Free Web NovelChapter 153: What is a king without his throne?
Despite all the fire around him, the flames avoided the throne.
They twisted close to it, almost licking at the edges of the wood and vines, but never daring to touch it. It was as if the slightest contact with the throne would extinguish them completely, as if even the fire born from Max’s blood understood that this thing was not something it could burn.
Max watched the throne through the pain.
His burning arm extended forward, slowly, painfully, the muscles in his shoulder tightening as his fingers reached for it. The violet flames crawled across his skin, hissing from every wound, but he did not pull back. His hand trembled from the strain, his nails almost grazing the throne’s surface.
And then, the moment his fingers were about to touch it, all the flames and darkness vanished at once.
Pure white replaced everything around him.
Gold flashed in his eyes.
Something wild struck his body from above, so fast and violent that Max did not even have time to understand what had happened. His whole body froze where he stood, his back arching slightly as the force tore through him from head to toe. His fingers curled against his will, his jaw locked shut, and his spine straightened on its own, forcing him to stand there as the current poured through every part of him.
A smell of charred flesh filled the white void.
Max’s eyes stared forward, wide and unfocused, while thin smoke rose from his skin.
He did not even understand that he had been struck by lightning.
He did not understand that his heart had stopped for several seconds, dying and restarting again and again before it finally forced out another beat.
Thump.
His chest jerked.
Thump.
His fingers twitched.
Thump.
His breath returned in a rough, broken inhale.
"What is a king without his throne?"
A voice reverberated through the white space, ancient and impossibly deep, as if it had crawled out from an endless abyss beneath creation itself. It shook the white walls around him, or whatever this place truly was, making the empty world tremble with every word.
Max’s smoking body remained standing, his eyes slowly regaining focus as the voice pressed down on him like judgment.
He shook his head, trying to stabilize himself as his body and mind swayed in two different directions.
It was not the question that shook him. He had already formed an answer in his head. It was the lightning. That pain was far worse than all the stab wounds he had endured not long ago, far worse than the blades, spears, claws, and teeth that had torn through him one after another. This was different. It did not only wound his body. It burned through his nerves, his bones, his blood, and even the thoughts trying to hold him together.
That kind of torture would drive any man crazy.
"What is a king without his throne?"
The voice asked again.
"Just a man," Max said through clenched teeth.
He spent almost all the energy he had left just to force out those few words. His body swayed slightly, his shoulders dipping, his head lowering as if he was close to succumbing to whatever darkness waited for him once his eyes fully closed.
Gold flashed again between his eyelids.
They had almost shut for good when the lightning struck him once more.
Max’s body jerked violently.
Any drowsiness that had almost swallowed him vanished in an instant, as if a cold bucket of water had been poured over his head. But this was not water. It felt more like lava had been forced into his veins, scorching every part of him from the inside.
His spine arched.
His fingers curled so tightly that his nails almost tore into his palms, and his jaw clenched until blood leaked between his teeth. The pain twisted through his insides, making his stomach churn and his mouth fill with blood.
A rough cough escaped him.
Red spilled from his lips, falling into the white void beneath him before disappearing as if it had never existed.
"What is a king without his throne?"
The voice did not let up.
It demanded an answer again, as if Max could only escape this fate by giving it one that satisfied whatever ancient thing was speaking to him.
"Nobody!" Max roared.
But the same fate awaited him.
Another lightning bolt struck his body from the endless white above, crashing into him with such force that his bones locked in place. His muscles seized, his teeth clenched together, and for a moment, his body felt like nothing more than an empty husk, a piece of flesh made to conduct lightning like a rod waiting to catch the flash in the sky during a storm.
This time, Max decided not to answer.
He needed time. Just a little. Enough to recover from the blasts, enough to force his thoughts into order and understand what the ancient entity truly wanted from him. The answer was not "just a man." It was not "nobody" either. That much was clear now.
But that kind of luxury was nothing more than an illusion.
The lightning struck once more.
This time, the bolt was thicker, sharper, and far more violent than before. It slammed straight into his skull, and Max’s vision shattered into gold and white as his body collapsed flat against the invisible ground. The throne moved away the moment he fell, sliding backward as if it had a consciousness of its own, dodging him before his hand could even reach its shadow.
Blood rushed into Max’s eyes, turning his vision red.
He looked like a demon crawling beneath heaven’s punishment, his face twisted from pain, his fingers digging into nothing as he tried to push himself up. freeweɓnøvel.com
"What is a king without his throne?"
He did not even have time to lift himself from the ground before the lightning struck again.
The bolt tore through his back and forced his chest against the floor, making blood spill from his mouth in a thick line. Every second he failed to give the correct answer, the strikes intensified, as if the voice was not asking a question anymore, but beating the truth out of him one flash at a time.
