Free Web NovelChapter 59: Chapter 59: The Shattered Crown
Yue-Senn POV
The instant I reached the portal, the world erupted into a blinding flash of heat. My clothes were actively catching fire, the fabric curling and melting against my skin. Without missing a beat, I tore off my burning suit jacket and threw it onto the scorched ground, my bare, muscled chest gleaming with sweat under the red sky.
Through the haze of smoke, I saw her.
Ry was standing in the center of the grand palace, threw back her head, and let out a manic, echoing laugh. She was clutching her skull, her fingers digging frantically into her hair as the surrounding royal guards looked at her in absolute, paralyzed confusion.
"Princess... are you okay?" one of the guards asked, his voice trembling as he took a cautious step forward.
"Hey! Get everyone the hell out of the palace right now! Evacuate the entire town into safety immediately!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing like thunder across the stone walls.
I rushed frantically to her side. "Ry!" I breathed, reaching out my hand to grab her shoulder, to pull her into my arms and back to reality. But the moment my fingers brushed her skin, a searing, hot heat surged into my palm, burning me so severely that I pulled my hand back, my flesh blistering instantly then healing just has fast.
She abruptly stopped laughing. Her head snapped up, her hair falling down around her face in a completely chaotic mess. Dark, thick streams of blood were running down from her eyes like tears, staining her cheeks. Her grip tightened with a sickening force around her magical weapon the very same weapon she had summoned when she trained with her sister.
Her bleeding eyes stared directly at me, but what I saw reflecting in those depths wasn’t the woman I loved. She was completely unrecognizable. A dark, bottomless abyss had swallowed her whole. My mind raced in pure panic.
What is going on? What could have possibly happened back there to make her this way?
"Ry... I need you to talk to me," I pleaded, my voice dropping into a desperate rumble.
"No."
The word didn’t come from her. It answered back in a deep, booming, resonant tone that vibrated through the stones beneath our feet, completely different from her usual sweet, soft voice.
"Ry, Irno thyros vanapio nyra! Esie anki kan!" (Ry, take a deep breath right now! you need to!")
The sharp, commanding voice cut through the air. I snapped my head toward the palace steps as Queen Vhaelor walked out. She looked entirely disheveled her clothes were torn, she wore no shoes, and her long hair was scattered all over the place. She looked like she had just been in a brutal fight. Right behind her, King Vhaelor walked out. His clothes were equally shredded, fresh blood dripping down his face, and deep, purple bruises forming across his chest and neck that were actively healing.
Looking at the two of them, seeing how awkward and defensive their body language was, it was instantly clear they had just been engaged in a war of their own.
But before I could even draw my attention fully back to Ry, the space beside me distorted. She completely disappeared.
A sonic boom shattered the air as she materialized directly above her mother, her face twisted in rage as she swung her magical weapon down with enough force to split the ground.
"Ry, no!" I called out.
Queen Vhaelor moved with blinding speed, blurring backward just as the weapon struck the ground. The ground exploded, a massive crater ripping open, sending boulders flying into the sky. King Vhaelor, now standing right next to his wife, snarled. He balled his massive hand into a fist, pulling back with a terrifying momentum to punch Ry squarely out of the air.
Moving fast without a single thought, my instincts took complete control. I stepped in, intercepting his trajectory, and blocked his devastating punch with my forearms. The impact sent a shockwave through my bones, cracking the stone beneath my boots.
Ry didn’t even land. She leaped directly off the shockwave in the air, disappearing into a blur once more, heading directly at her mother’s throat.
King Vhaelor and I were equally matched. We threw ourselves into a brutal, hand-to-hand brawl, our movements blurring so fast that the human eye couldn’t trace the fight. He drove a heavy, bone-crushing hook into my chest, shattering the bones instantly, but my super healing factor knitted the bones back together in a fraction of a second. I laughed, swing my elbow to his jaw followed by a spinning kick that sent him flying straight through the thick stone walls of the palace wing. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
The palace began to structurally collapse slightly, towers crumbling into dust as our super strength tore the very foundation of the kingdom apart. King Vhaelor erupted from the debris, his own wounds sealing instantly. He tackled me with the force of a meteor, dragging our brawl out of the courtyard and straight into the forest. Trees were snapped like toothpicks, the ground cratering and groaning under the sheer weight of our physical might as we traded devastating blows that shattered the landscape.
Behind us, the sky was completely on fire.
Ry and her mother were locked in an matched, cataclysmic duel of speed and destructive elements. Queen Vhaelor unleashed her magic, breathing massive, roaring torrents of hot fire directly from her throat, trying to incinerate her daughter. But Ry countered seamlessly, using her hands to channel her own magaic both icewb and heat, creating a counter-blast that collided with her mother’s fire, vaporizing the moisture in the air into explosive steam.
Ry moved like a demon, using her magic weapon in perfect synchronization with hand-to-hand combat. She vaulted over a stream of fire, driving her knee straight into her mother’s stomach, landing a blow that sent the Queen crashing through the stone pavilion. But the Queen bounced back instantly, her super speed blurring as she caught Ry with a blinding backhand, drawing fresh blood from her lip. Both of them were landing, horrific blows on one another, their super healing factors working overtime as they tore each other’s flesh apart.
Yet, through the entire explosive display, Ry’s voice didn’t waver. It was a rhythmic, terrifying chant. Every time she swung her weapon, every time her fists collided with her mother’s face, she uttered a single, dead word over and over again.
"MORVA! MORVA! MORVA! MORVA!" ("DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE")
I ducked beneath a massive swing from King Vhaelor, my fist driving deep into his ribs, feeling his ribs shatter beneath my knuckles. As he coughed up blood and swung back.
I looked back through the burning trees toward my wife. I saw the bleeding eyes, the agonizing hatred she held for the parents. I felt the absolute, depth of her desire to see them erased from this world.
A cold, dark smile spread across my face as my shadows bubbled to the surface, wrapping around my fists in dense, heavy dark matter. My eyes glowing, as I blocked another punch from the King.
He surged forward, the air screeching as he broke the sound barrier, his fist aimed squarely at my throat. I didn’t back down. I tilted my head a fraction of an inch, the sheer wind pressure of his miss tearing a bloody line across my cheek a wound that knitted itself closed with a faint hiss of steam before the blood could even drip.
I countered instantly, channeling the dark matter directly into my right elbow. I drove it upward, catching him dead under the jaw. The impact sounded like an artillery shell detonating. The King’s head snapped back, his heavy boots skidding across the stone. Even as his jaw re-aligned with a sickening crack, he smiled, a wild, bloodthirsty grin that mirrored my own.
"Is that all the wolf king has?" His voice vibrating in my chest.
He lunged again, and the combat shifted into a relentless, high-speed blur reminiscent of a dance of death. We traded blows so fast that the shockwaves began to dismantle the trees and buildings structure near by.
Left hook. Block. Knee to the ribs. Shatter. Heal.
It was a relentless, rhythm. I ducked beneath a sweeping kick that literally parted the smoke behind me, planting my palms on the groaning earth. I launched my entire weight upward, driving both boots directly into his chest. The sheer, force sent him flying like a bullet through the outer wall, crashing deep into the palace.
I didn’t give him a single second to breathe. I vanished into the shadows, reappearing directly above him as he smashed through the garden. I condensed the dark matter around my fist until it was a pitch-black, suffocating sphere of pure mass.
"Down," slamming the dark matter gravity fist straight into his torso.
The earth completely gave way. A massive, crater erupted into the garden floor, dirt, roots, and shattered boulders raising into the sky like a volcanic eruption. King Vhaelor lay at the center of the crater, his chest caved in, coughing up dark, blood. But even as I watched, the crushed bone beneath his skin began to bubble and rise, healing itself to keep up with the punishment.
He roared, a sound of pure defiance, and the ground beneath us began to shake as he forced himself back onto his feet, ready to tear the world apart to kill me.
Behind us, the sky wasn’t just burning it was screaming.
Ry was moving like a vengeful shadow, her weapon trailing a brilliant light through the haze. She leaped from falling debris to falling debris, completely ignoring gravity as she pursued the Queen with a terrifying, singular focus.
Queen Vhaelor’s opened her mouth and unleashed a concentrated beam of hot, fire that melted the very weapons of the fallen guards scattered across the courtyard.
Instead of dodging, Ry didn’t even flinch. She swung her magical weapon in a brutal, sweeping wheel, channeling her own fire, hand-focused heat directly into the blade. When the two forces collided, the explosion was deafening.
She caught her mother mid-air. Slash. Parry. Block.
The sound of Ry’s weapon clashing against the Queen’s magically hardened forearms. Ry landed a spinning back-fist that sent her mother crashing into the stone steps. Before the Queen could even rebound, Ry driving the butt of her weapon straight into her mother’s stomach.
The Queen gasped, blood spraying from her lips, but her super speed kicked in a millisecond later. She blurred out of the impact zone, reappearing behind Ry and driving a flaming palm directly into Ry’s shoulder. The flesh burned, the smell of blood and smoke filling the air, but Ry didn’t even scream. Her super healing closed the burn instantly as she spun on her heel, her weapon slicing a deep, clean gash across her mother’s chest.
I blocked a tree-shattering swing from King Vhaelor, the wood exploding into thousands of splinters around us. I caught his wrist, twisting it until the bone splintered. A sudden, dark clarity settled over my mind.
If my wife wants them to die... I thought, as I tore my gaze back to the King, my grip tightening on his fractured wrist until his skin split. ...then I will happily comply. I will paint this entire kingdom in their blood.
