Chapter 53: The Sword Cry Of An Old Man

Finn was absolutely gobsmacked. He could barely believe the fact that she was here, in person, right in front of them. The literal Queen of Aethelos herself. And just minutes after the initial chaos that had started here.

How had she known? The distance from Queen’s City, the continent’s heart, was staggering. It was the equivalent of traversing multiple countries. Was this catastrophe truly so momentous that it had drawn her attention, to the point where she had to cross such a vast distance personally?

The Queen continued to observe the clean, utter destruction below for a long minute, before slowly turning her gaze toward them.

​The pressure intensified instantly. Finn felt the chilling sensation of being locked on to by a superior being, like an apex predator observing mere mice. It was terrifying and overwhelming to the point where he couldn’t move a single muscle… but yet, through the fear, Finn noticed a surprising fact.

​I can still think, he realized. He was in the presence of an Archon, the undisputed peak of Arcanist power, and yet his consciousness wasn’t entirely subsumed by the terror? He thought in shock, but eventually, the reason became clear to him: He had stood before something greater already. The white-haired figure who could so casually erase space as he pleased.

Because of that, this crushing power felt… infinitesimally more bearable. The fact didn’t lessen the paralysis he felt at all, he could clearly also see Micah and Yvonne — two Caretaker-ranked Ossuarists, standing rooted, confirming the terrifying scale of the Queen’s presence… But yet, he could still think clearly — A fact he would never have pointed out if he hadn’t the experience to compare and contrast.

In fact, he was sure that if he could move his head to glance at Althea, she would be feeling the same. But because he couldn’t, he could only assume she was.

​As Finn analyzed his current state, the massive dragon suddenly moved. It flapped its wings with a single, immense beat, and yet that single beat was enough to lower its altitude rapidly, whipping the air around them in a sudden gale. Finn’s eyes constricted in shock at the sheer, impossible speed and efficiency for such an enormous beast.

​At this new, lower height, the Queen’s features became crystal clear. Finn was dumbstruck. Hers was, without exaggeration, the most beautiful face he had ever seen. She was perfectly regal and utterly flawless, to the point where a subconscious urge to avert his gaze overcame him.

​Without conscious thought, Finn dropped to his knees, followed in tandem by the others immediately. They all bowed and paid their deepest respects to their Queen without hesitation.

​She acknowledged their prostration with an indifferent tilt of her chin, still unspeaking. They waited, expecting an address, an order, or even a simple acknowledgement, but nothing came.

​After a silent moment that stretched till it became uncomfortable, Finn, unable to bear the stillness, covertly peered upward. He noticed that the Queen’s gaze was no longer on them, instead, it was focused on something behind them, high in the air.

Slowly, Finn realized after the fact, that he had actually knelt of his own accord, and even peered up at the Queen covertly. The realization made him notice that the oppressive pressure of her presence had actually lessened slightly at some point, allowing them to breathe and move a little easier.

She allowed us some leeway? Finn thought, but then discarded it immediately. No. It’s not her. She’s looking at something behind us…

​The four of them slowly and cautiously glanced back, following the direction of their Queen’s attention. And right before Finn could spot the figure, an old, weary voice, heavy with the weight of age, spoke.

​”Archon of the Undying Flames. This one pays his respects to your noble presence.”

​Standing aloft in the air, with his robes billowing gently, was a wizened old man with a long, flowing white beard and a sagely, pleasing smile. He was standing with his arms crossed behind his back, balanced perfectly on a single, floating, exquisitely crafted sword that phased between a shadow state and a real, actual sword.

“Preceptor Elias!” Both Micah and Yvonne stood up from their knees in rapt attention, before quickly offering a quick, curt bow the old man’s way.

“Please stop,” the man slowly waved a hand without so much as a glance at the Ossuarists below. “Bowing to another within the presence of the Monarch is blasphemous. Undying Flame, I plead on the behalf of my subordinates, I ask that you overlook their daring act. They were only adhering to standard Ossuarist protocol,” the old man chuckled lightly.

His chuckle finally elicited a reaction from the Queen, drawing a slight, sneering tilt of her lips downward.

With an ethereal, yet calm and unquestionably authoritative voice, she spoke, “Elias. I ordered you never to show your face before me ever again.”

“Indeed, you did, Undying Flame,” the old man responded with a sombre tilt to his voice. “But desperate times call for desperate measures.”

The Queen regarded him placidly, before responding with a flat tone, “For that transgression, I demand your arm.”

And without hesitation, before she had even finished speaking, the old man severed his left arm cleanly from the shoulder with only a right-handed chop.

Finn’s eyes constricted in shock at the unhesitating resolve of the old man. He had just barely processed the order of the Queen and the subtle implications, when the old man had complied immediately.

And the surprising thing was, no one batted an eye. Not the old man himself, not Micah, not Yvonne, and not even Althea. The Queen was obviously a given. She watched passively as if what had happened was the most natural thing.

With a raised finger, she moved on to the next matter, pointing straight at Finn and Althea. “Those two. They shall come with me. They know the reason for this anomaly, and will be questioned thoroughly.”

“On this matter, Undying Flame, I firmly decline your request,” the old man, still stemming the blood-flow from his severed arm, responded with firmness.

“Request?” The Queen repeated as if it were a foreign word on her tongue. “I gave you an order, not a request.”

“Is that so,” the man wrapped a specially woven fabric around the bleeding stump of his shoulder that stemmed the bleeding immediately. “Well then, I decline your order.”

The Queen went silent, narrowing her eyes slightly. Even Finn, who could tell there were undercurrents and underlying meanings to their words, but couldn’t understand any of it, still felt the intense danger the old man’s words had just opened up.

Micah and Yvonne — and even Althea to an extent, seemed to understand deeper, just how daring the Preceptor’s words had been. They cast furtive glances at his figure floating majestically on his exquisite sword in the sky, and couldn’t hide the confusion in their eyes.

Finn saw all of this and could tell that the old man’s repeated decline of the Queen’s order took the other Ossuarists very off-guard.

He and Althea were the parties in question, yes. But in the face of such terrifying powers, Finn didn’t waste his effort thinking he could do anything. He knew for certain that if any of the two figures in the sky wanted both of them, they had no choice but to comply.

“I take it this is the Ossuary speaking and not you,” the Queen stated matter-of-factly, raising her hand up to point at the old man in the distance opposite her. And in tandem, the red-scaled dragon beneath her trained its attention on him, positioning its head in line with him menacingly.

The old man nodded with a smile, before slowly pulling out a second sword from the shadow his body cast on the sword he floated with. This time, unlike the exquisite, well-crafted air of the first sword, the sword he drew out suffused the surroundings with pure, corporeal bloodlust. It was an obsidian black, rusty sword that looked like it had seen many battles. Chipped and cracked at its edges, it looked like it lacked the capability to slice even something as simple as bread cleanly. But the feeling Finn got from the sword told him otherwise.

He had never felt bloodlust this thick in his entire life. It was suffocating, to the point where Finn could almost taste the metallic tang of blood in the air. It was like the sword had reaped hundreds of thousands of lives and had gained sentience from the amount of blood it had spilled. Finn could swear he could hear it ’cry out’ defiantly in challenge to the red dragon before it.

“The Cruor Mortis,” the Queen acknowledged in recognition. “The Sword of the ninth Xiphios of the Mechanus empire. It seems the Ossuary values you well to grant you a Calamity-Grade Spirit Artifact from a time as far back as the fourth epoch.”

The old man simply smiled wordlessly and drew the sword out in its full glory, letting it cry out loud to the heavens. He held the sword out with his single arm as the wind flapped against his robe where his other hand should have been.

He cut a lonely figure in the air, looking like he had seen the vicissitudes of life. “Be patient, friend,” he whispered soothingly to the sword as though it could hear his every word. “Today, you shall have a taste of a red dragon’s blood. I shall allow you drink till you are filled,” his said, right before his eyes and whole body instantly took on a sharp and deadly feel, as if he himself were a sharp edge of a sword.

“The final words of a deranged old man. It’s a shame that is all they will ever amount to. At least, today, the soul of the Cruor Mortis shall finally be put to rest,” the Queen’s aura rapidly rose, and with a wordless command, the red dragon beneath her reared its head and belched a gargantuan pillar of searing-hot white flames at the old man!

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