Exiled Prince: I'm the Unexpected Extra in the Novel-Chapter 124: The Gate That Must Never Open

The War for the North[12]

[The Kraken’s Coffin]

The lid of the coffin creaked open with a sound like the moan of someone in pain. From within, a pitch-black mist and the scent of a rotting sea spread out.

And from within that darkness... translucent, purple-colored, ghostly chains and viscous, shapeless arms reached out.

"This... This is black magic!" shouted a lord, stepping back in horror.

The ghostly arms lunged at Cassian’s command and seized Commander Varek, who was sealed in ice. The ice vines melted away to give way to this new power.

Before Varek even had a chance to scream, he was lifted into the air by those ghostly arms and pulled toward the bottomless darkness of the coffin.

"NO! PLEASE! MASTER, PROTECT ME!" Varek screamed, his mask completely fallen.

He was no longer an innocent father, but a cultist begging his master.

The chains dragged him into the coffin.

BAM!

The lid of the coffin slammed shut over Varek. The runes on the coffin glowed, and muffled, terrible screams were heard from inside. Then, silence.

Baron Thorne fell to his knees. "What... What did you do to him?" he whispered, unable to believe what he was seeing. "Did you... eat him?"

Cassian placed his hand on the coffin. There was a cold, emotionless expression on his face.

"Just watch and see, Baron," said Cassian.

While all this was happening, Cryomara sat at the head of the table, legs crossed, gently swirling the coffee glass in her hand, watching the events unfold.

There was neither surprise nor fear on her face. Only an expression of absolute, unshakable trust in Cassian and his methods, along with a slight sense of satisfaction.

’Show them, heir of Kaiser,’ thought Cryomara. ’Show them how ugly the truth can be.’

The coffin began to tremble. The purple lights intensified.

And suddenly, the lid of the coffin opened again.

But the person who came out... was not the Varek who had entered moments ago.

His body was the same, yes. But his mind... his mind was now under Cassian’s control. Varek stepped out like a puppet.

His eyes had turned completely black. His face bore the emptiness of someone who had lost all will.

Cassian turned to his puppet.

"Tell them, Varek," said Cassian. "Who laid your wife and children on the altar that night? And who opened the border gates to the Obsidian Dawn?"

Varek’s mouth opened, and his voice spilled out in a mechanical, emotionless tone.

"I did it... My loyalty is to Supreme Luin... I sacrificed my family..."

Every lord, every general in the hall felt their blood run cold at the confession they heard.

Baron Thorne covered his face with his hands. The friend he trusted was a monster.

Cassian turned his cold gaze to the others in the room.

"Here is your proof," he said. "Any other questions?"

The silence covering the Glacial Hall was heavier than the chaos of moments ago. Horror had draped over them like a quilt.

The lords trembling around the table, General Hareth, and even the skeptical Baron Thorne could not take their eyes off the eerie spectacle standing in the middle of the room.

The once-respected Commander Varek... was now looking at his master with soulless eyes, like a puppet.

His pupils were completely black, his mouth slightly ajar, and his arms hung loosely at his sides.

He was no longer Varek; he was an extension of Cassian’s mind, a speaker made of flesh and bone.

Cassian, hands in his pockets, slowly walked in a circle around Varek. The thud of his shoes on the marble floor was the only rhythm in the room.

Cryomara leaned slightly forward on her throne, watching this interrogation carefully. She sensed that Cassian was not just exposing a traitor, but was chasing a much larger truth.

"Good..." said Cassian, cutting the silence like a knife. His voice was calm, but the underlying threatening timbre could be felt. "Then let us continue our interrogation. Since you are being so ’frank’, you will tell us everything."

Cassian stopped right in front of Varek and looked into those empty, black eyes.

"What is the Obsidian Dawn’s goal? Crossing borders, destroying castles... We already know these are just means to an end. What is their ultimate goal?"

Varek’s lips moved as if the strings of a puppet were being pulled. The voice was his own, but the intonation was mechanical.

"They want the fragments of fallen gods..."

This sentence was nothing but meaningless nonsense to the lords in the room. "Fallen Gods? What does that mean?" they whispered. However, for Cassian... this sentence had the effect of lightning striking his mind.

His eyes narrowed for a moment. Fragments of fallen gods...

His gaze involuntarily drifted to the depths of the castle, to Mordret’s Sword.

That sword was actually a fragment of Zevstyle.

His mind began to work rapidly; the pieces were falling into place.

But... thought Cassian. Why are they collecting parts of these gods?

His thoughts went back to the past, to that bloody attack on the Inferna Duchy.

Back then, staying true to the game’s story, he had thought the purpose of the attack was to break Inferna’s military influence on the Empire and steal valuable artifacts.

That was the game’s scenario. Political power, military superiority... Classic villain motivations.

But now... now everything was gaining a new perspective.

Was this what they were looking for in Inferna too? To obtain a god fragment?

Cassian strained his memory. In the "lore" of the game, there wasn’t a single line about a fallen god in Inferna’s past.

But the game’s story had been broken countless times in this new reality.

Zevstyle... was an entity not even mentioned in the game files. And Kaiser... He was the unknown side of the equation too.

Just then, in the darkest corner of his mind, an entity that had been silent for a long time reminded him of its presence.

Or rather, Cassian remembered it.

That cursed object standing somewhere in his soul.

’The Crown of Madness.’

Cassian’s eyes suddenly widened. That cold, calculating expression on his face gave way to pure enlightenment.

"Unless..." he whispered to himself.

He remembered Nerath’s remnants. Those purple stones... Each carried Nerath’s will. They had their own consciousness; they whispered, they manipulated.

And the Crown of Madness... It was alive too. It possessed its own consciousness. It had spoken to Cassian, bargained with him, even threatened him.

An ordinary magical item, no matter how powerful, could not possess a will.

All the information clicked into place at once.

The Crown of Madness was also a god fragment.

But a gnawing question came to mind: Which god?

It couldn’t be Zevstyle; his aura was different, more chaotic and predatory. It couldn’t be Nerath either; his energy was more "void" focused.

That left two fallen gods mentioned vaguely in the game story, their names lost to legends.

But the Crown’s characteristics didn’t match their mythology.

Like Zevstyle... Like Kaiser... thought Cassian, a shiver rising within him. This is also a variable not in the game’s story, added later or hidden in this world.

Cassian had been suspicious of the Crown’s silence for a long time.

Even in his worst moods, in those desperate moments when he fought alone against Nerath, the Crown hadn’t uttered a single word, hadn’t sent a single whisper. It was as if... it was hiding. Or waiting for its turn.

Cassian suspended the interrogation for a second and focused on the depths of his mind, on that dark void hiding somewhere in his soul.

[Hey... son of a bitch...] called out his thoughts, his voice echoing in his mind. [Are you still there? I know you can hear me.] 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

...

No answer. Only a deep, disturbing silence. Like the silence of a desert where even the wind doesn’t blow.

Cassian sighed. This silence was more dangerous than an answer.

He turned back to Varek. He shouldn’t get distracted.

"Are god relics their only goal?" asked Cassian, walking towards Varek. "And what will they do with those fragments? Will they use them as a weapon? or will they devise power for themselves?"

Varek’s head fell slightly to the side, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as if watching something invisible there.

"The gate will open..." said Varek, his voice filled with awe like someone reciting a hymn. "And the worlds will merge. For this... we need god fragments as fuel to break the locks."

"Gate?"

"Worlds?"

The whispers in the room rose. Baron Thorne looked at General Hareth. "What is this man blathering about? What gate?"

Everyone was confused. The things they heard were far beyond the war strategies and land disputes they could perceive. It sounded like the ravings of a madman.

But not for Cassian.

"What gate?" asked Cassian, the urgency in his voice increasing. "And what do you mean by ’worlds’?"

Varek lowered those empty eyes to Cassian. An eerie, peaceful smile appeared on his face.

"I do not know..." he said. "I am just a messenger. But Supreme Luin... says that when that day comes, we will be one with our gods. We will become a part of their existence. There will be no more pain. No sadness. Grief, hunger, war... none of it will exist. Only... eternal peace and eternity."

Cassian’s eyes widened with hatred and panic upon hearing these words. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms.

He knew very well what the man, or rather Luin, was talking about.

This was that terrible, unavoidable "Bad End" scenario in the game’s story. That apocalypse players could never fully prevent, only postpone.

The merger of the Mortal Realm and the Realm of Gods.

"Unity," "Peace," "Eternity"... These were just fancy lies.

The truth was much simpler and much more savage.

When that gate opened, the Gods would descend to the mortal realm. But not to save humans, not to raise them to heaven.

To feed.

Humans, elves, dwarves... all of them. They were just "crops" for the Gods.

Cassian remembered the endings of the game. The moment those massive entities tore open the sky. The moment humans ran to them with joy shouting "Our Gods have come!"... And then that moment of "Unity."

The Gods ate the humans. Not physically, but spiritually; they consumed them existentially. They sucked their mana sources, their life energies.

Why they condemned these races—which they created, allowed to develop, and had build civilizations—to such an end was the game’s greatest mystery.

Perhaps it was like a farmer feeding and raising his lambs. Giving them pastures, protecting them from wolves (destroying other threats), allowing them to love and multiply. Because when harvest time came, their meat had to be more delicious, their energy more dense.

The answer to this was never given in the game. The developers had gone bankrupt, and the sequel never came. This situation remained a permanent question mark and a terrible mystery in the players’ minds.

Does Luin know this? thought Cassian, feeling nauseous. Or is he just another fool fallen for the promise of ’eternity’?

"Peace..." repeated Cassian, his voice ice-cold.

The War for the North[12]

He approached Varek and placed a hand on his shoulder. He knew Varek wouldn’t understand him, but he felt the need to say it anyway.

"What you call peace, Varek," said Cassian, in a voice everyone in the room could hear. "Is a slaughterhouse. And you fools are worshipping the butcher holding the knife."

He raised his head and looked at Cryomara. The mocking smile on the Mystic Beast’s face had been erased. She had understood too.

The lords in the room saw that pure terror in Cassian’s eyes. And for the first time, they understood that what they should truly fear was not hunger or cold.

_ _ _

Hi everyone,

I’ve started working on a new novel.

Its theme and story structure are completely different from my current one.

If you’re into academy settings, a yandere twist, a strange main character, and a single female lead, you might enjoy this one.

[F-Rank Beast: The Heroine’s Useless Partner]

_ _ _

Discord: discord.gg/2R2CnUwT5