All Chapters of Blade of the Fallen Kingdom : Chapter 181
- Chapter 190
202 chapters
Chapter 181 – Beneath the Broken Sky
The sky was torn open above them, streaked with veins of unnatural light. Where once dawn should have glimmered with pale gold, now cracks of shadow and flame spilled across the heavens, painting the battlefield in a light that was neither day nor night.Nira stood at the heart of the ridge, cloak snapping in the wind. The silence after the horn’s last echo still clung to the world, heavy, suffocating. Every breath she took felt stolen, every heartbeat louder than war drums.Behind her, Kael adjusted his armor with his one good arm, the other still bound from wounds that never truly healed. His eyes, however, burned with the same stubborn fire. “The sky’s bleeding,” he muttered. His voice was rough, but steady. “If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is.”Nira didn’t turn. Her gaze stayed fixed on the valley where the Riders gathered, a dark tide rolling against the horizon. “It’s not the end,” she said. Her words cut like steel. “It’s the beginning of their fall.”Roran shifted his
Chapter 182 – Ashes Before the Storm
The valley had grown quiet again, too quiet. Even the crows that had circled endlessly in the wake of slaughter seemed to have abandoned the ridge, as though they too sensed something greater drawing near.Nira stood apart from the others, cloak dragging in the dirt, her hand resting on the pommel of her blade. The Oath of Ashes burned in her mind like a brand. She could still feel the sting where she had cut her palm and bled into the soil, mingling her life with the others’. It should have steadied her. Instead, it reminded her of the cost—that every one of them was now bound by something they could not easily turn from.Kael approached, favoring his bad leg but refusing to show weakness. His voice was rough when he spoke, half-gravel, half-fire. “The Riders are moving their outposts back,” he said. “Pulling tight into the valley floor. They want us to think they’re preparing for a siege.”Nira’s eyes narrowed. “And you don’t believe it?”Kael spat into the dirt. “They’re baiting us
Chapter 183 – Into the Valley
The descent into the valley began before the sun had fully risen, when the mist still clung to the ridges like a shroud. Their boots slid on gravel, cloaks dragging against the jagged rocks, every movement swallowed by the heavy silence of a land holding its breath.At the front walked Nira, her eyes fixed on the shadows gathering below. Beside her, Roran carried his greatsword across his shoulder like a banner of steel, his jaw set. Isolde moved with slower steps, her hands hidden in her sleeves, as though conserving the embers she carried within her.But it was Kael the valley seemed to notice most.The cursed blade at his side pulsed with a faint, unnatural rhythm—like a second heartbeat that wasn’t his own. Each thrum sent a chill through the mist, rippling the fog around him. The others felt it too. Scouts gave him sidelong glances, their grips tightening on their weapons, though they never said aloud what they feared: that the sword whispered not onl
Chapter 184 – Ash and Chains
The valley did not welcome them.Every step down its throat felt like descending into a beast that waited to devour them. Mist thickened around the gullies, turning their shapes into shifting shadows. The further they went, the more the silence pressed on them, broken only by the crunch of boots against gravel and the occasional clatter of gear.Kael led the vanguard, cloak pulled tight against the chill. The cursed sword hung at his hip, its weight heavier than iron, though he knew the steel itself weighed no more than any blade. It was the whispers the constant pull at the edges of his thoughts that made it unbearable.Blood waits in chains. Cut them. Break them. Feed me.He ground his teeth and kept moving.Nira’s scouts returned one by one, pale-faced and tight-lipped. “Rider camps. Five along the valley floor,” one reported. “Heavily guarded. Supply wagons chained near the fires.”Roran leaned on his greatsword, scowling. “S
Chapter 185 – The Silent Fire
The night was still, but Kael could hear the whispers.They slithered through the cracks of his mind, soft as breath, sharp as knives. A thousand voices, all speaking at once. Some begged. Some warned. Some promised glory. Others only screamed.He opened his eyes. The stars wheeled above, pale and indifferent, while the camp lay shrouded in uneasy silence. Men and women slept where they had collapsed, their weapons within reach, their dreams surely as restless as his own.Kael’s hand was still wrapped tight around the black blade. He hadn’t let it go since the fight in the valley gorge. The battle replayed in his memory in flashes the thunder of hooves, the clash of steel, the moment when a Rider’s spear nearly found his throat before the blade guided his hand and split the man from neck to hip.The victory should have brought him pride. Instead, it left him hollow.He pushed himself upright, wincing as his bandaged ribs protested. The whispers swelled the moment he rose, curling in h
Chapter 186 – The Turning Horn
The horn sounded at dawn.It was not theirs.The note rolled across the ridges like thunder, long and low, a call that turned the marrow of every oathbound to ice. Men stirred from shallow sleep, hands flying to blades, eyes wide as the echo died into the silence of the valley.Kael rose with a groan, clutching his side. The cursed sword pulsed faintly at his hip, as though it too had heard the horn and answered in kind. He glanced at Nira, who stood already, face pale, eyes narrowed into the fog that curled through the rocks.“They’ve moved faster than we thought,” she muttered.“No,” Kael said, his voice hoarse. “They’ve been waiting. That horn was never for us. It was for them.”A second blast came, sharper, higher. Then another. Dozens. Each from a different ridge. The valley answered itself in a chorus of horns until the air trembled.Isolde strode into the circle of half-awake warriors, her hair unbound, her hands already sparking faintly with blue fire. “Positions. Now.”Roran
Chapter 187 – The Severed Path
The valley was smoke and silence.The Riders had pulled back, their horns fading into the fog, but the oathbound did not cheer. They gathered in the broken circle of their camp, the wounded groaning, the dead laid in rows. The air reeked of blood and fire, and every face carried the same question, unspoken but heavy:How long can we last?Kael sat apart, the cursed blade across his knees. He hadn’t spoken since the charge. His eyes kept drifting to the corpses he had cut down, to the smear of black blood that still clung to his fingers. He felt no triumph, only the whispers, purring low like a beast that had fed too well.Nira watched him from the fire, her jaw set. She didn’t speak either, though her eyes burned with a question sharper than steel.Isolde leaned against a rock, pale as ash. The blue fire she had unleashed had taken its toll—her hands trembled when she tried to lift a cup of water. Kael saw her shiver, saw her mouth form silent words. Not prayers. Warnings.And Roran—R
Chapter 188 – Fire in the Dark
Low, guttural, endless they rolled down the valley like thunder from the bones of the mountain. By the time the first shadows broke from the mist, the oathbound were already braced behind broken stone and charred wagons, their lines ragged but unyielding.Kael gripped his blade tight. The whispers purred like coiled serpents, begging to be unleashed, but he forced his breath slow. This was not their moment. Not yet.Beside him, Nira adjusted the grip on her sword. She did not look at him, though her voice was iron. “Hold. We break only when they bleed.”On the ridge, Roran’s silhouette loomed, his greatsword gleaming in the dull light. He barked orders, each word a hammer striking sparks of courage into the men. “Shields high! No gaps, or they’ll gut you like fish!”And then the Riders struck.They came in waves black armor glinting, blades raised, their war cries tearing the fog to ribbons. The first clash was a storm of steel and screaming. The oathbound held the line, their oaths b
Chapter 189 – The Shadow’s Hand
The valley lay in ruin.Smoke choked the sky, curling into dark columns that clawed at the sun until even dawn felt like dusk. The battlefield was a grave of twisted armor and blackened stone, the air sharp with the stench of char and blood.At the heart of it, Kael knelt in the ash, Isolde’s limp weight in his arms. Her chest rose in shallow, uneven breaths. Her silver hair, once bright as the stars, was matted with soot. Even in unconsciousness, her face was pale as bone.“She’s alive,” Nira said, her voice low, as though afraid that speaking louder might shatter what little life remained.Kael didn’t answer. He was listening to the blade in his hand.Weak. Broken. Ash already. Let her burn away and take her place. Take the power. Take it all.His jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “Shut up.”But the whispers only laughed.The oathbound gathered in broken knots, their numbers thinned, their strength sapped. Roran stood like a pillar among them, blood streaked across his face, his greats
Chapter 190 – The Last Sanctuary
The survivors staggered westward like shadows themselves.The battlefield lay silent behind them, but the silence wasn’t peace it was a wound, raw and gaping, left by the Shadow Rider’s hand. Ash clung to every cloak, every face. No one spoke, not even Roran, who usually barked orders until throats bled.They had nowhere to go. No fortress, no keep, no banner left unbroken. Only one place remained a ruin half-buried in the cliffs of Teral’s Spine, a forgotten temple whispered of in older maps.The Last Sanctuary.They reached it by dusk. The once-proud temple was little more than pillars cracked in half and stonework gnawed by roots. Moss draped over broken arches, and a gaping hole yawned in the ceiling where the sky poured in, already heavy with storm.Yet even ruin felt holy after what they had seen.Nira lowered Isolde carefully onto a bed of cloaks. The silver-haired warrior’s breaths remained shallow, her pulse weak but steady. A circle of oathbound formed around her instinctive