Chương 107: The king Who Does Not Fall

The king charged. And the palace recoiled before him. Not the guards. Not the elves. The palace. The tiles cracked before his feet even touched them. The columns groaned under the pressure of his soul. The branches of the Great Tree, above the torn-open hall, trembled as if they were hesitating to keep supporting a sovereign who had become a storm. Zayn raised the scythe. Beside him, Elyra raised her light. It was not enough. The impact swept them both away. The princess's light shattered into fragments.

Zayn felt his left arm nearly tear off. The black skull of the scythe screamed, not in pain, but in furious delight, as the king's blade—made of layered wind, fire, and water—crushed his dark aura like something filthy beneath a royal boot. Zayn slid ten meters. His boots carved two furrows into the stone. Elyra was hurled against a column, saved at the last instant by her spirit of light, which spread around her like a fragile cage. The king advanced. His body was destroying itself before their eyes.

Red cracks ran from his neck down across his chest. His skin, overloaded with power, was splitting like living porcelain. With every movement, luminous dust drifted from his arms, his shoulders, his face. And yet he seemed even more dangerous. [Estimated Soul Strength: 151.] [Physical deterioration: critical.] Zayn spat blood.

"He's dropping." The scythe laughed.

"Yes." The king raised a hand. Roots burst from the ground and struck like enormous whips. Zayn activated Time in Ruin around himself. The first root entered the zone and aged in a second. Its bark turned white. Its sap blackened. Gray fissures spread across its surface. But it did not stop. It was too powerful. Too ancient. Too strongly supported by the royal spirits. It slammed into Zayn's side. He flew again. This time, he went through a wall. The next room opened in a cloud of dust.

Royal tapestries fell around him. Elven symbols, old by generations, tore beneath his body. Zayn remained on his knees. A low laugh escaped his throat. Not joyful. Not alive. Tired.

"Always a new target." The black scythe, planted in the stone beside him, turned its black skull toward him.

"What?" Zayn slowly raised his head. Blood ran from his mouth down to his chin.

"The king. Then Elvarin. Then the demons who paid him. Then the ones who gave the order. Then the ones who watched. Then the ones who waited. Then the demonic kingdom. Then someone else behind them. Then someone after that." He let out a small, empty laugh.

"There is always another throat." The scythe fell silent. That was rare. Zayn pushed himself upright with the dark shaft.

"I'm tired." The black cracks along his spine pulsed beneath his clothes. Around him, the fallen tapestries lost their colors. The silver threads dulled. The carved wood of a royal bench split, powdered, then collapsed in on itself.

"Not tired of killing," Zayn murmured.

"No. That part is easy." He walked toward the hole in the wall.

"Tired that there is always something after." The scythe laughed softly.

"You talk like a grave that learned how to preach." Zayn smiled.

"Graves are honest. They promise nothing afterward." The king came into the room by breaking the rest of the wall. Elyra cried out behind him:"Father!" The word reached the king. For a second. His gaze flickered. Then the corrupted Thorn in his shadow pulsed again. He lifted his cracked arm toward his daughter. Zayn felt the trajectory before the attack even came. He moved. The blade of wind meant for Elyra went through his shoulder. He did not try to avoid it. He stepped into the pain.

He caught the air itself with his right hand, activated Time in Ruin, and the invisible blade decomposed around his fingers. Not entirely. It still tore away his skin. But its edge aged, unraveled, lost its shape before reaching the princess. Elyra stared at him.

"You—""Don't talk." Zayn turned his half-masked face toward her.

"Every time you open your mouth, I do something stupid." The scythe clicked its teeth.

"He calls it stupid so he doesn't have to call it something else." Zayn ignored it. The king struck again. This time, Zayn did not retreat. He planted his feet into the stone and opened Time in Ruin around his scythe. The black skull vomited dark smoke. The blade emerging from the head of death was veiled in gray, less violent than Wrath, less hungry than Gluttony. Slower. More final. The king's blow met the blade. The impact blew the room apart. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen.

Report the violation. The walls tore open. The ceiling split to the night sky. Marble and roots flew in every direction. Zayn felt his bones protest. But he held. One second. Two. Enough. Time in Ruin entered the cracks in the king's arm. The deterioration sped up brutally. The royal skin split open all the way to the shoulder. A red light, far too dense, burst beneath the flesh. One of the spirits around him let out a scream that was neither human nor elven, a scream of a bond being pulled too hard.

[Estimated Soul Strength: 143.] [Deterioration: unstable.] Zayn smiled.

"There." The king took a step back. Again. Then his knee buckled. Elyra moved forward through the debris.

"Father!" The king placed one hand on the ground. For an instant, the entire palace seemed to hold its breath. He was falling. At last. The scythe whispered:"Now. Cut off his head." Zayn raised the blade. Elyra screamed:"No!" Zayn stopped. One heartbeat. Only one. But in a fight like this, a heartbeat was enough to change the shape of a catastrophe. The royal spirits around the king stopped spinning. They froze. Then they entered him. Not like lights rejoining a pact.

Like beings deciding to hold a body together from the inside. The flame sank into his heart. The water entered his veins. The wind flowed into his bones. The roots pierced his spine and emerged through his shoulders. The king screamed. His body rose all at once. The red fissures were overlaid by lines of gold, water, white wood, and cutting air. His skin did not heal. It was supported. Held together. Reinforced by spirits sacrificing their separate forms to keep the king from collapsing.

His hair became partially translucent, streaked with embers and lunar reflections. White branches grew from his back like an inverted crown. A wing of wind appeared on one side, immense and almost invisible. The other half of his body streamed with suspended water that never fell to the ground. He was no longer only a king. Nor was he a spirit. He was something in between. A king-spirit. Magnificent. Monstrous. Incomplete. Elyra fell to her knees.

"No…" The system trembled before Zayn. [Forced spiritual fusion detected.] [Target: King of Aelvaris / hybrid state.] [Estimated Soul Strength: 181.] [Physical deterioration temporarily slowed.] The scythe burst out laughing.

"Oh, they're cheating." Zayn stared at the royal creature. His smile vanished.

"No." He tightened his grip on the shaft of the scythe.

"They're keeping him standing." The king opened his eyes. They were no longer simply golden. They contained fire, water, wind, roots—and behind all that, the berserk madness of the Thorn still embedded in his shadow. When he spoke, several voices came out at once.

"Threat." One word. But the entire palace answered as if a sentence had just been carved into the world. Zayn felt the pressure crush his chest. Heavier than before. Different. The king had lost human stability, but gained a supporting spiritual structure. Time in Ruin would no longer be able to gnaw at his fissures at the same speed. The spirits were filling. Repairing. Replacing. Supporting what should have given way. Elyra lifted her head, tears in her eyes.

"They're sacrificing themselves for him…" Zayn looked at her.

"Then they become targets too." He charged. The king-spirit moved. Faster. The wind in his bones carried him without transition. His arm of flame struck in an arc. Zayn raised the scythe. Mistake. The blow did not come from the front. The suspended water around the king became a side blade and opened Zayn from the flank to the hip. He dropped to one knee. Roots came out of the ground and pinned his leg. The flame descended. Zayn called out his wings.

The black wings burst from his back in an atrocious crack, bigger, more torn, almost useless inside the collapsing hall. They yanked him backward just before the fire consumed him. Black feathers burned in the air. The scythe snickered.

"Bad bird." Zayn spat blood.

"Bad king." He braced against a column, sprang, beat one wing, and passed above a root. The blade of his scythe struck the shoulder of the king-spirit. This time, it cut. Not deep. But enough to reach the point where the royal flesh and the root spirit were fused. Zayn activated Time in Ruin. The white branch on the king's shoulder aged all at once. Leaves that did not exist fell away as dust. The king roared. His arm of wind pierced Zayn in return. Not physically. Worse.

An invisible blade entered his chest, twisted, and came out through his back. Zayn crashed heavily to the floor. [Current Soul Strength: 119.] [Time in Ruin: critical cost.] [Warning: prolonged use inadvisable.] He laughed.

"Inadvisable." The scythe asked,"The system is still trying to give you health advice?"

"Yes."

"Touching." Zayn got back up. His body was no longer really following. He was dragging it. Like a damaged tool. Elyra ran toward him.

"You can't beat him like this!"

"I know."

"Then stop!" He looked at her. The sentence was funny. Really. He burst into a short, broken laugh.

"Stop?" The king-spirit was advancing now, slowly, each step supported by royal powers refusing to let his body collapse. Zayn raised a hand toward him.

"That is the most exhausting part." The cracks along his spine pulsed harder. The room around him aged again. Not from anger. From conviction. From a black sermon.

"Everyone keeps going because they think the next action will give meaning to the previous one." He took a step forward.

"The next murder. The next excuse. The next target. The next vengeance. The next war." The scythe was no longer laughing. Even it was listening. Zayn raised the blade.

"But there is no meaning after. There is only farther." Elyra trembled. The king-spirit lifted his hybrid arm.

"Threat." Zayn smiled.

"Yes." He activated Time in Ruin across the entire surface of the scythe. The blade turned gray at the edge, as if it carried concentrated age. He no longer aimed at the king. He aimed at the junctions. Where the spirits were supporting the body. Where the fusion was too recent. Where power was replacing stability. He struck. The first blow was blocked by fire. Time in Ruin gnawed at the edge of the flame, but the royal spirit reignited it at once. The second blow was deflected by water.

Zayn let the blade slide, then twisted the shaft. The black skull literally bit the liquid flow. The water turned cloudy. A small portion fell to the ground as dirty rain. The king-spirit stepped back. Zayn moved into his guard. The roots tried to stop him. He let them enter his leg. Then activated Time in Ruin inside his own wound. The roots, in contact with his blood, dried out. The pain was so violent that his vision turned black. He stayed standing. The scythe murmured:"You're decaying with him."

"Yes."

"Bad habit." Zayn struck the shoulder junction. This time, the blade went in deeper. The king-spirit howled. Multiple voices came from his throat. Not madness alone. Pain. Sacrifice. The royal spirits were supporting the king, but every time Time in Ruin touched a junction, that support aged, cracked, became more costly. [Estimated Soul Strength: 181 → 172.] [Spiritual fusion: unstable.] A massive heat burst from the wound. Envy opened at Zayn's collarbone. Fragments of power.

Heavier than anything he had absorbed since the red weeks. He drew them in. Not enough to drain him. But enough to steal the crumbs of a royal collapse. [Soul Strength absorbed: +9.] [Current Soul Strength: 119 → 128.] Elyra saw the mark at his collarbone gleam beneath the blood.

"Stop stealing from him!" Zayn turned his head toward her.

"Then bring him down another way." She clenched her fists. Lumeï reappeared beside her, pale, trembling, but standing.

"There may be a way." Zayn parried a blow of wind with the scythe and was driven back several meters.

"Talk fast."

"He's being supported by the spirits because they believe he's protecting Aelvaris."

"How."

"The Thorn is blurring the definition of threat." Zayn understood half of it.

"So?" Elyra looked at her father, or what he had become. Her voice shook.

"You have to show him a greater threat than you." The scythe burst out laughing.

"Good news, princess, there are many." Zayn thought of Elvarin. Then the demons. Then the demonic kingdom. Then the Throne. Then that endless void of new targets. He laughed softly.

"Always another threat." Elyra shouted:"The artifact!" Zayn froze. The Thorn. Embedded in the shadow. Cracked, but not destroyed. Still there. Still giving orders. The king-spirit charged. Zayn looked at the floor beneath him. The king's shadow was no longer normal. It was twisted, crossed with red and black lines, sustained by the shifting silhouettes of the fused spirits. At the center, a black point. The Thorn. Zayn smiled.

"At last." The scythe understood.

"We don't cut the king."

"No." Zayn lifted the blade.

"We make the order rot." The king-spirit came at him like a sacred catastrophe. Zayn did not retreat. Elyra projected her light toward her father's face. Not to blind him. To call him.

"Father!" The king hesitated. A fraction. Zayn dove under the blow, had his back opened by a blade of wind, nearly lost his right wing, but reached the shadow. He drove the scythe into the floor. The black skull sank halfway into the stone. Time in Ruin descended. Not toward the body. Toward the corrupted order. Toward the artifact. Toward the demonic logic planted in the royal shadow. The Thorn resisted. It was not alive. But it had been designed to endure. To open. To reverse. To turn protection into massacre.

Zayn pressed harder. The black fissures along his spine burned with unbearable cold.

"Age," he murmured. The Thorn vibrated.

"Age." The stone around it turned to dust. The skull of the scythe screamed. The king-spirit struck Zayn in the back. Every rib in him seemed to explode. He spat blood onto the shadow. But he did not let go.

"You've lasted long enough." Time in Ruin closed over the Thorn of Unreason. The artifact cracked a second time. Then a third. A black wave exploded. Zayn was hurled against the king himself. Elyra was thrown to the floor. The royal spirits screamed together. The palace shook down to the roots of the Great Tree. [Estimated Soul Strength: 160.] [Demonic artifact: compromised structure.] [Spiritual fusion: critical.] Zayn fell at the foot of the king-spirit. Slowly, he raised his eyes. The king was looking at him.

For the first time since the fusion, the word that came from his mouth was not "threat." It was:"Kill…" Elyra lifted her head in horror.

"No…" The king was trembling. Several voices were speaking in his. But the father's voice passed between them.

"…me…" Silence. Zayn stared at the king. The request entered him like a perfect weariness. A target asking to become the last one. The scythe whispered, almost tenderly:"You hear him? Even he is tired." Zayn slowly rose. His body could barely hold. His Soul Strength had grown, but his flesh was a field of ruins. He raised the scythe. Elyra stepped between them. Again.

"No." Zayn looked at her.

"He asked."

"He asked because he's suffering."

"That's usually why people ask for things honestly." She was crying. But she did not move.

"You promised me Elvarin."

"No. You promised me Elvarin if I stopped him without killing him."

"Then stop him." The scythe burst into wicked laughter.

"What a luminous child. Asking for the impossible in such a clean voice." Zayn looked at Elyra. Then the king. Then the cracked shadow. Then the spiritual junctions, slowly decomposing. He closed his eyes. Always another target. Always another action. Always farther. He opened his eyes again.

"Fine." The scythe tightened in his hand.

"We do not kill the king." The black skull turned toward him, surprised.

"Excuse me?" Zayn smiled, hollowed out.

"We kill what is forcing him to stay standing." The king-spirit roared. The final phase began.