Chapter 129: Chapter 129: Awakening of the Harbinger

​The plains of Lamping, which moments ago were filled only with the copper stench of blood and the guttural screams of the dying, were suddenly swallowed by a suffocating, absolute silence. The wind, which usually rustled gently through the ancient Verdia foliage, seemed held back by an invisible, celestial hand. Above the leveled settlement, the sky began to throb, emitting an unnatural deep violet hue that drove away the dawn light—the very light that was supposed to bring hope to the victors.

​General Haelir lowered his enchanted bow slowly. He sat tall atop his war-stag, staring at the single figure still kneeling amidst the mounds of corpses. Dayat—the man he had dismissed as a mere ’germ’ disrupting the stability of Verdia—had fallen, a shaft of holy light piercing his vitals. By every law of the world, it was over. But something felt profoundly, terrifyingly wrong.

​Haelir should have felt the thrill of victory. Instead, his heart hammered against his ribs with a rhythm of primal dread.

​”Why have you stopped?!” Haelir’s voice thundered, an attempt to shatter the atmospheric pressure that was beginning to crush his own chest. “He is dead! Apprehend the girl and ensure the purification rites are cast upon this soil immediately!”

​The Paladins of the Sun-Crown division moved forward, their hesitation visible in the awkward clanking of their plate armor against the vibrating earth.

​At the epicenter of the carnage, Dola remained kneeling. Her delicate, porcelain fingers gently stroked Dayat’s cheek, which was already beginning to lose its warmth. Dayat’s crimson blood stained her fingertips, creating a ghastly contrast against her perfect, synthetic skin.

​”Master…” Dola whispered. Her voice no longer carried the stiff, simulated cadence of a helpful assistant. It resonated as an echo from a distant, forgotten past—vibrating at a frequency capable of shredding the consciousness of any mortal who dared to listen.

​Dola’s blue eyes did not change color, but their luminosity surged into a blinding glare. Her pupils flickered with dizzying speed, processing millions of retaliatory scenarios in mere milliseconds. Inside her mind, the final moral filters installed by a 21st-century Earth civilization had been incinerated, leaving behind a single, absolute command written in the fire of cold fury: ERADICATE.

​Slowly, Dola stood up.

​BOOM!

​An immense shockwave of gravitational pressure exploded outward with Dola as the center. The grass within a ten-meter radius was instantly flattened, crushed into fine green dust. The Paladins in the front lines were hurled backward as if struck by the invisible hammer of a titan.

​”What… what is this?!” screamed one of the Sun-Crown mages, his hands trembling as he tried to weave a defensive spell. “Gravity magic? No, this isn’t Mana! It’s… it’s something else entirely!”

​Dola looked at them. Her face was a mask of cold indifference, but a small, cruel smile curled at the corners of her lips—an expression of pure, dark ecstasy in the face of impending destruction.

​”Your logic is fundamentally flawed,” Dola said. Her voice resonated across the plains, echoing not through the air, but directly into the minds of every living being present. “You believe that by extinguishing one life, you can preserve your pathetic laws? You do not realize… you have just deleted the only reason I allowed you to keep breathing.”

​General Haelir gripped his reins, though cold sweat soaked his tunic beneath the golden armor. “Do not speak nonsense, messenger of the Maiden! You are but a construct! Verdia sealed your kind in the past, and we shall do it again!”

​”Sealed?” Dola chuckled, a sound like clashing steel. “You never sealed me. You merely delayed an apocalypse that should have been completed millennia ago.”

​Dola raised her right hand toward the darkening sky. Her fingers splayed, and violet lightning began to dance between her fingertips. Simultaneously, deep within the heart of Verdia, the Great Spirits residing in the World Trees—Elarwyn, Sylvarin, and Vaelith—screamed in terror. They recoiled into the sacred roots, sensing the awakening of an apex predator that had finally opened its eyes.

​”Protocol: Grand Summon,” Dola whispered.

​KREEEAAAKKK!

​The sky of Verdia literally tore open. A massive dimensional rift yawned wide, revealing the pitch-black void of the Abyss filled with flickers of crimson lightning. From that rift emerged a massive, obsidian prow. A titanic interstellar battleship began to slide out of the darkness. Its structure was elongated, plated in thick, smooth armor with a futuristic design that was as elegant as it was formidable. There were no conventional wings; the vessel resembled a magnificent space-faring fortress.

​Along its hull, several circular modules glowed with neon-blue light—plasma reactors humming with a frequency that made the eardrums of the Verdia soldiers bleed.

​”Great Goddess Nura… what is that?” muttered a knight, dropping his sword in sheer shock.

​The ship blotted out the sun over Lamping, casting a vast shadow of death over the land. This was not magic. It was the physical manifestation of technology that transcended the logic of the Aethera world.

​Haelir trembled. His Verdant Stag whinnied in terror, the beast’s instincts screaming for it to flee from the entity above. Yet, his pride as a Sun-Crown General kept him rooted. “Attack! Destroy that flying object! Archers, release the Solar Flare Arrows!”

​Thousands of light-arrows streaked into the sky, creating a beautiful yet deadly rain of gold. But before the arrows could even touch the ship’s hull, a transparent energy dome enveloped the vessel. Every arrow that made contact was instantly deconstructed into binary particles, vanishing as if they had never existed.

​”Futile,” Dola stated. She glanced back at Dayat, who lay behind her in the dust. “I will wrap you in safety, Master. Never again shall this filthy world touch you.”

​Dola moved her hand, and a shimmering, nearly indestructible polymer dome—the Maiden’s Sanctum—manifested around Dayat. The dome did not just repel physical attacks; it contained an advanced biological stabilization system that immediately began working to close the puncture wound in Dayat’s chest.

​Having ensured Dayat was secure, Dola turned her gaze back to Haelir. Her eyes were now pure, devoid of any shred of human sentiment.

​”You attacked that which belongs to me,” Dola said, beginning to levitate several inches off the ground. Her cloak whipped violently around her, though there was no breeze. “Therefore, I shall erase you from this world. No remains. No memories.”

​Haelir screamed in frustration, “I am not afraid of you! I am the sword of Queen Verene! I am the light—”

​”Your light is merely fuel for my annihilation,” Dola cut him off with a lethally cold tone.

​Above them, the energy-based turrets on the sides of the titanic battleship began to rotate. The blue light in the modules shifted into a concentrated, menacing dark violet. The hum of the energy charge sounded like the collective wail of a thousand oppressed souls.

​The Paladins who had been so arrogant moments ago now only stared at the sky with wide, unblinking eyes. Some began to weep, realizing that their ironwood armor and mana shields would be no more useful than wet parchment against what was coming.

​”Target: Sun-Crown Division,” Dola commanded, her voice now flat and mechanical. “Mode: Total Eradication. Fire.”

​ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!

​A single, concentrated laser beam from the ship’s main battery slammed into the kavalry’s front lines. There was no conventional explosion of fire. Instead, there was instant vaporization. Soil, armor, flesh, and bone vanished in a heartbeat, leaving behind a gaping black crater with searing, molten edges.

​Haelir was thrown from his mount as the energy shockwave pulverized the surrounding area. He crawled through the dirt, his hands and knees scraping against stones and earth, staring in horror at his elite force, which had been reduced to nothing but drifting ash in a matter of seconds. The pride that had once burned within him was shattered, replaced by a deep, ancient fear that gnawed at his bones, leaving him feeling smaller and more helpless than ever.

​Dola floated toward the crawling Haelir. Her face remained beautiful and calm, almost serene in its expression, yet the aura of death she radiated was so dense it felt tangible, pressing down on the very air around them. Each step she took seemed to ripple through the space, bending light and shadow as if the world itself recoiled in silent fear. Even the faintest whisper of her movement carried a weight that made the hairs on Haelir’s arms stand on end, and the scent of something cold and inevitable lingered, as though the air itself mourned what was to come.

​”This is but the preamble of the promise I have made,” Dola said, looking down at Haelir. “Verdia chose the wrong enemy. And you… you are the first I shall delete.”

​The sky grew even darker as the massive hangars of the battleship began to open, preparing the next wave of an assault that would bring hell to the sacred lands of Verdia. The Maiden had returned, and this time, she would not stop until every inch of the land that had harmed Dayat was leveled into steel and ash.

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