Chương 106: Time in Ruin

The system gave a name to the end of the world around Zayn. [Sin recognized: SLOTH.] [Derived skill awakened.] [Time in Ruin.] The letters remained before his eyes a second longer than the others. As if even the system hesitated to classify what he had just opened. [Effect: local acceleration of temporal decay.] [Matter deteriorates. Protections erode. Existing wounds and overload worsen.] [Increased effectiveness on unstable, corrupted, or already deteriorating bodies.] [Current limit: reduced area, high cost, imperfect control.] Zayn read. Then he smiled. Not because he had just received a weapon. Because he had just received a way to stop running after what was already falling apart. Around him, the royal garden kept dying in small touches. The silver leaves turned brown. The flowers shriveled. The shattered fountain began to grow gray moss. The blood on the tiles dried into black edges. Elyra stared at it as one watches a prayer turn into a disease.

"What have you done?" she whispered. Zayn did not answer. The black scythe fully reformed in his left hand, the skull at the top turned toward the king. Its dark jaw clicked once.

"He has done nothing," the weapon said.

"He has finally stopped holding the rot back." King Aelthir let out a roar. Not royal. Not elven. The cry of an immense being stripped of the ability to choose his enemies. He charged. [Estimated Soul Strength: 193.] Even diminished, he remained absurd. His body was burning, but every step still held enough power to pulverize the palace terraces. The spirits around him spun like panicked stars. The golden flame struck first, shaping a curved spear in the air. Zayn did not avoid it completely. He could not.

He raised the scythe. The blade emerging from the black skull struck the flame. The elven fire devoured the dark aura, climbed the shaft, burned his hand down to the bone. Zayn gritted his teeth. Then activated Time in Ruin. The area around his palm blurred. The golden flame lost its brilliance at the edge. Not extinguished. Aged. Like a torch that had burned too long in a single second. The skull of the scythe burst into laughter.

"Again." Zayn slid beneath what remained of the lance of fire and struck the king's knee. The blade did not cut deep. But it touched a crack. Time in Ruin entered it. The royal skin split further. A red line climbed up Aelthir's thigh. The root spirit around him screamed, its tendrils drying out for several inches before immediately growing back. The king struck with his elbow. Zayn flew. He crashed through a row of slender columns, shattered an arch, and slammed into a bronze door. His spine screamed.

The mark of Sloth answered. All the black fissures along his back pulsed together. The system appeared. [Current Soul Strength: 84 → 108.] [Sin awakening: partial stabilization.] Zayn spat blood.

"Not enough." The scythe snickered.

"Never enough. That's why we keep going." Aelthir came down on him. The moon-water formed into a liquid hammer. Zayn rolled aside. Too slow. The hammer crushed his right shoulder. The bone gave way. Pain shot through his skull. The floor beneath him exploded. Elyra shouted something in the distance. Maëlin tried to approach with her stone spirits, but a royal blade of wind hurled her back against a balustrade. Aelthir raised his hand again. Zayn raised his.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Not toward the king. Toward the floor beneath them. Time in Ruin spread in a circle of two meters. The white palace stone aged a century in a heartbeat. The support runes dimmed. The roots beneath the terrace lost their moisture. The floor collapsed under the king's weight. Aelthir fell one story. Zayn with him. They crashed into a banquet hall. Tables shattered under the impact. Stained-glass windows exploded.

Hundreds of silver cups rolled across the floor with an absurd, almost comical sound. The scythe looked at the cups.

"You think we can steal that later?" Covered in blood, Zayn slowly raised his head.

"You really chose this moment?"

"I'm a demonic weapon, not an emotional butler." Aelthir rose among the wreckage. His left arm was trembling. The red cracks had spread across his torso. [Estimated Soul Strength: 184.] [Deterioration accelerated.] Zayn smiled. Then the king opened his mouth. A voice came out. Not entirely his own.

"Threat…" The word made the walls tremble. Elyra, who had reached the gaping opening above, froze.

"Father?" Aelthir turned his head toward her. His golden eyes flickered. For an instant, the king returned. Not completely. Just enough to see his daughter.

"Ely…" Then the Thorn of Unreason pulsed in his shadow. The word broke apart. The spirits around him received the corrupted order again. Destroy what threatens Aelvaris. His gaze returned to Zayn. The golden flame blackened even more. Zayn understood.

"He's still in there." Elyra leaned over the edge of the opening.

"Then don't kill him!" Zayn wiped the blood from his mouth.

"You're asking a lot of impossible things from me today."

"You need him alive to understand the artifact!"

"No." He rose, his right shoulder hanging uselessly.

"I need Elvarin alive. Your father is just very hard to go around." Elyra went pale. Aelthir charged again. This time, Zayn did not back away. He drove the scythe into the floor, the black skull turned toward the king. The smoke from its sockets mingled with the zone of Time in Ruin. The air began to vibrate. Not loudly. Not widely. But enough. When the king entered the circle, every crack in his body aged. The overload advanced all at once. Aelthir struck anyway. His fist hit Zayn square in the chest.

The world turned white. Zayn felt his ribs shatter. He felt his heart miss a beat. He felt his body ask to stop. Then he looked at the king's arm. Aelthir's skin was splitting all the way to the elbow. A fragment of golden light fell from his flame spirit like a dead scale. [Estimated Soul Strength: 176.] Zayn smiled through the blood.

"Keep going." The scythe murmured,"You'll die before he does."

"Maybe."

"Beautiful plan." Zayn seized the king's wrist with his good hand. Time in Ruin concentrated into his fingers. The royal skin cracked. Aelthir screamed. Zayn screamed too. Not from pain alone. From effort. From hatred. From a weariness so deep it felt like a black sea.

"Burn," he said. Then corrected himself, lower.

"No." His grip tightened.

"Rot." The area around Aelthir's wrist became covered in gray lines. The layered spiritual protections flaked away one after another. The moon-water tried to wash the effect away, but it turned murky, became stagnant, then fell in heavy drops to the floor. Elyra felt something break in her father's bond.

"Stop!" She jumped. Lumeï screamed:"Elyra!" The princess dropped into the banquet hall, carried by a fragile breeze and a burst of light. She landed badly, rolled, then rose between Zayn and her father. Maëlin shouted from above:"Princess!" Aelthir lifted his free arm. Zayn saw the strike coming. He could have let the princess take it. The king would shatter from shame if part of him returned. The elves would lose their heir. The chaos would open the way to Elvarin. Logical. Simple. Useful.

The scythe whispered,"Let it." Zayn moved again. This time, he could not even lie properly to himself. He yanked Elyra back by the arm and took the blow in her place. The royal wind nearly tore off his left wing when it burst out by reflex. The invisible blade ripped through the black membrane, opened his back down to the mark of Sloth, and sent him crashing into a shattered table. Zayn remained on the ground. Elyra stared at him, shocked.

"Why?" Zayn spat blood and laughed.

"Because you're… annoying to replace." The scythe sighed.

"Poor-quality lie." Zayn closed his eyes for a second. His body was too heavy. His anger was no longer enough to keep him upright. Neither was his hunger. Then Envy pulsed at his collarbone. Aelthir was losing power. Fragments of spiritual strength were breaking off him with every crack, every wounded spirit, every overload. Not dead souls. Not devoured flesh. Fragments. Density being torn from a king who was burning himself away. The mark of Envy opened. The system appeared.

[Fragments of unstable soul strength detected.] [Partial absorption possible.] [Yield limited by foreign overload.] Zayn raised his eyes toward the king.

"At last." Envy pulled. Not everything. Impossible. But enough for Zayn to feel an enormous heat entering his collarbone, different from the scraps gathered from beastman villages. Heavier. More dangerous. Almost too pure for his body. [Soul Strength absorbed: +11.] [Current Soul Strength: 108 → 119.] Zayn inhaled sharply. His bones did not mend. But the world became a little clearer again. Aelthir, meanwhile, staggered. [Estimated Soul Strength: 169.] Elyra looked at Zayn as if she had just understood a new horror.

"You're stealing from him."

"He's falling," Zayn replied as he got to his feet.

"I'm picking things up."

"He's my father." He looked at her. The silence lasted a second. Then he said:"Then help me stop him before there's nothing left to pick up." Cruel. But true. Elyra clenched her jaw. Then she turned toward Aelthir.

"Lumeï." The little light-fox trembled.

"No."

"Lumeï."

"It's your father."

"Exactly." The spirit of light closed his eyes. Then he grew. Not by much. But enough to become a clearer, finer shape, almost human, with a fox-tail made of shards of light. Elyra placed a hand against his chest.

"He has to remember who I am." Lumeï whispered,"That may make him worse."

"I know." Aelthir was already advancing. Zayn raised the scythe.

"Hurry." Elyra inhaled. Then shouted:"Father! It's Elyra!" Lumeï exploded into light. Not an attack. A memory. Thousands of luminous fragments filled the hall: a little girl running through the gardens, a king seated beneath the Great Tree, a hand resting on silver hair, a spirit of light being born for the first time in a child's arms. Aelthir stopped. The spirits around him trembled. The berserk madness faltered. A golden tear ran from his eye.

"Elyra…" Zayn saw the opening. So did the scythe.

"Now." Zayn charged. Elyra turned toward him with horrified eyes.

"No!" But he did not aim for the heart. He aimed for the king's shadow. Where the Thorn of Unreason had lodged itself. The scythe drove into the ground. The black skull screamed. Time in Ruin ran down the blade, into the stone, into the shadow, down to the demonic needle hidden in Aelthir's reflection. The artifact resisted. Then aged. The invisible black capsule cracked. Aelthir screamed. The Thorn of Unreason released a wave of corruption. Zayn took it full force. His skin became covered in dark veins.

His back arched. The fissures of Sloth along his spine burned with absolute cold. The system trembled. [Time in Ruin overload.] [External corruption decomposing.] [Critical soul strength cost.] Zayn dropped to his knees. But the Thorn cracked. Not broken. Cracked. Enough for the king to regain a second of awareness. Aelthir looked at his daughter. Truly.

"Run…" Then the madness returned. But different. Less controlled by the artifact. More chaotic. The king's body began to deteriorate faster. [Estimated Soul Strength: 158.] [Deterioration: critical.] The entire palace shook. Aelthir's spirits panicked, trying at once to save him and obey the corrupted order. Zayn slowly got back up. His body was screaming. His spine burned with cold. His collarbone pulsed. The scythe was laughing as if it had just seen the first sunrise in hell.

"He's falling." Zayn looked at the king.

"Not fast enough." Elyra wiped away her tears. Then, against all expectation, she stepped to Zayn's side. Not behind him. Beside him.

"If you kill him, I will kill you." Zayn gave a hoarse laugh.

"You can try afterward."

"If you stop him without killing him…"

"What?" She raised her hands. Lumeï's light returned around her, weak but stubborn.

"I will lead you to Elvarin myself." The name passed between them like a blade. Zayn looked at the king. Then the princess. Then the ruins.

"Idiot bargain."

"Necessary bargain." The scythe murmured,"The best kind." Aelthir roared and unleashed all the power he had left. Flame. Water. Wind. Roots. Four royal spirits unleashed, a cracked body, a soul still above everything Zayn possessed. [Estimated Soul Strength: 155.] Zayn raised his scythe. Elyra raised her light. For the first time, the half-masked calamity and the princess of Aelvaris faced the king together. Not as allies. Not as enemies. As two beings trying to reach different truths through the same monster.

Aelthir charged. The fight entered its second phase.