Free Web NovelChapter 234: Chapter 234: The Destruction Of Atrai Kingdom
The Golden Capital of Solaris was a monument to absolute arrogance. It was the beating heart of the Atrai Kingdom, built entirely from white marble and gilded with veins of pure gold. Massive spires reached into the clear blue sky, casting long shadows over the heavily fortified walls. The city was protected by the most advanced magical engineering in the mortal realm. The Grand Ward System covered the capital in an invisible, impenetrable dome of structured mana.
Deep inside the central command tower, High Mage Valerius stood before a massive floating projection of blue light. The projection displayed the intricate status of the city defenses. Floating runic text scrolled continuously across the screen in bright white letters.
[Grand Ward Status: Optimal]
[Mana Reserves: 100%]
[External Threat Level: Zero]
Valerius stroked his neatly trimmed crimson beard. He wore the heavy red robes of the Arcane Vanguard, a symbol of supreme military authority. The Atrai Kingdom had spent the last decade conquering the lesser territories of the continent. They had burned the Nameless Valley to the bedrock five years ago simply because the villagers refused to pay an iron tax. Valerius considered those events trivial. They were necessary steps to secure total peace under Atrai rule.
Suddenly, the floor beneath his boots trembled.
It was a very slight vibration at first. It felt like a heavy carriage rolling down the cobblestone streets outside. But the shaking did not stop. It steadily grew worse, rattling the ornate crystal chandeliers hanging from the command tower ceiling.
Valerius frowned and tapped a sequence of runes on the floating blue console.
"Report," Valerius commanded the junior mages sitting at the lower observation desks. "Is there a seismic event in the western mountains? Find the epicenter."
A young mage wearing silver spectacles frantically waved his hands over his own glowing console. His face instantly drained of all color. He looked up at Valerius with wide, terrified eyes.
"High Mage Valerius, it is not a normal earthquake. The entire continent is vibrating. The mana currents in the earth are flowing backward."
"That is physically impossible," Valerius snapped. He walked over to the boy and looked down at the observation screen.
The glowing blue text of the Grand Ward System began to flicker violently. The soothing blue light shifted to an angry, flashing crimson. A harsh, mechanical chime echoed through the command center.
[System Alert: Massive Ether Disruption Detected]
[Distance: Approaching Rapidly] freёwebnovel.com
[Target Level: Immeasurable]
"Immeasurable?" Valerius whispered in total disbelief. "The system is designed to quantify the power of an Archmage. recalibrate the sensors immediately. We must be catching the residual energy of a dying star or a rogue cosmic event."
"It is not a cosmic event, sir," the young mage stammered, his hands shaking violently over the runes. "It is a localized entity. And it has just bypassed the outer continental defenses. It is moving directly toward the capital."
Outside the tower, the clear blue sky suddenly died.
It did not gently fade into twilight. The light was simply snuffed out, as if a giant hand had dropped a thick black blanket over the entire world. The temperature in the city plummeted in seconds. Frost rapidly crystallized over the white marble streets and the golden spires. The great golden bells of the royal palace began to ring wildly, swinging back and forth in chaotic, terrifying rhythm.
Valerius ran to the balcony of the command tower and threw open the heavy glass doors.
He looked down at the massive outer gates of the capital. A hundred elite soldiers of the Arcane Vanguard were already rushing to the walls, drawing their enchanted broadswords and readying their elemental staffs. The soldiers looked like tiny red ants swarming the ivory battlements.
A jagged, bleeding tear opened directly in the fabric of space just fifty paces from the main gate.
Absolute blackness swirled inside the portal. The air around the spatial tear warped and distorted heavily, screaming with the sound of a dying animal. The heavy iron hinges of the capital gates instantly rusted and crumbled into orange dust just from the proximity of the anomaly.
A single figure stepped out of the black portal.
It was a young boy. He looked no older than nine years old. He wore a deep black tunic woven from ether threads, and his jet-black hair fell messily over his pale face. In his right hand, he held the broken, melted hilt of a mundane iron broadsword.
High Mage Valerius narrowed his eyes. He channeled pure mana into his vision to analyze the threat. The LitRPG tracking system embedded in his retinas instantly flared to life, attempting to calculate the boy’s status.
[Scanning Target...]
[Target Name: Unknown]
[Class: Error]
[Mana Core: ERROR. VOID DETECTED. CORRUPTION IN PROGRESS.]
The optical tracking runes in Valerius’s eyes suddenly shattered like broken glass. The High Mage screamed in agony, clutching his bleeding face as the magical interface violently burned out of his nervous system. freēwebnovel.com
Down on the ground, the Commander of the Vanguard stood atop the outer wall. He pointed his glowing staff directly at the small boy standing in the frozen dirt.
"Halt!" the Commander roared, his voice amplified by wind magic. "You stand before the impenetrable capital of Solaris. State your business or be incinerated where you stand."
Khaos did not look up at the Commander. He kept his solid black, terrifying eyes fixed entirely on the massive golden gates. The heavy black door in his soul was completely shattered. Raw, unfiltered Chaos leaked from his pores like thick violet smoke. He remembered the charred blanket in the mud. He remembered the silent valley.
"Fire," the Commander ordered without hesitation.
Fifty highly trained mages atop the wall unleashed their power in perfect unison. A massive, roaring tidal wave of pure, structured fire erupted from their staffs. The combined spell was powerful enough to melt a mountain. The sky illuminated with blinding orange light as the inferno crashed down directly onto the small boy.
[Spell Executed: Grand Inferno]
[Expected Damage: Lethal]
Khaos did not move. He did not raise a shield. He did not cast a counter-spell.
He simply stood there.
As the massive wave of fire made contact with his physical body, the flames instantly changed color. The bright orange turned to sickly purple, then to a dull grey, and finally completely transparent. The roaring heat vanished entirely. The highly structured magical formula of the fire spell broke down into meaningless cosmic static.
The fire did not burn him. It rapidly aged, decayed, and ceased to exist.
The Vanguard soldiers froze in absolute terror. Their ultimate offensive spell had just been erased from reality without the boy lifting a single finger.
"My turn," Khaos whispered. His voice was quiet, but it echoed directly inside the minds of every single person in the capital city.
Khaos raised his tiny left hand and pointed his palm at the massive, impenetrable ivory wall. He did not use words. He did not use standard incantations. He just pushed his pure hatred into the physical structure of the stone.
[System Alert: Absolute Structural Degradation Detected]
[Ward Integrity: 0%]
The invisible, impenetrable dome of the Grand Ward System shattered with a sound like a million panes of glass breaking at once. The magical backlash was so violent that the fifty mages standing on the wall were instantly thrown into the air like broken dolls.
Then, the ivory wall itself began to die.
It did not explode. It rotted. The pristine white marble rapidly turned a sickly, bruised purple. Deep, black veins spider-webbed across the stone. Within a fraction of a second, the entire front defense of the Atrai Kingdom liquefied into a bubbling mass of toxic black sludge. The golden gates folded inward, crying out with the sound of twisting metal, before collapsing completely into a pile of fine grey ash.
"Impossible," Valerius choked out, watching from the high balcony as blood dripped from his ruined eyes. "Magic requires structure. It requires rules."
Khaos stepped over the threshold of ash, officially entering the capital city. The ground beneath his boots instantly died. The lush green grass turned grey and crumbled into dust. The cobblestone street sank inward, forming a crater of pure void energy with every step he took.
The remaining soldiers of the Vanguard panicked completely. Discipline vanished in an instant. Hundreds of men in red armor threw down their weapons and turned to run back into the city, screaming for the gods to save them.
Khaos watched them run. His face held zero emotion. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, perfectly carved wooden pig painted a ridiculous shade of pink. He looked at the toy, remembering the simple, foolish joy of his stolen childhood. He crushed the wooden pig in his fist, letting the splintered pieces fall into the dead dirt.
"Nobody runs," Khaos declared, his voice cold and devoid of any human warmth.
He unsealed the absolute limits of his core, letting the infinite abyss flood the environment.
The air pressure inside the city collapsed. The gravity in the entire lower district reversed violently. Entire buildings, massive statues, and screaming soldiers were suddenly ripped from the ground and pulled upward into the freezing black sky. They floated helplessly in the void, thrashing and suffocating in the broken atmosphere.
Khaos walked slowly down the ruined main street, holding his father’s broken sword. He was no longer a boy from a nameless village.
He was the Archmage of Chaos. And the destruction of the Atrai Kingdom had only just begun.
