Free Web NovelChapter 416: Chapter 416
Only the demons could see through the suffocating dark, their vision unimpeded by shadow. And each of them reveled in the carnage and chaos they had unleashed, feeding off it as though it were a feast laid out just for them.
Arius did not even need to move from where he stood, watching the slaughter unfold before him. There was a cruel sort of stillness to him, a predator utterly at ease amidst ruin. Slowly, he lifted his hands.
The shadows answered. They erupted from every corner of the room, thick and viscous. They lashed outward in violent arcs, whips of pure night that sliced cleanly through almost everything. A man’s arm was severed in an instant, sent flying across the room. From the stump, arterial blood sprayed in a violent burst, splattering the walls in crimson streaks.
Another assassin lunged blindly, desperation driving his blade forward. The shadows caught him mid-stride. They coiled around his neck, tightening with mercilessly until there was a sharp, sickening pop. His head tore free from his body like a cork from a bottle, rolling across the blood-slick floor, a fountain of blood painting the ceiling above.
The shadows moved with intent, writhing through the room like living things. One man tried to flee, his boots slipping in the gore beneath him, but the shadows hooked into his ribs and tore them open as easily as wet parchment. His insides spilled out in a steaming heap, coils of intestine dragged back into the darkness by grasping tendrils. A grotesque, wet slurping sound followed as they devoured him piece by piece, leaving nothing behind but a hollowed shell.
Another assassin was pinned to the ground, thrashing wildly as shadows burrowed into his chest. Bone cracked beneath their pressure, his sternum splitting apart with a sickening crunch. They reached inside him, fingers of darkness closing around his still-beating heart. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Only then did Arius move.
He stepped forward, his shoes sinking slightly into the thick, pooling blood that covered the floor. The room had already become a charnel house, bodies half-dissolved, the air thick with the stench of iron and gore. Yet he walked through it all without pause, without any reaction, as though none of it fazed him.
His attention had already shifted. Toward the one who remained. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
The last assassin stumbled backward, his breath coming in ragged gasps, until his back struck the cold stone wall behind him. He could see only darkness but that did nothing to dull the suffocating sense of malevolence closing in around him.
Among the assassins, there had been a select few trained to wield magic, an unnatural deviation from what they were meant to be. Vampires were not born with such abilities, their very nature rejected it. And yet, Aeron had made the impossible possible. There had only ever been five.
Four were already dead and this assassin was the last.
Desperation clawed its way through him. With trembling hands, he called upon that forbidden power, and a ball of fire ignited in his palm. Its glow cut weakly through the darkness, flickering and unsteady, but enough to illuminate the demon standing before him.
Arius loomed just beyond the light. In his haste, the assassin had not heard him approach, nor had he sensed its presence pressing even closer.
Fear poured off him in waves and Arius smiled. The expression alone was something feral, something monstrous, lips peeling back to reveal teeth that seemed far too sharp.
With a strangled cry, the assassin hurled the flame. Or at least, he tried to.
The shadows moved first. They leaned in and licked at the fire as though tasting it, dark tendrils weaving through the light. The flames flickered and then changed. Orange turned to black. The fire twisted into something unnatural, a flame of pure void. It leapt but not toward Arius.
It surged back toward its creator with violent force, slamming into the assassin before he could even scream. His skin blistered instantly, then peeled away in slick, melting sheets. Flesh sloughed from bone, dripping to the ground as the void-fire consumed him inch by inch. His screams tore through the room, raw and animalistic, until even those were swallowed.
His face collapsed inward, features melting into something unrecognizable. And then silence. The darkness reclaimed the space once more.
There were no survivors. Only the aftermath remained, a room thick with the stench of blood and burnt flesh, shadows curling lazily over mangled corpses.
With the bulk of their task complete, the demons withdrew their power. The writhing mass of shadows receded slowly until the faint glitter of the night sky became visible once again over the ruined structure.
Then came the fire. It began as a spark, then a blaze, and within moments it grew into something uncontrollable. Flames devoured the stronghold whole, racing along wood and stone alike, consuming everything in their path. The watch posts, the outbuildings, nothing was spared. The inferno roared hungrily, reducing bodies to ash, erasing any trace of what had happened within.
But destruction alone was not enough. There was still the final phase.
Before the fires were well underway, one of the demons had dragged out two dead guards. He stripped them of their original clothing and dressed them instead in the distinct attire of soldiers belonging to House Rycoff.
The guards’ discarded uniforms were tossed into the flames. Then, to ensure no one could ever unravel the deception, their faces were burned beyond recognition.
Arius watched it all with satisfaction.
He could already envision how it would unfold.
When Aeron received word that his stronghold had been destroyed and his assassins slaughtered, he would come himself. He would stand where Arius now stood. He would see the charred bodies, the ruin, the carefully planted evidence.
And he would find the dead guards, dressed as Rycoff soldiers. The conclusion would be inevitable. Davien Rycoff would take the blame. And just as Ragnar intended, Aeron’s fury would be turned elsewhere, misdirected and unleashed upon the wrong enemy.
The false narrative would fit neatly into place because, aside from Aeron’s family and the queen, the only other outsider who seemed to know that he was Narfor, the assassin handler, was Lord Rycoff.
Just as Arius was about to step out of the ruined property, he suddenly paused, his body going still as he sensed a subtle disturbance in the air, even while the others hurried ahead to leave. For a brief moment, he remained rooted in place, his senses stretching outward, searching for the source of it. Then, as though shaken from a trance, he snapped back to himself and quickly moved to follow the others into the night.
Yet even hours later, long after they had fled the scene and put distance between themselves and the carnage they had wrought, he still couldn’t shake the feeling. It lingered beneath his skin, an unease that refused to settle. There had been a faint crackle of magic in the air, something foreign, something entirely unlike his own. It felt ancient.
It wasn’t until much later that he finally understood what it was. The magical veil that separated this realm from the Faelands was beginning to thin, its ancient power weakening.
