Chương 108: Killing the Order

Zayn understood one simple thing in front of the king-spirit. He could not defeat him the way one defeats a man. A man had a throat. A heart. Bones. A limit. The king, however, had been turned into something that used his own limits as pillars. His body was cracking? The spirits held him together. His soul was overflowing? The pacts contained it. His will was broken? The Thorn gave him an order simple enough to replace all thought. Threat. That was all. One word. A word filthy enough to turn a king into a monster.

Zayn stood before him, the black scythe in his hand, his back marked by Sloth, his collarbone burning, his ribs breaking with every breath. Elyra was beside him. Too close. Too upright. Too alive for someone who had just seen her father ask for death.

"We kill what's forcing him to stay on his feet," Zayn repeated. The scythe's black skull turned toward him.

"And if what keeps him standing is also the only thing keeping him from falling to pieces?" Zayn smiled.

"Then he'll fall to pieces later." Elyra went pale.

"That isn't reassuring."

"I didn't come here to reassure your kingdom." The king-spirit moved. This time, he did not charge. He rose. The wind beneath his feet carried him. White roots burst from his back like the ribs of some sacred beast. Moon-water formed a shifting ring around him. The royal fire blackened at the edges, magnificent and diseased. He raised one hand. The entire lower palace began to tremble. The stones left the ground.

Shards of columns, broken blades, fragments of stained glass, uprooted roots—everything rose around him. Then everything fell toward Zayn. A rain of palace. Elyra raised her light. Zayn raised Time in Ruin. The two defenses collided. The princess's light deflected the first fragments. Time in Ruin aged the closest stones, turning them to dust before impact. But the rain was too wide. A fragment of column pierced Zayn's shoulder. A shard of glass opened Elyra's cheek.

A dead root wrapped around Maëlin's leg before disintegrating. An elven guard was crushed before he even had time to scream. Zayn saw the guard's blood slide toward him. His collarbone pulsed. Envy wanted to take it. He ignored it. Not dense enough. Not useful. Not now. The king-spirit descended through the dust. [Estimated Soul Strength: 156.] [Spiritual fusion: unstable, but active.] Zayn spat blood.

"We need to reach his shadow." Elyra was trembling, but her eyes remained fixed on her father.

"The shadow moves with him."

"Then stop him." She looked at him as if he had just asked her to carry the sea.

"How?" Zayn pointed the scythe at the king.

"You're his daughter. Find something of him that's still there." The words struck harder than an order. Elyra clenched her teeth. Then she stepped forward.

"Father." The king-spirit turned his hybrid face toward her. One half still almost elven. The other crossed with fire, water, roots, and wind.

"Father, you taught me Aelvaris's first oath." The king raised his hand. A blade of wind formed. Zayn tensed. Elyra kept going anyway."' Strength protects nothing if it forgets the name of what it defends.'" The blade trembled. Not much. Enough. Zayn sprang. His black wings burst free, tearing his back open again. They beat only once, badly, violently, hurling him beneath the king's arm. The scythe plunged toward the shadow. The king reacted. Too fast. A root drove through Zayn's stomach. He stopped dead.

Blood rose into his throat. The scythe screamed with laughter.

"Magnificent. Very elegant. Are you planning to die skewered, or are you improvising?" Zayn grabbed the root with both hands.

"I'm tired of improvising." Time in Ruin flowed down into his fingers. The root aged. Its bark whitened, its sap blackened, and it shattered inside his body. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Zayn dropped to one knee, tore the wooden shard from his flesh, then drove the scythe into the king's shadow. Not in the center. Not yet. Too far from the Thorn. But enough to touch the order around it. The black skull opened its jaws.

Time in Ruin sank into the ground. The king's shadow began to hiss. The invisible word that had been circling there since the artifact began to lose its edges. Threat. The word remained. But it aged. It grew less distinct. The king-spirit screamed. All the fused spirits screamed with him. The pressure exploded. Zayn was ripped off the ground and hurled into a column. His back struck so hard that the Sloth fractures along his spine burned all the way to his neck. He fell. This time, he did not get up immediately.

Elyra ran to him.

"Get up!" Zayn laughed, his mouth against the stone.

"You give very poor orders to a dying man."

"You do not have the right to die now."

"A lot of people would disagree."

"Elvarin is still alive." The name entered Zayn like a heated blade. His fingers moved. Then his hand closed around the shaft of the scythe.

"There." The skull clicked its teeth.

"She really is learning far too fast." Zayn rose. His body no longer followed him. He was merely forcing it to remain assembled. The king-spirit was on one knee now, one hand braced against the floor, but his spirits were rebuilding him with every pulse. Not healing. Supporting. Replacing. Keeping upright a sovereign his own body should already have abandoned. Zayn saw the junctions. Fire at the heart. Water in the veins. Wind in the bones. Roots in the spine.

"There," he whispered. Elyra followed his gaze.

"You want to cut the bonds?"

"No. Cutting them could kill him." She stared at him. Zayn smiled.

"You see? I do listen sometimes."

"Then what?"

"Wear them out." The scythe grew heavy in his hand. Time in Ruin was not a sword. It was a bad season. A winter locked inside the grip of a few seconds. Zayn moved forward. The king raised his eyes.

"Threat…" The word came out weaker. More broken. Elyra lifted her light.

"No, father." Lumeï unfolded around her, trembling but shining.

"Look at me." The light did not try to defeat the madness. It gave it a shape to move around. A memory. A name. A daughter. The king hesitated. Zayn struck. First blow: the fire junction. The scythe's blade entered the black-and-gold light near the chest. Time in Ruin latched onto it. The fire did not go out, but its edge dulled, like an ember that had burned for a thousand nights in a single second. The king roared. [Estimated Soul Strength: 149.] Second blow: the water.

Zayn twisted beneath a liquid blade and plunged the black skull of the scythe into the moonlit flow. The skull bit into the water. Time in Ruin made it stagnant, heavy, almost gray. The king's arm shook. Third blow: the wind. Impossible to touch. So Zayn let the wind cut him. The invisible blade opened his shoulder, passed through his skin, entered his zone of Sloth. Time in Ruin climbed back along the wound like an inverted infection. The wind lost its edge. Zayn smiled.

"Even what cannot be seen wears away." Fourth blow: the roots. They burst from the king's spine to shield the shadow. Zayn planted his bare hand on them. He could have cut. He chose to age. The roots whitened, cracked, and fell to dust around his fingers. The king-spirit dropped to one knee. [Estimated Soul Strength: 138.] [Spiritual fusion: weakened.] Zayn's collarbone suddenly burned.

Fragments of power were breaking off the king, more numerous, heavier, because the spirits were shedding pieces of strength to keep the body together. Envy drew them in. Zayn felt the heat enter. Too strong. Almost toxic. [Soul Strength absorbed: +13.] [Current Soul Strength: 128 → 141.] He staggered. His vision went black. Elyra caught him by reflex. A bad idea. Zayn turned a cold stare on her. She let go of him at once.

"Don't do that."

"You were about to fall."

"Yes."

"And?" He gave her an empty smile.

"People fall. It's the most honest thing they do." Elyra did not answer. The king-spirit, however, rose again. More slowly. But he rose. The scythe murmured,"He refuses well." Zayn looked at the king.

"No." He tightened his grip.

"They refuse for him." Then he understood the last thing. As long as the royal spirits believed they had to hold him up, Aelthir would not fall. Even if it destroyed him. Even if it destroyed them. Even if the entire palace collapsed around them. The problem was not just the Thorn. It was the order it had given to loyalty. Protect. Destroy. Hold. At any cost. Zayn started laughing. Low. Exhausted.

"You're all the same." Elyra looked at him.

"Who?"

"Kings. Heroes. Fathers. Chiefs. Spirits. Even the dead." He walked toward Aelthir.

"Always hold. Always protect. Always give meaning to pain by continuing it." The mark of Sloth along his spine opened deeper. The zone around him widened by half a meter. The remaining tapestries became dust. The marble yellowed. A fallen suit of armor on the floor rusted in silence.

"Maybe true rest is stopping the need to justify what's collapsing." His voice was not loud. But everyone heard it. Even the king. Even the spirits. Zayn raised the scythe toward Aelthir's shadow.

"I'm not going to kill your father, princess." Elyra inhaled sharply.

"I'm going to kill the obligation that keeps him standing." He drove the scythe into the ground. Not into the shadow this time. Around it. A circle. Time in Ruin spread in a gray ring. The stone aged. The runes dimmed. The king's shadow found itself trapped in a zone where every order had to pass through accelerated erosion before reaching the spirits. The Thorn of Madness pulsed. Zayn pulsed with it. His back arched. The fractures in his spine glowed beneath his skin.

"Grow old." The artifact resisted.

"Grow old." The king howled.

"Grow old." Elyra understood then. He was not merely destroying the object. He was degrading the command. The word threat lost its shape. First, it fragmented. Thre… at… Then it blurred. Then it became ancient. Then it stopped being an immediate order and became what it should have been from the start: a question. Threat to what? To whom? Against what was it necessary to protect? The royal spirits hesitated. That hesitation was the first victory. Aelthir half-collapsed. Elyra cried out,"Father!"

She ran and placed both hands on the king's face. The spirits around him tensed, ready to push her away. But Lumeï's light spread gently. Not like a shield. Like a lamp beside a sickbed.

"I'm here," Elyra said.

"I'm here. You do not need to protect Aelvaris from me." The king trembled. His golden eyes flickered. One green pupil returned. A single one. Zayn was still holding the circle of Time in Ruin. Blood ran from his nose, his mouth, his open wounds. The newly absorbed soul strength burned in his collarbone like a piece of metal overheated in a forge. The scythe murmured,"You could finish it now."

"I know."

"You could take more."

"I know."

"You could cut him while he's weak." Zayn looked at the king, then at Elyra. He saw a daughter holding a broken father. He saw spirits killing themselves to keep a body standing. He saw a king who had asked for death because continuing hurt too much. He saw, somewhere behind all of that, Korr on his knees in front of the central fire. Brakka still refusing to fall. Narek smiling with a bowl of soup too thick to swallow. The exhaustion returned. Immense.

"Always take more," he murmured. The scythe fell silent. Zayn smiled faintly.

"That's the problem." He turned the blade. Not toward the king. Toward the Thorn. The entire zone of Time in Ruin contracted all at once. The artifact, already split, suffered the equivalent of centuries in a single second. The black point cracked. The liquid smoke inside turned gray. The demonic seal crumbled. Then the Thorn of Madness fell to dust in the king's shadow. The entire palace exhaled. Aelthir screamed one final time. The royal spirits burst out of his body like drowning things dragged from the water.

The flame tore free. The water collapsed into rain. The wind burst into a thousand whispers. The roots withdrew from his spine, leaving glowing wounds behind. The king became elven again. Not whole. Not saved. Alive. Barely. He fell into Elyra's arms. The system appeared before Zayn. [Demonic artifact: destroyed.] [Forced spiritual fusion: severed.] [Target: Aelthir Vael-Sylvar.] [Estimated Soul Strength: 96.] [Condition: critical.] Zayn swayed.

Then one final fragment of royal power, released by the rupture, entered his collarbone. [Soul Strength absorbed: +7.] [Current Soul Strength: 141 → 148.] This time, he nearly fell for real. The scythe half-vanished, as if even it needed to breathe. Around them, the ruined hall was silent. Elyra held her father, trembling, covered in dust and blood. The king opened his eyes. One green pupil. One still faintly golden. He looked at Zayn. Not like an enemy. Not like an ally.

Like a king who had just watched a calamity choose, for some incomprehensible reason, not to go all the way. Aelthir whispered,"Elvarin…" Zayn straightened immediately. The name was still enough. The king breathed with difficulty.

"Lower… chamber… archive passage…" Elyra looked down at him.

"Father, don't speak." Aelthir ignored his daughter. His eyes stayed on Zayn.

"He's… running…" Zayn smiled. The exhaustion vanished for an instant beneath something older. Sharper. The target. Another one. Always another one.

"Good." Elyra lifted her head.

"You promised—""I promised not to kill your father." He turned toward the torn-open corridor.

"Not your researcher." She moved as if to rise. Aelthir weakly caught her wrist.

"No…" Elyra looked at him. The king whispered,"Go… with him." She froze.

"What?"

"If he finds Elvarin alone… he'll find only blood." Zayn let out a low laugh.

"Your father understands me quickly." Aelthir closed his eyes.

"Too late." Elyra clenched her jaw. Then she gently laid her father against the shattered base of a column, under the trembling protection of Lumeï and Maëlin, who had arrived limping. She rose. Her legs were shaking. But her gaze was no longer.

"I'm coming." Zayn looked at her.

"You're going to try to save someone again?"

"Yes." He smiled.

"Exhausting."

"So are you." The scythe reappeared in Zayn's hand, incomplete, its black skull only half-formed.

"I like this little one." Zayn moved toward the archive passage.

"Don't like her too much." Elyra followed him. Behind them, the king of Aelvaris was still breathing. Ahead of them, somewhere in the entrails of the palace, Elvarin Soreth was fleeing with the blood of a kingdom on his hands. And Zayn, despite the Sloth whispering rest along his spine, walked toward another target. Again. Always. Farther.