Free Web NovelChapter 233: Chapter 233: 5 Years Like Passing Water (2)
Khaos walked into the terrifying black tear. Silas swallowed his fear and followed the boy into the void. The tear sealed shut behind them, leaving the courtyard in total silence.
The transition was instantaneous.
Khaos stepped out of the void. His boots hit soft, damp earth. The humid scent of wet pine needles immediately filled his lungs. He looked up and saw real, grey storm clouds blocking the sun.
"We are here," Khaos said, his voice trembling with a strange, unfamiliar excitement. "We are standing on the ridge. The village is just down the hill."
Silas stepped out behind him. The blind monk immediately gripped his wooden staff with both hands. His face turned completely pale.
"Khaos," Silas gasped, his raspy voice breaking.
"Come on, old man," Khaos urged, walking eagerly down the muddy path. "I cannot wait to see my father’s face. He is going to be so proud. I will show him how I can turn a tree into glass."
"Khaos, stop walking," Silas pleaded. He fell to his knees in the mud. "Please. Do not go down there."
Khaos stopped. He looked back at the trembling monk. "What is wrong with your ether vision? Are you sick?"
"The ether," Silas sobbed, covering his blind eyes with his hands. "There is no ether down there, my boy. There is no green pulse. There is no brown hum. It is completely silent."
Khaos frowned deeply. He turned around and ran the rest of the way down the hill. He broke through the final line of trees and stepped into the clearing of the Nameless Valley. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
He froze entirely.
There were no wooden walls. There were no snake pits. There were no smoking chimneys.
There was only a massive, desolate crater.
The entire valley had been completely reduced to black ash and jagged glass. The earth was scarred by deep, unnatural trenches. Twisted black briars and dead thorns grew wildly over the remains of the shattered stone foundations. It was not a fresh battlefield. It was an old, forgotten graveyard.
"No," Khaos whispered. The word barely escaped his lips.
He walked slowly into the ruined valley. His boots crunched on the blackened glass. He recognized the layout of the village in his mind, but none of it existed anymore. He walked to the exact spot where his father’s hut used to stand.
There was nothing left but a charred, sunken hole in the dirt.
"Father?" Khaos called out. His voice echoed pitifully against the empty mountains. "Mother? I am home. I am the Archmage."
Nobody answered. The wind simply howled through the dead thorns.
Silas slowly walked up behind him, his staff tapping against the ruined earth.
"They did not survive the morning we left," Silas spoke softly, tears streaming down his scarred face. "The Arcane Vanguard did not just attack them. They incinerated the entire valley. They burned everything to the bedrock."
Khaos fell to his knees in the black ash. He began to dig frantically with his bare hands. He tore through the dirt and the mud and the glass. His fingers bled, but he did not feel the pain.
His hand struck something hard.
He pulled it out of the dirt. It was a heavy piece of shattered iron. It was the broken hilt of his father’s broadsword. The metal was completely melted and warped from extreme magical heat.
Right beside it, buried deep in the mud, was a piece of scorched fabric. It was a small, ruined section of a knitted blanket.
Khaos held the broken sword and the burned blanket against his chest.
"You said they would run," Khaos cried, looking up at Silas. "You told my mother they could run into the mountains."
"I told them they would die if they ran," Silas corrected him, weeping openly. "Your father knew the absolute truth. He stayed behind to buy us time. He sacrificed the entire valley so you could escape."
"They are gone," Khaos whispered, his bright violet eyes wide with pure, unfiltered horror. freewёbnoνel.com
His parents were not hiding. His village was not captured. They were completely buried by time and history. The Atrai Kingdom had slaughtered every single man, woman, and child the very moment Khaos had walked away into the forest.
He had spent five years learning magic to save a family that was already dead.
"I am so sorry, my boy," Silas dropped his staff and reached out to hug the trembling child.
"Do not touch me!" Khaos screamed.
The heavy black door inside Khaos’s soul did not just unlock. It completely shattered off its hinges. The infinite, terrifying abyss of Chaos flooded into his physical body.
His bright violet eyes turned instantly, solidly black. Thick, dark veins pulsed visibly under his pale skin. The air around him began to warp and distort violently, tearing the very fabric of reality to shreds.
"Khaos, contain it!" Silas yelled, feeling the immense, crushing gravity pulling him to the ground. "You will destroy yourself!"
Khaos did not hear the monk. He only heard the dying screams of his mother. He only saw the melted iron of his father’s sword.
He looked toward the western horizon. He looked toward the distant, golden capital of the Atrai Kingdom.
"I will unmake them," Khaos promised to the dead ashes of his home. "I will unmake every single thing they have ever loved."
Khaos threw his head back and let out a scream of absolute, world-ending grief.
BOOOOOOM!
A pillar of pure, black void energy erupted from Khaos’s tiny body. It shot directly into the sky, instantly vaporizing the grey storm clouds. The shockwave of raw Chaos slammed into the earth with the force of a falling star.
The entire continent shook violently.
Mountains miles away cracked down their centers. Rivers instantly reversed their flow. In the distant capital of Atrai, the golden bells of the royal palace rang out in sudden, chaotic terror as the ground beneath them heaved and shattered.
The Archmage of Chaos had finally returned. And he brought the end of the world with him.
