Chapter 421: 421

Captain Rohen gritted his teeth as he and his men rushed toward the main square, weapons drawn. But the moment they arrived, dread settled deep in his gut.

The shadows moved, making them think their eyes were seeing wrong. Not like ordinary darkness but like something alive—flickering, writhing, stretching unnaturally across the cobblestones. And the people…

Some lay collapsed, bodies convulsing as inky tendrils slithered beneath their skin. Others had already risen, their eyes vacant, their movements unnatural—jerking, twitching, as if guided by unseen strings.

The captain found himself stumped as he didn’t know where to start helping from. The enemy could even be hardly seen.

Captain Rohen stood frozen for a fraction too long, his mind racing. Where could he even begin? The enemy was barely visible, shifting between shadow and flesh, striking from nowhere.

“Shields up!” he barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. “Form up! We hold the square!”

The guards obeyed without hesitation, shields locking together in a desperate wall of steel between the advancing darkness and the remaining civilians.

Then the Zealots stepped forward.

Emerging from alleys, temple doorways, and beneath archways, they came—not in a charge, but with slow, deliberate steps. Their inhuman, feathered forms stretched unnatural shadows across the cobblestones. Hollow eyes gleamed with eerie devotion, and when they spoke, their voices layered and distorted into one.

“You resist in vain.”

The first Zealot moved faster than thought.

One moment, he stood still; the next, he was within the guards’ ranks. A clawed hand pierced a soldier’s chest before the man could react. He gasped, lifted into the air, his body twisting as the Zealot whispered something unheard into his ear.

The soldier convulsed. His eyes blackened, when he was dropped, he did not rise as himself.

Then the battle truly began.

Steel flashed. Swords cut deep into the Zealots—yet their bodies did not break like mortal flesh. Blades met resistance, then slid through, wounds closing as though untouched. Arrows struck true, only for the creatures to turn, their heads snapping toward the archers with grotesque grins.

Rohen cursed. “Focus on the possessed! Cut them down before they turn!”

A soldier swung his halberd at a fallen civilian—one who had begun to rise, jerking, wrong. But before the blade could land, a Zealot slipped between them, stopping the strike with nothing but an outstretched hand.

A flick of the wrist.

The soldier was sent flying, his body crumpling against the stone wall with a sickening crack.

More Zealots surged forward, weaving through the battle like phantoms. They did not fight as warriors. They were overwhelmed. They whispered. They were touched. And with each touch, another soldier was lost.

The shield line broke.

One by one, men were pulled into the dark embrace. Their screams were brief, choked by shadow. The city guards were no longer protecting.

They were surviving and they were losing.

Rohen barely parried a strike, his sword clashing against the Zealot’s claws. His breath came heavy, his arms numbed by the force of each blow. Around him, his men fell. Their bodies twitched, darkness slithering into their veins.

The weight in his gut sank like a stone, the city was already lost.

It didn’t take long for the captain to be overwhelmed. The city, once engulfed in pandemonium, soon fell into an eerie silence. Buildings burned, their skeletal remains casting flickering shadows, and the city looked completely different from how it had been before the attack.

A new, unsettling sight had emerged—the once-empty streets were now filled with people staring blankly into the void before them. Meanwhile, deep underground, where the pulsing flesh had been placed in a cavity, a feathered Zealot carefully extracted it as the statue above crumbled to dust.

Carrying the pulsing flesh with purpose, the Zealot strode through the streets. The vacant-eyed humans instinctively cleared a path until he reached the now-possessed captain. Unlike the other possessed, whose faces were devoid of thought, the captain’s eyes gleamed with intelligence. He turned his gaze toward the approaching Zealot, his expression unreadable.

As soon as the Zealot knelt before him, the captain seized the flesh, his mouth opening unnaturally wide before swallowing it whole. Dark, flaming wings erupted from his back, unfurling violently before wrapping around his body in a cocoon-like formation.

It didn’t take long. The dark shell burst apart, sending waves of black fire cascading outward, consuming everything nearby. The captain’s new form was grotesquely transformed—his body now resembled that of a harpy, his gaping maw lined with needle-sharp teeth. The dark flames continued to spread, latching onto the possessed humans. As the fire devoured them, their human forms twisted and reshaped, taking on the appearance of the Zealots.

Above, the crimson dome in the sky dissipated, revealing the starlit night once more. The captain spread his wings wide and let out a thunderous roar before launching himself into the sky, vanishing in an instant.

One by one, the transformed figures followed suit, their newly formed wings carrying them upward in a flurry of feathers. Soon, they too disappeared into the heavens.

Back in Nwadiebeube’s capital city, the king and his council members remained oblivious to the horrors that had unfolded. Their focus remained on the strategic map spread before them, unaware of the darkness that had just taken flight.

Suddenly, a section of the map blinked red, then flared into a consuming blaze. Nwadiebeube recoiled, startled, and gestured sharply for the map to be brought closer. The image zoomed in, providing a bird’s-eye view of the affected city, now engulfed in dark flames.

The scene was horrifyingly clear. The map showed no signs of life within the burning city. It was as if the inhabitants had been instantly and utterly obliterated.

Nwadiebeube sank back into his chair, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. “How… how did this happen under our watch?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “Why was there no warning? I thought we were prepared.”

Princess Nwadimma, usually composed and collected, was visibly shaken. “Was this… was this the enemy the demigods were facing?” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “Was the gap between their power and ours… that vast?”

Okeke, the general, stepped forward, his face grim. “Your Majesty, we had patrols in the area. They reported nothing unusual until… until the fire. It was as if it appeared out of thin air.”

“Out of thin air?” Nwadiebeube repeated, a chill running down his spine. “That’s impossible.”

“Yet,” Okeke said, gesturing to the map, “it is what we see. This… this is beyond anything we have ever encountered. Our weapons, our defenses… they are meaningless against something like this.”

Nwadimma rose, her expression determined. “We need to know more. We need to understand what we are facing. Send messengers to the other kingdoms. Tell them what we have seen. Tell them… tell them that we are facing a threat unlike any other.”

Before she could finish her order, the map in front of them erupted in a flurry of flashing red. Multiple locations across their territory, and beyond, began to signal danger. Nwadiebeube reacted instantly, gesturing sharply to bring up visual feeds from these affected areas.

This time, the images were clearer, more revealing than the previous city’s mysterious destruction. Unlike the last city, which had been shrouded in a red dome, these locations offered a brief, terrifying glimpse of what was happening. The hidden zealots, their true forms now visible, shed their disguises and ascended into the sky with unnerving speed, disappearing as if they were never there.

The sight was chilling. There was no attack, no battle, no visible force of destruction. The zealots simply left. Their departure was abrupt, almost casual, leaving behind only the lingering sense of dread and the unsettling implication that they could have caused similar devastation to the first city, but chose not to.

As they watched the zealots vanish, a chilling realization dawned on Nwadiebeube and his council. The enemy was no longer interested in them. Whatever had happened in the first city, the one consumed by dark flames, seemed to be a unique event, something special. The other locations were merely… abandoned.

“They’re leaving,” Nwadimma whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of confusion and dread. “They’re all leaving.”

Okeke nodded slowly. “It’s as if… as if they’ve accomplished what they came here to do. Or perhaps,” he added, a frown creasing his brow, “they’ve simply moved on to something else.”

Nwadiebeube felt a cold dread creeping into his heart. The zealots’ departure wasn’t a relief; it was a terrifying unknown. What were they planning? What was so important that they would abandon their hidden positions and reveal themselves so openly? And what was so unique about the first city that it warranted such a devastating display of power?

Then, a chilling thought struck him, a memory surfacing from the apelings’ message. “The apelings… they must be their new target,” he whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow.

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