the suddenness of his King's disappearance. But he was able to see Triton's fleet taking this opportunity to break off and retreat.

'If I'd lost several thousand arks like that, I'd retreat, too,' Anshu noted.

"That's twice now," Theron said, gasping for breath as the magic and killing intent, thick in the air, finally started to lessen.

"What?" Anshu whispered.

"Twice that I've saved your ass." Anshu grunted, too fatigued and overwhelmed to come up with any other response. His entire body hurt from that last battle, and his ego was in tatters. But as much as he might have wanted to, this was no time to rest.

"I need to get back to Storm Herald," he groaned. The enemy was in retreat, their commander was dead, and Artorion's forces needed coordination. If he was no longer needed personally fighting, then he was needed in the command chair of the Kingdom's flag ark. As Theron helped him back to the ancient war machine, though, Anshu couldn't help but look back down to where Leon and Triton had fought, and the bodies around them.

It looked like Clear Day had already appeared, flying out in his tau form to do his best to heal anyone still breathing.

'At least I can leave that one to someone else…' he thought.

'But… where did Leon go…?'

The world had lost all color, lost all sense of life. Everything was some shade of gray and lifeless—not just no color, but no sign of anything that would have given the world color. No trees, no flowers, no grass. Just mounds and hills and mountains, all gray, beneath a black sky bereft of stars or light from any source. He almost collapsed when the man who'd whisked him away finally released him. Iron Pride remained in his hand, though, the Adamant practically locked in his grasp.

The weapon, and the Iron Needle within, comforted him with their presence alone, and though they remained at his disposal, they didn't offer him any immediate power to right his physical state.

"Take a moment," the ashen man said, his voice monotone, yet carrying a tiny undercurrent of excitement.

"Get your legs under you." Leon sucked down air like a mortal about to suffocate. Wherever this was, the air was stale and dead. No wind, no heat, just stagnant air all around him that didn't satisfy when he breathed.

"No rush," the man said as Leon almost doubled over, trying to restore some semblance of strength to his body. A pulse of origin power from his soul realm alerted him to the absence of that rune that Triton had hit him with, and without hesitation, he opened himself up to it. He expected power to flow into him, bringing him back to full strength in minutes. However, as the power reached his physical body through his heart, it, too, grew muted, and it satisfied his body about as much as the air did.

"You channeled power beyond life," the man said as Leon fell to his knees.

"Yet you are alive. Such a phenomenon has only happened twice before…" If Leon had been able to form the words, he would've asked after that, but he could only gasp, feeling like he was going to die in this dreadful place. And then the man snapped his fingers, and Leon found himself not in a gray hellscape but on a mountain peak west of Artorion, though hundreds of miles away from the Artor Valley. He almost didn't care, though, as his power finally started to do something, and the air tasted of life again.

Finally, finally, strength started returning to him, and he was able to start recovering. He could even feel Iron Pride quivering in his hand, his own relief and excitement at recovery reflected in the weapon.

"What… what happened?" he gasped.

"You were powerless. In your powerlessness, you reached for power beyond living ken. You threw open the gates of death and wielded what you found beyond with startling skill." The ashen man kneeled beside Leon rather than in front of him, acting more like an equal than a lecturer.

"What did you see?"

"What…?" Leon replied, feeling like he was repeating himself too much.

"Where we just were," the man said.

"What did you see?" Knowing that this man might be connected to Khosrow cultists had Leon feeling reluctant to respond, but the sheer interest the man was displaying had him reconsidering his assumptions. He'd watched Leon free Theron from the 'priests' on Khosrow's Fane, and though he'd been on a balcony outside of a building that those priests had retreated to, Leon didn't truly know how close this man was to them. For all he knew, it was a coincidence.

Still, he decided to play it safe, answering only what he thought might not lead him to greater disaster.

"Gray," he croaked.

"Gray and black. All around." The man looked intrigued, and Leon wondered if what he said had more significance than he knew.

"I am Veles," the man said.

"Allow me to be candid. You know death. I am curious as to how—you are certainly not dead, nor do you have the look of a man who has died and come back…"

"Those have 'a look'?" Leon asked as he fell back to lie on the soft grass. Veles remained kneeling and didn't immediately respond. So, Leon took the moment of silence to examine himself. He was immediately concerned when he looked into his soul realm and found the Thunderbird where she'd fallen, but he could sense that she wasn't dead, so after manipulating Clear's tau pearl closer to her and hoping that would help, he widened his awareness. His soul realm felt… normal.

Or so it seemed until he sank his consciousness further, peering beyond the surface of the mountains, vales, and purple grass. And there, he saw it: a black root no longer than his arm breaking through the floor of his vault and sinking into the soil beneath. Through the soil was made of Mists of Chaos and wasn't 'real' as such, Leon still felt that root digging deeper, and finding something that seemed to nourish it.

Turning his gaze into his vault, he found the root springing from the box that contained his black Heartwood seed. He'd long ago replaced the rotten box, though storing it anywhere other than his soul realm had seemed wrong given how people tended to react to it, so he'd simply kept it in his soul realm, intending to do something with it whenever he could find the time—or even just something to do with it.

That new box had sprung open, and the seed within had cracked open, allowing a thin strand of purest darkness to reach out from within and drop to the floor of the vault. It thickened as it dropped, and utterly defied Leon's attempts to scan beneath its surface.

"Something was there," Leon said aloud, drawing Veles' attention.

"But…" He pushed himself onto his elbows, giving Veles a dark look.

"I remember you from Khosrow's Fane. What were you doing there?"

"Meeting a friend," Veles said matter-of-factly.

"Is that friend associated with Khosrow's fanatics?" Leon directly asked.

"Those who tried to execute Theron retreated to the same building you were watching from…" Veles took a moment to think, his eyes turning into the distance.

"Khosrow laid out a vision for the future in his Law. It is a vision that I do not share. I am more interested in Khosrow's goals rather than the methods he employed to reach them."

"And what were those goals?" Veles smiled as he shook his head.

"I wish to understand death. I… found myself linked to it long ago in ways I cannot describe. Stuck between the living and the dead. I am so far removed from the living that most cannot even see me, let alone interact with me. My methods for interacting with either world are limited."

"And you hope to… recover? From this state of being?"

"Knowledge can be acquired for its own sake. But also yes, I would prefer to exist in either death or life." The tiniest glint appeared in Veles' dull black eyes." Without giving up what few perks I've acquired." Leon grinned.

"Greedy. Do you care, then, about what happened to Triton? He… is dead, isn't he?"

"Yes. You didn't just throw open the gates of death; you hurled many beyond its threshold. I had to step in; else you might have repeated my mistake. Or worse, given the… scale of what you did."

"Sounds like there's a story there."

"None I'm willing to share. For now, Leon… I would like to continue speaking, but I understand that you have a Kingdom to see to. I will seek you out in seven days. Please… do not try to repeat what you did. You are yet alive, and death… is the opposite of that. To grow closer to death is to give up being close to life." Leon frowned, unable to quite put into words how, but he understood what Veles was saying. The 'power' that he'd called on wasn't 'power' in the same way that magic and origin power were.

It was something else, something separate from magic. If he were bolder, he might have even called it 'opposite' to origin power, though without further study, he wasn't sure he would go that far.

'And maybe I'll pass on the 'study' part…' It somewhat pained him just to think, but he'd stepped so far outside of his knowledge base that even he could acknowledge that he needed to be careful.

"Seven days…" Leon whispered.

"I'll have questions."

"As will I," Veles said. He got to his feet, gave Leon a quick nod, and then disappeared. No flash of light, no crack of tearing space; he was there one moment, and not there the next. Leon sighed, then pushed himself to his feet. His body was rapidly returning to strength now that his power was truly circulating through his body again, though that seed remained rooted in his soul realm.

But that was a problem for later; in that moment, so many other things demanded his attention—his Ancestors, wives, friends, Kingdom as a whole—that even for something like a black Heartwood seed taking root in his soul realm, he couldn't spare the time. But once he'd confirmed everyone's status… then he'd start looking for answers…