Chapter 95: Crushing Despair

The dead, bruised gray canvas of the eastern sky violently and audibly shattered. Massive, jagged fissures of absolute, impenetrable blackness tore through the atmospheric clouds, hanging in the heavens like broken glass suspended over a dying world. The ambient light of the battlefield was ruthlessly sucked into these abyssal wounds. From the largest, most terrifying tear in the fabric of reality, the Fallen Monarch descended onto the ruined plains. He did not possess the brute, fiery, mountainous mass of Malgreth. The Fallen Monarch was cloaked in shifting, elegant, living shadows. His armor was forged from the darkest, coldest corners of the ancient abyss, a midnight metal that absorbed all light, warmth, and hope that dared to touch it. A majestic, terrifying cape of liquid darkness flowed silently behind his broad shoulders, and his eyes were two hollow voids of nothingness.

The moment his armored boots softly touched the gray ash, the true nature of his power washed over the mortal army. It was a psychological execution. It was the Aura of Despair. The aura radiated from the ancient god like an ocean of void, a suffocating, heavy tide that swept across the miles of the Eastern Front in a fraction of a second. It drowned, plunging the soul into the deepest, lightless trench of the sea, where no breath could be drawn and no light could ever reach.

Behind the massive, broken granite wall, ten thousand seasoned Solaris infantrymen and elite Sylphyros and Drakhalmere rangers ceased their movements. These were veterans. These were men and women who had stood perfectly firm against the charging hordes of Aberrations, who had held their iron shields high against the toxic, rotting rain of the Black Mist Warlords. They had bled, and they had survived. But against the presence of an ancient god, mortal courage was obsolete.

CLATTER!!

An iron spear slipped from the trembling fingers of a frontline commander, hitting the stone perfectly. Then, another fell. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. The deafening, cascading sound of ten thousand heavy weapons dropping into the dirt echoed across the silent plains. The soldiers did not retreat. The sheer density of the despair aura vehemently stripped away their very will to live. It invaded their minds, erasing their memories of home, their families, the warmth of the sun, and the reasons they had chosen to fight. All of it was ruthlessly replaced by a hollow, agonizing, infinite emptiness.

Strong, battle-hardened veterans fell heavily to their knees in the ash. They wrapped their arms around themselves, weeping profusely, broken. They curled into the fetal position, their eyes vacant and dark, surrendering their souls to the encroaching void. They were just breathing corpses waiting for their inevitable, quiet execution.

Velanor Banner refused to kneel. The young Zephyros earth mage stood atop the crumbling remains of his granite wall. His heavy leather boots were planted vehemently into the stone, his legs shaking violently under the immense, crushing atmospheric pressure. The despair aura pressed against his mind like a vice, desperately trying to snap his sanity in half.

Blood dripped profusely from Velanor’s nostrils, running down his chin and staining his tunic. A thin stream of crimson leaked from his left ear. His internal core screamed in pure agony as he fought to draw breath. He looked down at the weeping, paralyzed soldiers. He looked at the towering, elegant shadow standing thirty yards away on the plains.

"You will not take them," Velanor whispered, his voice trembling but laced with an unyielding defiance.

Velanor slammed both of his bare, callused hands onto the top of the granite wall. He closed his eyes, ignoring the sheer terror attempting to crush his heart. He pushed his internal core past its mortal limit, desperately trying to connect with the deep, ancient leylines buried beneath the continent.

But the earth felt dead. The bedrock, which normally hummed with vibrant, heavy energy, was paralyzed by the ancient god’s presence. It was suffocating, terrified of the shadows walking upon its surface.

"Wake up!" Velanor roared loudly, tearing his own vocal cords. He pushed his own life force into the stone, kickstarting the dead magic. "I am a General of the Vanguard! You will answer me!"

The dead earth shuddered. Velanor’s sheer, desperate willpower forcibly reawakened the leylines. The gray ash on the battlefield began to tremble and swirl.

RUMBLE!!

Four massive, towering pillars of ultra-dense, jet-black continental bedrock erupted from the earth perfectly surrounding the Fallen Monarch. They were fifty feet thick and a hundred feet tall, forged from the heaviest, oldest stone in the world. Velanor intended to pulverize him. The four massive pillars collapsed inward, designed to crush the Fallen Monarch from all four sides simultaneously.

At the exact same moment, Catherine Sylphyros stepped forward from the shadows of the wall. The elegant Princess of the Forest Kingdom ignored the paralyzing fear gripping her lungs. Her beautiful white armor was cracked and stained with the toxic rot from her previous battle, and her left arm still throbbed with a dull, sickening pain. But her silver-blue eyes burned with a cold, absolute resolve. She had watched her little sister, Soltheia, fly away to safety. She had nothing left to protect but her pride and her home.

Catherine raised her elegantly carved, shining ice staff. She drew upon the maximum capacity of her monstrous internal core, pointing the crystal tip at the dark god.

"Absolute Zero!" Catherine screamed profusely.

SWOOSH!!

A massive, terrifying blizzard of razor-sharp, condensed ice lances shot through the air. The temperature plummeted so low, that the ambient moisture in the atmosphere crystallized, creating a blinding, roaring storm of lethal frost. The ice lances flew at supersonic speeds, following Velanor’s collapsing bedrock pillars.

It was the pinnacle of mortal elemental synergy. Heavy earth and absolute ice perfectly coordinated in a devastating, apocalyptic strike that would have executed any Nightmare Warlord or Aberration King.

The Fallen Monarch didn’t even look at them. The ancient god stood still in the center of the trap, his hands resting casually at his sides. He did not raise a weapon. He simply existed.

The living, liquid shadows wrapping his elegant midnight armor simply expanded outward in a casual, silent, rippling wave.

SHATTER!!

The four pillars of solid black bedrock struck the shadow barrier. The moment the dense continental stone touched the void, it instantly disintegrated into fine, harmless gray dust. The physical matter was erased from existence, stripped of its molecular bonds by the sheer density of the despair.

A second later, Catherine’s absolute zero ice lances slammed into the expanding darkness. The ice, cold enough to freeze boiling magma, hit the shadows and instantly vaporized into thin, useless steam. The coldness of the mortal magic was nothing compared to the true, ancient coldness of the infinite void.

The ultimate elemental magic of them was effortlessly brushed aside, swallowed by the darkness without the ancient god even lifting a single finger. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Velanor gasped loudly, his hands slipping from the granite. He fell to his knees on top of the wall, his internal core completely entirely drained, staring in wide-eyed horror at the cloud of gray dust settling around the unharmed Monarch.

Catherine stumbled backward, her breath hitching in her throat. The shining crystal at the top of her staff flickered and died, completely exhausted of its light.

"It didn’t even touch him," Catherine whispered profusely, a cold tear slipping down her pale cheek as the true, insurmountable reality of their situation set in. "We are nothing to him."

The Fallen Monarch slowly darted his hollow, void-like eyes toward the crumbling granite wall.

He looked at the two panting, bleeding mortals who had dared to strike at the dark. There was no anger in his gaze. There was no malice or cruel amusement. There was only the heavy, infinite sadness of an ancient being observing the futile struggles of dust.

The Fallen Monarch slowly raised a single, elegantly armored finger, pointing it perfectly at the two mortals.

"Silence," the ancient god whispered softly. His voice was smooth, melodic, and impossibly quiet, yet it filled the minds of every living creature on the Eastern Front. It was a command that carried the unyielding weight of the universe.

BAM!!

An overwhelming, invisible wave of despair slammed into the granite wall. It was the sheer, terrifying weight of the aura manifested as a physical blow. The heavy granite wall exploded into a million jagged pieces, instantly pulverized beneath their boots.

Velanor Banner took the brunt of the impact to his chest. The heavy leather and steel of his Zephyros armor buckled inward. Five of his ribs cracked loudly, the sickening sound echoing through the silence. He was launched backward, completely lifted off his feet like a broken ragdoll.

Catherine Sylphyros raised her ice staff in a desperate, final attempt to block the wave.

SNAP!!

The beautiful, enchanted ice staff completely snapped in half, shattering into useless shards. The despair slammed into her elegant body. The sheer force knocked the air out of her burning lungs. She was blasted fifty feet backward alongside Velanor. Both crashed heavily into the dead gray ash. They tumbled, entirely out of control, their bodies scraping across the jagged, unforgiving rocks until they finally came to a devastating halt.

Velanor rolled onto his side, coughing up a massive, thick pool of dark blood onto the dirt. He tried to push himself up, his callused fingers digging desperately into the ash, but his arms gave out. His body was broken, his earth magic completely severed. He collapsed flat on his stomach, his vision blurring into darkness.

Catherine lay motionless on her back a few yards away. Her sleek white armor was shattered, exposing the bruised and bleeding flesh underneath. She stared up at the broken, black-cracked sky, her beautiful silver-blue eyes wide and vacant. She could not move a single muscle. The despair aura pinned her to the ground, suffocating her mind and paralyzing her limbs.

The vanguard was entirely broken. The infantrymen continued to weep silently in the dirt, completely ignoring their fallen commanders. The defensive line had been effortlessly destroyed in less than a minute.

The Fallen Monarch lowered his hand. He did not draw a sword to finish them off. To an ancient god, the broken mortals bleeding in the ash were no longer a threat; they were simply scenery. He slowly turned his gaze away from Velanor and Catherine, looking past the pulverized remains of the granite wall, staring toward the center of the ruined plains.

Standing alone in the gray dirt, his stark white hair blowing wildly in the suffocating wind, there was Luna Zephyros. The Night Emperor stood with his hands shoved deep into his torn pockets, with an angry grin on his face. The right side of his face was covered in a heavy layer of dirt, but a thick, unbroken stream of shimmering silver blood leaked continuously from his left eye. He looked at his two defeated, bleeding friends lying in the ash behind him.

Then, Luna slowly turned his head back to the Fallen Monarch. The arrogant smirk that usually danced on his pale lips was gone. In its place was a look of pure, terrifying coldness. The Eastern Front was utterly crushed, paralyzed under the dominance of the void. The mortal magic had failed. The mortal champions had fallen, but the ancient god had completely forgotten that the boy standing before him was not mortal.

The Fallen Monarch had effortlessly brushed aside the earth and the ice. Now, he would have to face the infinite weight of the sky.