Chapter 110: Chapter 110: The Fall of the Architect

​The sun over Vaelith rose with a blinding brilliance that morning, yet its warmth felt like an insult to the skin. To Dayat, the light was no blessing. After days of interment within the foul, stagnant air of the subterranean cells, the sunlight piercing through the canopy of the World Tree felt like a physical assault. His eyes stung, as if thousands of needles were being driven into his pupils.

​Dayat could no longer walk unassisted. His head throbbed with a rhythmic, agonizing pulse. Two Paladin guards gripped the chains around his neck, dragging him with callous indifference toward the organic elevator that led to the capital’s main thoroughfare. Dayat squinted his hollow eyes, trying to make sense of the world through a haze of exhaustion.

​The rattle of iron chains against the ironwood floors was deafening. The wood, which usually carried a floral scent, was now stained by Dayat’s muddy, blood-streaked footprints. Behind him, Dola followed. Her movements were erratic—stiff, mechanical, and profoundly unnatural.

​Though she possessed a physique as beautiful as any human, the way she walked—her head tilted at an unsettling angle—evoked a sense of primal dread in those who watched. She moved like a broken mannequin, her face a mask of porcelain indifference, while her electric blue eyes flickered with a chaotic, dying rhythm. Something deep within her core was fracturing.

​Behind Dola came Lunethra. She was bound by specialized Platinum Shackles—cruel artifacts designed to siphon Mana and magical essence directly from the marrow. The princess looked withered, her knees buckling every few steps as she fought to stay upright.

​The final member of the procession was Kancil. The boy offered no resistance. He walked upright, but his gaze was a void. It was as if he had severed his tether to emotion entirely. He didn’t look at Dayat, nor did he acknowledge the swelling crowd of Elves. He moved like a ghost, indifferent to the fate of the flesh he inhabited.

​”Look! The demon has emerged!” someone shrieked from the roadside.

​That cry was the spark that ignited the powder keg. In an instant, the serene streets of Vaelith transformed into a sea of vitriol. Thousands of Elves lined the path. Dayat slowly lifted his head, seeing the faces of those who had once deified him. A week ago, they called him a savior. They marveled at his windmills. Now, those same faces were contorted with a mixture of terror and unadulterated rage.

​”Deceiver! You poisoned our Sacred Tree!” an Elven woman screamed.

​Dayat remembered her. He had once spent a full day repairing the irrigation systems for her hanging gardens. Now, she was the first to hurl a piece of rotted fruit. The pungent, yellow sludge streaked down Dayat’s cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. He let it flow. He wasn’t angry; he was simply empty. Every drop of sweat he had shed for this race now felt like a wasted prayer.

​The parade of humiliation pressed on. They passed through the residential districts, where Dayat saw mounds of ash lining the gutters. They were the remains of the paper windmills he had crafted for the Elven children. These people didn’t just want Dayat dead; they wanted to incinerate every trace of kindness he had ever left behind.

​Among the crowd, Dayat spotted Elowen, the magic instructor who had once treated him with such warmth. She stood at the back, her face ashen. She threw nothing, yet she lacked the courage to speak. She stood paralyzed, caught between a flicker of pity and the bloodlust of the collective.

​”Master,” Dola’s voice rang clear amidst the cacophony. “Statistically, their hatred is illogical. We have increased the World Tree’s nutrient efficiency by forty percent. Why do they reciprocate with refuse?”

​Dayat offered a thin, ghost of a smile—a curve of the lips steeped in sorrow. “Because they are afraid, Dola. And fear has always been far louder than logic.”

​The procession finally reached the Emerald Plaza. The vast square was a sea of white robes, occupied by thousands of Elves. At the center stood a high wooden platform, and on a crystalline balcony above, Queen Verene waited. Dressed in shimmering platinum silk, she looked like a masterpiece of ice—exquisite, yet utterly devoid of a heart.

​Beside the Queen stood Vladimir, the High Priest of Vaelith. His silver hair was meticulously groomed, and he clutched a golden staff bearing the Eye of Nura. Vladimir was a master of the spoken word, an orator who knew exactly how to sharpen a crowd’s emotions into a blade.

​Vladimir stepped forward and raised his hand. Instantly, the roaring plaza fell into a heavy, expectant silence.

​”People of Verdia!” Vladimir’s voice boomed, amplified by resonance magic. “Today, we stand beneath a World Tree that nearly perished from a poison disguised as a cure! Behold these wretches! Behold the human you once mistook for a hero!”

​Vladimir pointed a dramatic finger at Dayat, and the crowd erupted into a chorus of jeers.

​”He brought foreign knowledge—the very same ’science’ that once nearly eradicated our kind! He defiled our sacred roots with his filthy hands, injecting them with strange mechanisms! He is no hero! He is a virus sent to hollow us out from within!”

​”DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!” the masses began to chant in unison.

​Vladimir continued to stoke the flames, accusing Dayat of brainwashing children with toys and leading Princess Lunethra astray with “corruptive logic.” Dayat was shoved to his knees on the stage, the impact of his joints against the hard timber echoing with a dull thud. In the front row, Dayat saw an Elven man whose leg he had saved from amputation using Dola’s medical tech. That same man now gripped a heavy stone, his knuckles white, ready to crush Dayat’s skull.

​”Vladimir… you liar,” Lunethra hissed, struggling to stand despite her frailty. “You all know Dayat saved this tree. You’re just terrified of losing your grip on power!”

​Vladimir ignored her. To him, Lunethra was already a stain to be bleached. Queen Verene stepped forward, her gaze locking onto Dayat without a hint of sisterly mercy or human empathy.

​”Hidayat Nur Mustafidl,” she spoke, her voice like a chilling wind. “You are charged with the spread of corrosion and being a fundamental threat to the Realm. The evidence confirms your assistant is a relic of the Great Destroyer.”

​Dayat remained silent. He stared at his shadow on the floorboards. His mind was no longer calculating an escape. Instead, his Calamity Architect status was hyper-active. He was recording everything—every face, every slur, every phantom pain. He was gathering this harvest of hatred, refining it into something far more potent.

​”Let the trial commence!” Vladimir shouted. “Let the world see the faces of these monsters!”

​As the sun climbed higher, Dayat’s skin began to blister. He listened to the mockery of thousands, his head bowed. Beside him, Dola stood motionless, her systems dimming. Meanwhile, Kancil had begun to sharpen a shard of stone against his palm with a terrifying, rhythmic calm.

​”This is the face of the devil who poisoned our sanctum!” a voice screamed.

​The Elven woman Dayat had helped before threw her stone. It struck Dayat’s shoulder, tearing open a fresh wound that throbbed with white-hot pain.

​”Why won’t you just die? Why did you bring your curse here?!” she wailed. She wasn’t grieving; she was lashing out because her comfort had been disturbed.

​Dayat didn’t retaliate. He simply felt the weight of every stone. Beside him, Dola emitted a soft, static hum. Her logic could not process this betrayal. In her visual field, red warnings flashed incessantly:

​WARNING: SOCIO-LOGICAL DISCREPANCY DETECTED. PROTOCOL ’MAIDEN’ AWAKENING: 38%.

​Dola hadn’t fully turned, but the core of her programming was shifting. The directive to protect Dayat was beginning to evolve into a singular conclusion: To protect the Master, the source of the threat must be eradicated. And the source was everyone in this plaza.

​High Priest Vladimir raised his staff once more.

​”People of Verdia!” his voice thundered. “Our purity is being tested! We allowed this virus into our home out of misplaced pity. But the Goddess Nura will not allow this darkness to linger!”

​He pointed the tip of his staff directly at Dayat’s face.

​”Dayat, the Poison-Bearer! You, and your cohorts… In the name of the Church and the Queen, I pronounce the sentence of death upon you all!”

​The crowd roared in ecstasy.

​”You shall not die by the sword,” Vladimir added with a serpentine grin. “Your blood is too foul to touch our holy steel. You shall be cast into The Primal Root during the lunar eclipse, three days from now!”

​Dayat’s heart skipped a beat. He knew of the Primal Root. It was a horrific organic furnace at the very heart of the World Tree—a digestive tract for spiritual energy. Those cast into it were siphoned slowly until their very souls were withered. It was a death of absolute agony, being eaten alive by energy-hungry fibers.

​Dayat looked up and saw something strange. In the distance, beneath the shadows of the great branches, a transparent, ethereal figure watched with sorrowful eyes. It was the Spirit of Vaelith, the manifestation of the World Tree itself. The spirit was weeping, yet she was bound by the laws of nature. Dayat felt a bitter irony; he was the one who healed the tree, yet he would be the one consumed by it because of the ignorance of its inhabitants.

​They were dragged back to the lightless depths. Dayat was thrown onto the damp floor of his cell. He tried to tap into his manifestation power, but his chest erupted in agony.

​”Do not force it, Master,” Dola whispered, her voice cracking with static.

​Kancil sat in the corner, silent as a grave. Srek… srek… srek… The sound of stone against stone resumed. The boy was building a world of vengeance in his head, a world where every Elf in Vaelith would scream.

​Meanwhile, in a hidden sanctum, Dayat’s silver blade—Silver Thorn—lay upon an altar. The priests were attempting to “purify” the weapon with holy water, deeming it tainted by human hands. But the sword resisted. The water rolled off its surface as if repelled by an invisible force. The Vaelith-wood core within the blade pulsed in sync with Dayat’s heartbeat. The priests mistook it for corruption, unaware that the sword was simply waiting for its master’s call.

​Above, the Elven people feasted. They celebrated “Justice Day.” But within the inner sanctums of the elite, the air was heavy with unspoken dread.

​”Executing Dayat and the machine, I agree,” Lord Elarion whispered, stroking his silver beard. “But Lunethra? She carries the blood of Estes. To throw her into the Primal Root… is that not a violation of our most sacred traditions?”

​”Holy blood is no shield for treason!” Lord Thalmarion barked, slamming his fist on the table. “She brought the rot here. If she has betrayed her duty, she is no longer sacred!”

​In the royal chambers, Queen Verene stood alone on her balcony. The cold night wind whipped her silver hair. She looked down toward the pits where her sister was caged. Memories of their childhood—of Lunethra making butterflies out of light to stop her from crying—flickered in her mind.

​“Don’t cry,” the voice of the past whispered. “We are the guardians of this tree. As long as we are together, everything will be fine.”

​Verene closed her eyes, her chest tightening. The memory was a blade. But in her mind, the Lunethra of today was a stranger. For the sake of the kingdom, she had to be cold.

​”Forgive me,” Verene whispered to the wind.

​High Priest Vladimir emerged from the shadows behind her. “You need not feel guilt, my Queen. If we must sacrifice one to save millions, the Goddess will understand.”

​Inside the cell, Dayat leaned against the cold wall. Dola sat before him, binary lines flickering across her synthetic skin.

​”Master,” Dola’s voice was broken. “I have failed you. I cannot breach these seals.”

​Dayat smiled bitterly. “It’s not your fault, Dola. I was the fool who believed progress could be accepted by those who cling too tightly to the past.”

​Suddenly, Dayat felt a faint vibration at his fingertips. A resonance. He looked toward the wall, sensing the bond with Silver Thorn. The sword was rebelling. It was thrumming with a silent, growing rage.

​The night of the eclipse drew near. And in the depths of the darkness, something ancient began to stir—wakened by the heartbeat of a man who had lost everything, and was ready to burn the world to get it back.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep