All Chapters of Rise Of The Mage King: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
96 chapters
Chapter 11
"Feed," Drogo muttered.The word made his stomach ache. It wasn't the hunger of an empty belly. It was deeper. It was a hunger in his very soul. It felt like a cold mouth opening inside his chest, demanding to be filled with the bright, warm light of magic.He looked at the city of Solara below. It was a city of light. Thousands of magic lamps burned. Thousands of mages lived there, their bodies full of the "spark."To Drogo, the city no longer looked like a home. It looked like a banquet.He shook his head, trying to clear the dark thoughts. "First, I save Tiana. Then, I worry about what I am."He increased his speed. He was a ghost on the Gilded Road. He passed a carriage pulled by six white horses. The noble inside was sleeping. Drogo passed them so fast the carriage rocked on its springs, and the horses whinnied in fear, sensing a predator nearby.Suddenly, the Abyssal Archive flared a bright, angry red in his mind.[WARNING: HIGH-ENERGY SIGNATURES DETECTED AHEAD.][DETECTION RADI
Chapter 12
The Academy of Solara was the most powerful school of magic in the Empire. They were the ones who took children with the spark. They were supposed to be the teachers of the next generation of nobles, but in the slums, they were known as the "Soul-Snatchers." If they found a child with potential, that child was taken. They were never seen again. They became soldiers, or servants, or worse.Vargus had said his men saw a spark in Tiana. He had threatened to take her tomorrow. But it seemed the news of a "High Spark" in the slums had reached the Academy even faster."She is not a student," one of the robed men said. His voice was cold and bored. "But the reading is off the charts. If we bring a girl with this much raw mana back to the Headmaster, we will be promoted to Inner Circle members by morning.""What about the mother?" the second man asked. "She’s dying. She’s making a lot of noise.""The sickness is advanced," the first man said, waving a hand. "Just silence her. We don't want t
Chapter 13
The Academy mage didn't wait. He was a professional. He saw a threat, and he reacted. He let go of Tiana and raised both hands."Gale Force!" he roared.A massive wall of wind exploded from his palms, strong enough to knock over a stone building. It hit Drogo full force.Drogo didn't move. He planted his feet and leaned into the wind. His cloak whipped around him, but he stood like a mountain."My turn," Drogo said.He didn't use magic. He used the raw, terrifying strength of his new body. He stepped forward, ignoring the wind, and punched the air in front of him.The sheer pressure of the punch created a shockwave. The wind spell was blown back toward the mage. The man was thrown through the air, crashing back into the shack. The wooden wall shattered.Drogo walked into the ruins of his home.His mother was lying on the floor, her eyes fluttering. She was pale, so pale. She looked like she was already a ghost.Tiana ran to her, kneeling in the dirt. "Mama! Mama, wake up!"Drogo looke
Chapter 14
The slums did not have a name, but everyone called them the "Warren." It was a place of mud, broken wood, and the smell of sickness. Usually, the Warren was full of noise. You could hear men fighting over a crust of bread. You could hear women coughing in the dark. You could hear the rain hitting the tin roofs.But tonight, as Drogo Payne walked through the narrow, twisting alleys, the world was quiet. It was the quiet of a graveyard.Drogo moved like a shadow. His new boots, the fine leather ones he had taken from the dead Lord Vargus, made no sound on the wet ground. The heavy wool cloak hid the purple glow of his skin, but it could not hide the coldness he brought with him.As he passed, the puddles of water on the ground turned to thin sheets of ice. The small rats that lived in the trash scurried away, their tiny hearts bursting with fear. They knew a predator was coming. They knew death was walking on two legs.Drogo’s eyes were fixed on the distance. He could see his shack. I
Chapter 15
Drogo did not speak. He took a step forward. The floorboards beneath his feet groaned and cracked."I know that cloak," Pip whispered, his voice trembling. "That’s a noble’s cloak. Is... is it a guard?"Karg, the leader, stepped forward. He pulled a long, jagged knife from his boot. "I don't care who he is. Look at his feet. He’s barefoot. He’s just some thief who found a nice coat. Hey! You! Speak up or I'll gut you like a pig!"Drogo slowly raised his head. He pulled the hood back.The light in the shack was dim, coming from a single, sputtering candle. But when Drogo’s face was revealed, the room seemed to get darker. His skin was the color of a winter moon. His face was hard, the soft lines of the boy they once knew replaced by the sharp, cruel edges of a statue.And his eyes.They were wide, glowing pools of deep violet light. They did not look like eyes. They looked like windows into a place where the sun had died."Drogo?" Tiana whispered. She was trembling so hard her teeth ch
Chapter 16
Drogo’s reaction was not human. He didn't walk. He appeared in front of Tiana. One moment he was ten feet away; the next, he was standing between Tiana and the giant man.Karg’s hands reached for Tiana’s throat, but they found Drogo’s chest instead.Drogo grabbed Karg’s wrists."You are too slow," Drogo said.He twisted his hands.Karg’s screams filled the shack. The sound of bones shattering and tendons tearing was loud and rhythmic. Drogo did not stop until Karg’s hands were facing the wrong way, the bones sticking out through the skin.Drogo leaned in close, his glowing eyes inches from Karg’s face."You said my brother was a Null," Drogo whispered. "You said he was a bucket for trash."Karg was sobbing, his face twisted in agony. "Please... mercy...""I looked into the Chasm, Karg," Drogo said. "There is no mercy there. There is only hunger."Drogo placed his hand on Karg’s forehead. He didn't use the flame. He didn't use a spell. He simply used his raw strength to push. He pushed
Chapter 17
Tiana looked up slowly. She saw his face in the candlelight. She saw the familiar curve of his nose, the way his hair fell over his forehead.She took a shaky breath. "Drogo?""Yeah," he said. He sat down on the floor, keeping his distance. "It’s me. I'm sorry I scared you. A lot happened in the Chasm. I found a way to fight back. That’s all."Tiana crawled forward, an inch at a time. She reached out and touched his hand.She flinched. "You're so cold.""I'm just a little chilled from the rain," Drogo lied.Tiana didn't believe him, but she wanted to. She threw herself into his arms, sobbing into his chest. Drogo held her, his cold arms wrapping around her small frame. He didn't feel the warmth of her body, but he felt the weight of her. She was his anchor. Without her, he would just be a hole in the world."Mama’s gone, Drogo," Tiana cried. "She stopped breathing. The men... they were mean to her. They hit her."Drogo looked over Tiana’s head at their mother. He already knew she was
Chapter 18
The three men were gone. Jax was a shriveled husk. Karg was a broken mess of bone. Pip was nothing but gray ash blowing through the hole in the wall. The shack was quiet, but it was not a peaceful quiet. It was the heavy, suffocating silence that comes when death is standing in the corner, waiting for its turn.Drogo Payne stood in the center of the room. His hands were still trembling. Not from fear, but from the raw, dark power pulsing in his fingers. The purple glow of his veins was dimming, but the hunger in his chest was still there. It felt like a cold, hollow mouth, always open, always wanting to be filled."Drogo..."The voice was so soft it was almost a breath. It was Tiana. She was kneeling by the thin, dirty mat where their mother lay. Tiana’s face was pale, and her eyes were wide with a fear that made Drogo’s heart ache. She was looking at their mother, and then she was looking at him.Drogo walked over. Every step felt heavy. He looked down at his mother, Elara.She was
Chapter 19
Tiana looked at her brother’s eyes. They weren't purple anymore, but they were dark—so dark they looked like holes in his face. She was scared of him, but she trusted him. She nodded, squeezed her mother’s hand one last time, and ran out into the rain.Drogo was alone with his mother.The candle on the table sputtered and died. The only light in the shack came from the pale moon shining through the hole in the wall.Drogo reached down and pulled his mother’s thin shirt open, exposing her chest. He could see the ribs. He could see the gray, metallic tint of her skin over her lungs. It looked like lead."I've got you, Mama," he whispered.He placed both of his hands flat against her chest.At first, his hands were cold. He felt the dry, rough texture of her skin. He felt the tiny, frantic beat of her heart.“Devour,” Drogo commanded.[MANA DEVOUR: TARGETED EXTRACTION INITIALIZING.]Drogo’s black veins began to glow. They didn't glow with the beautiful violet of the fire magic. They glow
Chapter 20
The ground beneath Drogo’s feet didn't just burn; it vanished. The gray dirt turned to a black, glassy liquid. The rusted iron pipes in the field melted and flowed like water.The shockwave of the blast knocked over the few dead trees that still stood miles away. The black fire hit the clouds, turning the falling rain into black soot that covered the area for miles.Drogo kept screaming. He felt the jagged shards of the slag leaving his blood. He felt the boiling lead being drained from his veins.After a minute that felt like a century, the fire died down.The Dead Fields were no longer a field. There was now a massive, steaming crater in the earth, fifty feet deep and a hundred feet wide. The edges of the crater were glowing with a dull, red heat.Drogo was standing in the center of the crater.He was naked. The noble’s cloak and the rags he wore had been turned to ash by the venting. His skin was pale again, though the black veins remained as faint, permanent scars.He fell to his