Chapter 86: The White King's Interlude (Part III)
Three days. Only three days had crawled by since Leornars Servs Avrem delivered his 'loan request'—a polite name for a political guillotine. The capital of Seraphim was now a cage humming with terrified silence, but the epicenter of the collapse was the Royal Palace itself.
Inside his study, the air was thick with the scent of old leather and ruin. King Theron—the once-regal figurehead—was reduced to a shuddering mess. His hands trembled over the documents of his own forced abdication. A primal, wounded-beast roar tore from his throat. He seized the Crown of Seraphim, its gold and ruby weight suddenly feeling like an anchor forged of shame, and hurled it.
CRASH!
The sound was a deafening obituary. The fragile gold fillet of the crown shattered against the stone hearth, scattering blood-red rubies across the costly Persian carpet like spilled tears. The symbol of a thousand-year lineage was broken. Just like its King.
Moments later, the Avangard Knights arrived, their movements cold and inevitable. The King was dragged, silent and defeated, into the deepest dungeon. Meanwhile, the entitled idiot, Prince Luiphonia, had vanished, chased by a terrifying public catalog of his crimes, curated and released by Leornars' intelligence—everything from the mundane to the monstrous. The people whispered that the Prince was just the tip; the entire royal lineage was rotten.
Leornars finally took his seat. Clad in pristine white-and-gold Avangard silks that seemed to shimmer with their own subtle power, he looked less like a conqueror and more like a deity descending to pass judgment. The royal throne, still holding the phantom warmth of King Theron, now belonged to him.
He rested his chin on a perfectly gloved hand, his expression a masterpiece of detached boredom as he surveyed the Seraphim nobility.
How pathetic, he thought, his eyes skimming over their sweat-slicked faces. Not a single spine among them. All this fuss for a handful of self-serving worms.
He began to hum. It was a deceptively soft, light tune—a casual melody of absolute victory—and in the cavernous silence of the great hall, it sounded louder than a battle cry.
Outside, the Royal Plaza was packed. The citizens, cautious and hopeful, were awaiting the impossible. Leornars stepped onto the grand balcony, flanked by the stoic, black-armored Avangard Guard.
"Citizens of Seraphim Kingdom!" His voice, amplified by a subtle, perfectly tuned Mana-Resonance spell—a tiny bit of theatre he enjoyed—boomed across the stone forest of the city. "My name is Leornars Servs Avrem, the King of Avangard, and, perhaps, the humble architect of your nation's new dawn."
He let the name sink in. The White Plague. He didn't need to say it; they knew.
"Today is not a day of conquest, but a day of peace!" he declared. "Avangard Kingdom heard your desperate pleas. I have not seized your nation by the sword; I have liberated you from the inhumane tyranny of King Theron Valerus Sellim. He is in custody, pending his swift execution!"
A wave of relieved, tearful shouts rose from the crowd. He waited, then delivered the final, crushing blow of his goodwill.
"I offer you immediate, tangible relief. Your crushing, twelve-billion-gold debt to the Empire—a debt accrued through your former King's greed—is now extinguished! Paid in full, through the treasury of Avangard!"
The Plaza exploded. This wasn't just liberation; it was salvation. A chorus of ecstatic noise—joy, shock, and gratitude—drowned out the world.
"I guarantee this," Leornars boomed over the joyous din. "No citizen of Seraphim will ever again fear the whip of a slaver, the terror of rape, or the arbitrary cruelty of the Crown! We will take you under our wing until the Kingdom of Seraphim is great again! All hail the Rebirth of Seraphim Kingdom!"
"ALL HAIL SERAPHIM KINGDOM!" the people roared back. This was a genuine, heart-felt loyalty, bought and paid for with a dazzling display of financial and political power.
Unseen by the ecstatic masses, a shadow detached itself from the edge of the throng. He was a man of cold, surgical efficiency: Ziwah, the S-Rank mercenary. He had been paid a king's ransom by the Elarian Queen to silence this new, inconveniently brilliant rival.
Ziwah pulled a tattered sketch from his tunic—a perfect likeness of Leornars. Target confirmed.
The assassination was swift. A silent command, and six explosive projectiles—a hideous mix of solidified Mana bolts and enchanted shrapnel—slammed into the balcony where Leornars stood.
KRA-KOOM!
Stone railing became dust. Rubble and smoke obscured the balcony. He's gone, Leornars thought, clicking his tongue in annoyance, already in mid-air. He hadn't dodged; he had executed a supernatural, gravity-defying leap, carrying him fifty feet back to land lightly on the palace's inner roof.
Ziwah appeared on the smoking ruin of the balcony, dusting his hands with a cruel, satisfied smirk.
"I thought that'd actually kill you, Leornars," Ziwah rasped up to him. "Guess I need to aim better."
One of Ziwah's A-Rank allies shot forward, his enchanted sabre aiming for the White King's exposed neck.
Leornars didn't even acknowledge the A-Ranker. He blinked behind the mercenary, delivering a rapid sequence of precise, telekinetic kicks—to the face, then behind the head—sending the assassin tumbling.
"Helveria!" Leornars shouted. A torrent of thirty-two-million-degree flames erupted where the A-Ranker had been. The heat was immense, but Ziwah's body was nowhere to be seen.
He can't be dead, that I'm certain of, Leornars thought, but the analysis was cut short.
WHAM!
A scythe slammed into his back. A terrifying, cold shock ripped through him. He fell to the ground, his thoughts screaming.
My Mana… it's nullified! The blow had targeted his core, bypassing his defenses to temporarily sever his link to his reserves.
Ziwah was on him instantly, a blur of kicks and punches, culminating in an instant-cast explosion spell at point-blank range. Leornars was punched into the stone wall, coughing up a slow, warm trickle of blood. He could feel his advanced regeneration trying to kick in, but the Mana nullification was slowing it down to a crawl.
Another A-Rank mercenary leapt to finish him off.
In a flicker faster than sight, a figure emerged from the dense shadow pooling beneath Leornars' feet: Zhyelena. Her katana, The Shadow Drinker, was already halfway out of its sheath.
The sound was not steel meeting steel, but a sickening, wet CRACK. Zhyelena had intercepted the assassin with a low, vicious kick, using the momentum of his own charge. The A-Rank hit the wall with a fleshy thud and crumpled, unconscious. She dissolved back into the shadows as quickly as she had appeared.
Ziwah watched the whole exchange, a flicker of genuine curiosity in his cold eyes. "An interesting little pet you have there," he commented, entirely unperturbed. "I'll kill her next. After I'm done with the King."
He raised his hand. A cold, piercing blue flame, humming with dark, destructive energy, gathered in his palm—a rare form of Void Flame, deadly to flesh and Mana alike. He fired a bolt of negative energy.
Leornars' eyes narrowed. "Idiot," he muttered. He focused every ounce of the available Mana his core was frantically trying to repair. "Helvecklev!"
The counter-spell was instantaneous: a roaring torrent of blinding white and orange concentrated plasma energy, hotter than any forge. The two energies met. The Void Flame was instantly overwhelmed, its unstable structure dissolving as the plasma blast struck Ziwah squarely on his left side.
A shriek tore from Ziwah's throat—not of pain, but of pure, profound shock. Half his face—flesh, muscle, and even the bone beneath—was vaporized, leaving a grotesque, smoking cavity.
But he didn't fall.
A sickening, pulsing green light enveloped the ruin of his head. Tissue began to rapidly knit, scar, and restore itself. S-Rank resilience is truly monstrous, Leornars noted, even as he acted.
Before Ziwah could fully restore his vision, Leornars closed the hundred-foot gap with a high-level Flash-Step spell. He seized the regenerating assassin by the throat, slammed him down onto the shattered balcony, and then dragged him along the ground before kicking him—a precise, channeled Mana-Strike kick—through the thick granite wall of the palace itself.
The fight escalated violently, tearing a swath through the city center and quickly moving toward the vast, dark forest bordering the capital.
Leornars, initially confident in his raw power, was slowly being worn down. Ziwah, having fully regenerated and now sporting a face twisted with cold fury, was fighting with the relentless, primal ferocity of a truly elite mercenary.
Leornars unleashed a flurry of elemental attacks:
* "Gale Scythe!" — A razor-sharp blade of pressurized air. Ziwah casually sidestepped, letting it cleave a hundred-year-old oak tree in half behind him.
* "Terra Spike!" — Giant, jagged spikes of stone erupted from the forest floor. Ziwah launched himself into the air, spinning while unleashing a torrent of small, high-speed Dark Shards—miniature blades of solidified shadow.
Leornars countered the shards with a hasty Aether Wall, but the constant defense was draining his limited Mana pool.
Ziwah grinned, seeing the visible strain. The S-Rank was not merely strong; he was a master of unpredictable teleportation and relentless pressure.
He vanished. Leornars spun, scanning the shadows. "Where—"
WHAM!
Ziwah reappeared, not in the shadows, but right behind Leornars, hitting him at point-blank range with a devastating strike. It was not a physical punch, but a condensed sphere of Null-Mana Void Flame. It bypassed Leornars' skin defenses and slammed directly into his internal Mana core.
A white-hot, ripping agony stole his breath. The blast was designed not just to damage, but to scramble and exhaust his reserves.
Leornars was sent flying, crashing brutally through a thicket of thorns before slamming hard against the trunk of an ancient, moss-covered tree. He slid to the ground, panting profusely, his white silks now torn and stained with dirt and a slow trickle of blood from his lip. The Void Flame had worked. His reserves felt like sand pouring through a sieve.
Ziwah stalked toward him, slowly, savoring the moment. His recovering allies began to form a silent perimeter.
"The White Plague?" Ziwah sneered, kicking Leornars's sword—which had fallen a foot away—deeper into the mud. "You're just a little maggot with a decent bank account."
He raised both hands. Two immense, cold blue orbs of Void Flame coalesced, one over each palm. The air grew heavy, dark, and still.
"Now, let's see how well you regenerate after this, little king," Ziwah whispered. "This will be slow."
Leornars could barely move. Every breath felt like drawing fire into his lungs. He was exhausted, Mana-drained, and trapped. His magnificent conquest of Seraphim was already fading into a bloody smear on the forest floor. The Architect of Ruin was about to become a corpse.Leornars lay broken against the tree trunk, the S-Rank mercenary Ziwah stalking toward him, savoring his victory. Two immense, freezing blue orbs of Void Flame coalesced in Ziwah's hands.
"The White Plague?" Ziwah sneered. "Just a little maggot..."
But then, Leornars moved. Not with the frantic energy of a desperate man, but with a terrifying, spasming jerk. A guttural, unsettling sound crawled out of his chest, growing into a rasping, schizophrenic laugh. His body twisted roughly, joints contorting like a ghoul rising from the grave.
"Hah... Ahahahahaha!"
Ziwah, momentarily confused by the grotesque display, charged, scythe raised to end the farce. But Leornars was faster.
Before the blow could land, Leornars seized the scythe mid-swing. With a sharp twist of his wrist and a sickening SNAP, he broke off the enchanted tip. Then, with inhuman strength, he bent the fractured metal back on itself and plunged the jagged point directly into Ziwah's eye.
Ziwah staggered back, his good eye widening in shock as black blood gouted from the wound.
Leornars didn't wait. He launched himself into the sky, a figure silhouetted against the dark canopy. A deafening barrage of Lightning spells erupted from his hands, the fumes reaching all the way to the distant capital. Ziwah dodged frantically, but several bolts struck, blackening his armor.
Show time, Leornars thought, a chilling clarity returning despite the bloodlust. He began to multicast, weaving two opposing energies into a volatile tapestry.
"FLAMEFROST!"
A catastrophic fusion of extreme heat and extreme cold exploded from the sky. In one immediate wave, the ice instantly froze a mile of the forest into a crystalline landscape, only for the subsequent flames to vaporize the ice and flash-burn Ziwah. He regenerated instantly, but the repeated, simultaneous assaults were exhausting his S-Rank power.
Leornars began to spam raw fire spells, turning the surrounding landscape into an absolute nightmare of licking flames.
"Black Phoenix!"
A colossal bird of pure, roaring flame manifested, descending like a god of destruction. It followed Ziwah's frantic path, burning the forest to ash. The Phoenix seized Ziwah in its beak, snapping his torso in two—a futile gesture, as he reformed instantly—before the bird itself plunged back down, striking him and dissolving into a final, scorching plume.
Ziwah sighed, looking up. Leornars was descending, not with a jump, but with a kick. Ziwah dodged, but Leornars's body rearranged itself mid-air. His joints turned, and he used his heel as a bizarre, propelled kick from the back.
"Lingus Kick!" Leornars shouted, slamming Ziwah into a burning tree.
Ziwah charged back, throwing a kick of his own. Leornars dodged, grabbed Ziwah's outstretched arm, snapped the elbow, and unleashed two consecutive, point-blank Explosion Spells. Ziwah was blown through the smoke and into the deeper thicket of trees.
"Queen Selalyndra was right! You are a monster!" Ziwah roared from the shadows, emerging with a rare blade glowing a deep, malevolent crimson.
"I'm done playing nice," Ziwah declared, his aura deepening. "Chain Breaker; The Ways of the Gods!"
This was his ultimate skill: a physical speed enhancement that rivaled light itself. His body began to glow deep crimson. He fired a Plutonic Blast that utterly vaporized the mountain behind Leornars. He fired two more, then moved.
He was gone. Faster than light.
In an instant, he had materialized near Leornars and instantly casted powerful Holy Magic, a desperate attempt to exploit Leornars's dark-leaning power set. The blast connected. Leornars' leg was ripped clean off.
He didn't scream. He didn't even flinch. A new leg began to regenerate slowly, reforming muscle and bone as he landed. He was immediately struck again, speed-blitzed by Ziwah's impossible velocity, and hurled several miles away, crashing into a colossal rock that shattered on impact.
Leornars lay bleeding profusely, his regeneration struggling under the sheer force of the assault.
"You can never catch up with me!" Ziwah's voice was a triumphant roar, echoing from nowhere and everywhere. "I'm three times faster than light, boy! I'm stronger and have better magic!"
He saw Leornars getting up. Ziwah frowned, rushing again, increasing his speed to kick him on the head. But just before the kick connected, he saw something impossible.
Leornars' eyes were looking directly at him. And they blinked.
"What the HELL ARE YOU?! NO ONE SHOULD EVEN SEE ME, LET ALONE BLINK! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" Ziwah screamed, his S-Rank composure shattered by the impossible breach of physics.
Leornars spit out a mouthful of blood and whispered, his voice raspy.
"Althelia, activate adaptive energy."
A soft, almost melodic female voice echoed only in Leornars' consciousness.
> "Activating adaptive energy.... adaptive energy activated, all systems restored."
>
"Who are you talking to?! Answer me!" Ziwah rushed, delivering a light-speed kick.
Leornars instantly teleported above him and fired a Dark Aria spell—a crushing sphere of five-million-degree pure darkness. Ziwah, caught off guard by the teleport, dodged, but the sheer heat tore his remaining clothes to rags.
Leornars' appearance changed. His eyes, normally a sharp crimson, flashed to a chilling void blue, and his silver hair instantly deepened to a stark, glossy black.
He cast over fourteen thousand spells simultaneously, a blinding, chaotic mixture of fire, ice, earth, and Purgatory Flames. Ziwah dodged frantically, rushing Leornars with his dagger.
> "Adaptive energy fully evolved, adapting now."
>
Leornars instantly adapted to the light-speed attack. He met Ziwah's charge with his own impossibly fast kick to the jaw. The second Ziwah landed, he saw Leornars had fired Helveria again. It was too late to dodge. He was hit and instantly thrown into the torrent of plasma, blasting him downward.
> "FTL speed fully adapted to, all systems fully adapted. Regeneration commencing.... successful..."
>
"Aaaaaahhh!!!" Leornars roared, dropping at light speed with a knee aimed at the blasted Ziwah. He twisted his trajectory as Ziwah, in a desperate, final counter, fired an Anti-Mana Attack. Leornars twisted mid-air, firing Threads of Abstract at light speed, and instantly atomically severed Ziwah's arms.
Ziwah panicked, his eyes wide, trying to flee. Leornars instantly erected a prison: an Anti-Mana Barrier and an Anti-Physical Barrier sealing them inside. Ziwah looked at his missing limbs, but still, crazily, began to cast fire spells.
Leornars vanished from sight. Six skeletal, shadow hands erupted from the ground, grabbing Ziwah. Leornars appeared from the Shadow Realm, a dagger in hand, cutting Ziwah's face, followed by a clean, bone-breaking knee to the nose. Five clean kicks and several punches followed, all connecting, before Ziwah could even register the loss of his arms.
A final Helvecklev spell was cast directly on Ziwah's face, blasting him headlong into the barrier.
"You should have done your research on your opponent before fighting me," Leornars said, his voice calm, chillingly lucid, and utterly dominant now. "I was doing my research on your speed and attack patterns. That is why we are here."
Ziwah screamed in agony as Leornars's terrifying aura descended upon him.
"I don't know you, but I don't like you," Leornars stated, walking toward the broken S-Ranker. "You have wronged many, that I'm certain of. I'll now get rid of you."
He began the chant, his void-blue eyes burning with terrible power.
"From the depths of hell, the guardian of damnation mocks the righteous. From the cries of the unknown, the endless cry unforgiven by the Lady of Sins. Cries, echoes, and false words may not be forgiven. I call thee..."
A chilling, deep rumble shook the earth, independent of the fire and the storm.
"...Gate Keeper!"
A colossal metallic statue, thousands of feet tall, rose from the earth. Its surface was pure black, its eyes weeping black tears of oil. It held a massive stone tablet. As the final words were spoken, a terrifying, piercing scream echoed from the tablet.
Chains, thick as pythons and studded with fire-hot spikes, erupted from the statue.
"No matter what you do, you cannot fight against the Lady of Death. Age rules upon the depths of the underworld. Your soul will be torn, cut, and erased. There will be no cycle of rebirth or reincarnation for you. I cast you out of this world... Begone!"
The burning chains wrapped around Ziwah, igniting his entire body. They began to tear his very soul apart, burning him from the inside out with Purgatory Flames. Ziwah screamed a soul-shredding sound as he was being slowly, agonizingly erased from reality.
"I'm Zelda's eldest son, Ziwah Zeldis! My death is just the beginning! More will come!" he screamed, his voice dissolving into smoke.
"Die!" Leornars said, his voice cold as the grave.
The chains snapped back, leaving nothing behind but a quickly dissolving, burnt husk of flesh. Ziwah Zeldis, the S-Rank mercenary, was utterly erased.