Hellbound: Rebirth Of The Strongest Slayer.-Chapter 43: Wrong Presence

Chapter 43

The Savager leader raised a trembling hand and pointed at the man with the silver eye, as if accusing him of some unforgivable crime.

His deep, gravelly voice came out cracked and shaken.

"You are... the War Maker."

His blood turned to ice.

It was not because he feared the War Maker.

At least, not directly.

Truth be told, it had been a very long time since his instincts had warned him of danger on this level. But fear alone was not the reason for his reaction.

After all, the emperor of Ardentia was known as the strongest existence within the kingdom, and the Savager leader had come here fully prepared to kill him. To offer his head as a sacrifice to appease the true god who had shown displeasure through the Crimson Night.

No.

The real reason was the name itself.

War Maker.

Believe it or not, that name was infamous among the barbarian tribes.

Long ago, one of the major barbarian tribes had been wiped out. Some would argue that the War Maker had not slaughtered them personally. But the truth was undeniable. One of his crafted weapons had sparked a war so catastrophic that it led to the death of one of the most prominent powers among the barbarians.

That single death sent the entire tribe into irreversible decline.

From that point on, many believed that the downfall of the barbarian race as a whole could be traced back to this one man.

That alone made him a threat.

A mortal enemy.

Someone the Savagers wished to erase at any cost.

"Oh," the War Maker said lightly, amusement creeping into his voice. "You recognize me."

He paused.

"Should I feel honored?"

The Savager leader finally steadied himself and roared,

"You damn bastard. How dare you show yourself before barbarians after the atrocities you have committed."

His killing intent surged.

"I will appease the great true god. Your existence is a sin that must be purged. Even the true god agrees."

The entire army behind him roared in approval, voices shaking the land.

The War Maker looked at them, his silver eye twitching slightly.

So much for common sense.

It seemed he had given these barbarians too much credit earlier.

Not that he had any intention of educating them.

"You should all stay behind me," the Savager leader commanded. "I will take him out first. Then we will trample the kingdom he protects."

His lips curled into a cruel smile.

"We will cleanse it of its inhabitants and offer them as sacrifices to the one true god."

The warriors obeyed, retreating swiftly as their leader stepped forward alone.

Dark qi erupted from his body.

The very space around him trembled as energy overflowed wildly. Thick, dense smoke like qi coiled around his massive frame, making the air vibrate with untamed power.

The land cracked beneath his feet.

The sky seemed to howl.

The world itself appeared to bend under the pressure of his rising strength.

"I see," the War Maker muttered calmly. "Peak of the Expansion Realm. Quite formidable."

His tone remained indifferent.

"But still not enough."

He casually reached into his blue robes and removed one of the silver pins embedded within the fabric. With a flick of his fingers, he infused it with a trace of his aura.

Then he threw it.

The silver streak tore through the air at terrifying speed.

In an instant, it stood before the barbarian leader and pierced straight into his chest.

The impact sent shockwaves rippling outward.

For a brief moment, everything went still.

Then the barbarian grinned.

Maniacally.

As the energy was absorbed into his body.

Many had misunderstood this form of his, and they died for it very quickly.

Their ignorance was fatal.

Any energy that dared attack him was swallowed whole by his dark qi, sucked in and crushed, feeding the roiling black smoke that wrapped around his body like living armor. The more they struggled, the stronger it became. By the time it was ready, his enemy would not even know what hit them.

"You will fall."

He grinned as he roared the words, his voice filled with absolute defiance, as if he were challenging the heavens themselves and winning. The barbarian’s eyes rose slightly.

It seems I have greatly underestimated him.

That attack should have at least injured him. A grave wound at the very least.

Instead, it did nothing.

Just as that thought flashed through the Warmaker’s mind, his silver eye caught something wrong. The dark savager was no longer smiling. His face had turned grave, heavy with a deep, suffocating sense of danger.

The barbarian felt the change instantly.

But it was already too late.

And truthfully, he did not think there had ever been a way for him to survive in the first place.

So this is how it ends.

He closed his eyes.

The next moment, he exploded into gore. Flesh, bone, and blood detonated outward as he was destroyed from the inside out.

The barbarians froze.

Their hearts dropped into the abyss.

Their leader. The strongest among them.

Dead.

Just like that.

From a single needle attack.

Dread seized them, cold and absolute. Meanwhile, the Warmaker’s silver eye rose slightly once more. He shook his head, faint disappointment flickering across his expression.

Actually, maybe I overestimated the savager instead.

He did not dwell on it.

Protecting the kingdom from invaders had been fun at first, but after fighting countless foes and manning the walls for days on end, boredom had begun to seep in. He turned his silver gaze toward the army standing beneath their fallen leader.

A gleam flashed through his eyes.

The next moment, they all exploded just like him, as if the effect of the attack had been transferred wholesale to every single one of them.

Cultivators watching from afar were horrified. Such a phenomenon defied reason.

But the Warmaker did not spare it a second glance.

His eyes scanned the horizon, several miles away. No, farther. Hundreds, maybe thousands of miles.

Another army.

Balanced. Disciplined. Marching straight toward the Great Wall of Ardentia, the wall he alone manned.

"Why isn’t the siege stopping already?" he muttered. "It’s been days. Maybe weeks."

He sighed and produced another silver needle.

He was not obligated to let them reach him.

After all, they clearly lacked common sense and education.

With the casual flick of his wrist, like discarding something useless, he threw the needle from his robe. It vanished the next second as the Warmaker continued sitting atop the cliff, completely relaxed.

Miles away, the army advancing toward Ardentia froze.

They had been promised glory. Told that the Crimson Night was caused by a powerful beast hidden within Ardentia’s walls. Told once they claim it, they will be invincible.

But then.

They sensed danger.

Before they could react, a thin silver streak sliced through the air.

Then they fell.

Every single one of them.

Dead.

No exceptions.

They never even knew how they died.

Ironically, the wall guarded by the Warmaker was the one facing the least trouble. Across the kingdom’s borders, chaos reigned. Probing forces. Full-scale wars. Infiltrators with hidden agendas. Sieges stacking upon sieges.

Yet no matter their intent, they were stopped by the countless experts Ardentia possessed.

When things grew dire, those at the very top of the kingdom’s power stepped in to erase the threat entirely. The only saving grace was that the truly terrifying forces had not yet made their move, likely biding their time.

Still, Ardentia suffered.

Wars. Sieges. Heroes falling. Others rising.

Death reaped freely.

The weeks following the Crimson Night became the most epic and terrifying days in the kingdom’s history.

And the cause of it all?

Somewhere within Ardentia, fast asleep.

Curled against his mother’s back.

Unaware that the world was burning for him.

--------

Meanwhile, back in the already destroyed kingdom of Rugriay.

In the charred lands and collapsed spires, where nothing remained but smoke, ash, and dust, the ground trembled ever so slightly.

A hand clawed its way out of the blackened earth.

From a kingdom destroyed weeks ago, a figure rose. Wounded. Torn. Covered in filth and dried blood. Yet she had survived, where even far more powerful beings had fallen.

Her frail white hair and brittle frame told the truth at a glance.

The Dark Oracle.

The one King Jallon had contacted to unravel the mystery of the Crimson Night.

And in truth, she had been one of the main causes behind the destruction of the Rugriay Kingdom.

She had seen more than she ever revealed.

Beyond the vision of a being cast from the vast depths of hell into the realm of humans, she had seen something else. The first kingdom to suffer by his hands would be Rugriay.

She did not know how. Not then.

But when she glimpsed that precocious, terrifying entity, its power brushing past her divination as if it did not even exist in the same reality, she understood.

The end of Rugriay was coming. Quickly.

So she did the only thing that could save her.

She invoked one of the darkest magics she possessed. She sacrificed the souls of nearly everyone in the kingdom, weaving them into an extradimensional barrier around herself, forged from countless screaming spirits.

It worked.

She survived.

But the cost was unbearable.

Even so, the backlash nearly killed her. The wounds she suffered took weeks just to crawl back from death’s edge. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"I must leave," she whispered, dragging her broken body forward. "I must find a place to recuperate first."

She did not get far.

A figure dressed entirely in black appeared before her.

Red lips. Moist. Alluring.

The sense of certain death crashed over her like a wave.

That presence.

She has sensed it before, saw it in one of her visions but it feels far more wrong and suffocating than she remembered.

Far more dreadful and wrong than what was shown in her vision, and unmistakably here.

The hooded figure bent slightly, peering down at her. Or at least, that was what she believed he was doing.

"Tell me everything that happened here," he said softly. "Everything. No confusion. No omissions."

His voice was sweet. Calm.

Commanding.

She nodded.

Entranced.

And she spoke.

She told him of the visions. Of the being from hell. Of the king’s desperation. Of the flaming entity’s arrival. Of her own survival through mass sacrifice. Of the souls she burned to live one more day.

She told him everything.

Anyone else would have trembled in dread listening to such a tale.

The hooded man only smiled.

A small smile spread across his handsome, enchanting lips.

"You’ve done well," he said, placing a hand on her head.

Her eyes snapped clear.

Horror flooded her.

She had been manipulated. Completely. Powerless to resist.

What kind of abomination is this?

"Rest now," the hooded man said gently. "You’ve done well enough."

The Dark Oracle wanted to scream. To plead for mercy. She did not want to die yet.

But her body did not obey.

The man moved his hand slightly.

Her neck snapped like a twig.

He straightened as her body collapsed, lifeless, like a puppet with its strings cut.

He turned his gaze to the sky.

Though it was blue once more, it felt as though he were still staring into the Crimson Night.

A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"Interesting," he murmured.

"Very interesting."

To be continued.