2025-08-19 06:38:01The street burned around them, but Kael no longer felt the heat. The blade’s cold power throbbed through his veins, steadying his breath, silencing his fear.
The black warrior charged, spear glinting red. Kael moved—too fast, too precise for a boy who had only trained with wooden swords. His blade intercepted the spear in a blur of black light. Sparks exploded, and the force rippled through the cobblestones.
Lira gasped. “Kael… what are you doing? That’s not you.”
Kael didn’t answer. His own movements terrified him. The cursed sword guided his arms like a puppet on strings. Each clash sang with unnatural precision, as if he had fought a hundred wars before this night.
But the whispers returned.
Kill him. Feed us. Claim his soul.
Kael gritted his teeth, forcing his will against the voices. He wasn’t their servant. He wasn’t.
The black warrior’s grin widened. “Good. The blade responds to you.”
Another strike. Kael blocked. His hands bled from the force, but he stood.
“Who are you?” Kael demanded, though his voice shook.
The warrior’s eyes burned brighter. “I am but a servant. The true master sleeps… and you will awaken him.”
Before Kael could press, an explosion split the street. A squad of the king’s guard rushed in, arrows raining down at the warrior. But the shadows swallowed them. With a flick of his spear, he cut men down as if they were paper dolls.
Kael’s stomach twisted. He wanted to help them—but the blade pulsed, dragging his gaze toward the warrior’s heart.
Strike. Now.
“No!” Kael shouted, shoving the blade downward, refusing its command.
The sword hissed, a shrill cry that only he could hear. His head pounded, visions flashing: corpses piled high, cities in ruins, rivers running red. And at the center of it all—him, wielding the blade like a god of death.
He staggered back. “Lira… I can’t… control it.”
She grabbed his arm, her eyes fierce despite the terror. “Then drop it! Before it takes you too!”
But could he?
The warrior advanced again, unharmed, amused. “He cannot let it go. The blade binds to blood. His fate is sealed.”
Kael’s chest tightened. Blood? Yes—his own hand still bled from the first time he grabbed it. The blade had tasted him.
Suddenly, the ground quaked. From the direction of the palace, a roar thundered across the city. A monstrous shadow rose, wings blotting out the firelight. The invaders had unleashed something far worse than soldiers.
“A dragon…” Lira whispered in horror.
No. Not a dragon. Kael saw the truth as its wings unfurled. It was a corpse, a beast long dead, stitched together by black magic. Its bones glowed with foul light, its empty eye sockets burning. A drake of the fallen.
The warrior lowered his spear, as if the fight was already won. “The kingdom is ash. Soon, only silence will remain.”
Kael’s pulse raced. The blade whispered louder, urging him to strike, to kill, to feed its hunger. But deeper within the voices, Kael heard something else. A whisper different from the rest. Quieter. Sadder.
Resist…
His breath caught. Someone—something—inside the sword was fighting against the others.
Lira tugged at him again, desperate. “Kael! We have to go before that… thing sees us!”
The corpse-drake roared, shaking the city walls. Its eyes locked onto the streets below. Onto them.
The warrior stepped back into the shadows, melting into the smoke as if he had never been there. “We will meet again, blade-bearer.”
Then he was gone.
Kael tightened his grip on the cursed sword. Every instinct screamed to run. But as the beast swooped down, fire leaking from its skeletal jaws, he knew running would mean death.
“Lira… get behind me.”
“Are you insane? That thing will kill you!”
“Then better me than you.”
The blade pulsed, answering his words like it had been waiting. Kael raised it high. Shadows coiled around him, cold as ice, sharp as steel.
The corpse-drake dived.
Kael braced himself, heart pounding, mind screaming. The whispers reached a crescendo.
Kill. Feed. Destroy.
And then—silence.
The drake struck. Kael swung.
The impact shook the earth.
When the smoke cleared, Kael stood trembling, his blade buried deep in the beast’s chest. Black fire erupted from the wound, racing through its bones. The drake shrieked, its body collapsing into ash before his eyes.
Lira stared, wide-eyed, her bow lowered. “Kael… you killed it.”
But Kael’s legs buckled. His arms burned, veins blackened where the blade’s power had coursed. He dropped to his knees, gasping.
The whispers returned, triumphant now.
One life ends. Thousands more to come.
Kael clutched his head, screaming. “Shut up! Leave me alone!”
The sword pulsed again, cold and unyielding. It would not leave. It would never leave.
And for the first time, Kael realized the truth.
The kingdom wasn’t the only thing falling.
He was.
---
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Chapter 202 – Ashes Remembered (Finale)
The battle beneath the broken sky had ended in silence. Silence so vast it seemed the world itself had forgotten how to breathe. Yet silence, like ash, never lasts forever. Wind comes, memory stirs, and stories take root in the bones of a kingdom.Years LaterThe war was gone, but its shadow had never truly lifted. Decades rolled by, and in that time the people who had lived through the night of oaths grew old, bent, and gray. Their children, and their children’s children, asked what it was like to see the sky torn open, to hear fire clash with eternal dark. Few could give answers without tears.The kingdoms rebuilt, stone upon stone, village upon village. Cities that once burned with Rider flame now gleamed with new banners not of kings or warlords, but of unity. In the heart of the capital, no throne was raised. Instead, a monument stood: a jagged shard of blackened stone, scorched at its core, the very rock where Kael’s sword had struck the Rider’s essence.On its face, carved deep
Chapter 201 – Ashes Eternal
Silence.Not peace, not rest silence like the pause between heartbeats, waiting to see if the next will come.Kael stood amidst the wreckage. His sword was gone, shattered when the Rider fell. His armor hung in tatters, his blood soaking the earth. He felt… hollow.He staggered forward, calling names. “Roran… Nira… Isolde…”The banner was gone. Roran lay still beside where it once stood, his hand clenched tight around its last fragment. His lips curved in a faint smile, as though even in death, he had fulfilled his vow.Kael’s chest ached. He placed his forehead to Roran’s hand. “You were the banner, old friend. We all just followed.”But the ashes swallowed the words.Isolde stood apart, flame still flickering around her. It no longer roared it wept, hissing softly. She stared into her hands, her expression unreadable.“Kael.” Her voice cracked, rough as broken glass. “It was never my fire. I see it now. The Rider’s flame, bound to me all along. I was his weapon… and I still am.”Kae
Chapter 200 – Beneath the Broken Sky
The battlefield trembled, not with the march of armies, but with the weight of promises long broken.The Shadow Rider’s form towered in the distance, not flesh, not bone, but a swirling mass of blackened flame and fractured oaths. Thousands of voices poured from him vows never kept, betrayals never forgiven, whispers of men and women who had promised and failed.Kael felt the air tighten in his lungs. Every word spoken by the Rider pressed into his chest like chains.“Do you know what I am?” the Rider’s voice roared, echoing across the torn plain. “I am the promise your kings broke when they betrayed their people. I am the oath of friendship crushed beneath blades. I am the vow of love, abandoned in the night. Every word spoken, every bond shattered, every lie sealed me into being.”Nira’s blade shook in her hand. “Then we face not one enemy… but the weight of all history.”The Rider laughed. It was not mirth. It was a scream of millions.“And who are you to stand against eternity’s d
Chapter 199 – The Last Oath
The abyss stank of burnt ash and blood. Isolde’s body lay limp in Kael’s arms, her chest barely rising. Nira stood before them, sword drawn, her gaze locked on the Shadow Rider as his cracked helm bled smoke.The oathbound survivors gathered ragged, bloodied, faces pale but unbroken. Dozens where there had once been hundreds. Yet their eyes burned with the same fire: the Oath of Ashes.The Rider spread his arms, shadows billowing like wings.“See how your vows betray you. You bind yourselves to death, and I am death. You are already mine.”Nira raised her voice, steady though her throat ached. No… you’re wrong.Nira raised her voice, steady though her throat ached. “No… you’re wrong.”Roran coughed blood, forcing himself upright with his shattered banner. “Speak it, Nira. Remind us.”She stepped forward, sword raised high, and shouted, each word a strike:“The Oath was never about survival. It was never about victory. It was about defiance.”The survivors echoed, their voices ragged b
Chapter 198 – Fire Against Shadow
The light from Kael’s sacrifice lingered only a heartbeat before it was swallowed again. The abyss cracked, splintering into jagged shards of reality, and in the center stood the Shadow Rider wounded, yes, but not destroyed.Isolde rose from the ruin, her palms ablaze, fury in her eyes. “You’ll not take another from me.”The Rider’s helm tilted toward her. Smoke curled from the wound Kael had dealt him, but his voice was steady, dark as ever.“I already have. I always have.”The ground shifted, forming a ring of shadowed flame around them. Nira shouted, “Isolde, don’t he’s drawing you in!”But Isolde stepped forward, fire searing hotter, her eyes fixed on the Rider. “I was forged for this. If I burn, I burn.”Their clash began like a star collapsing.Isolde’s fire raged living flame that roared and danced with a will of its own, lashing at the Rider. Every strike was a storm, every breath a furnace. The Rider countered with void, a darkness that devoured heat, smothering fire with sil
Chapter 197 – The Abyss Stirs
The march of the living and the dead thundered like a storm. The echoes of oathbound past walked beside Kael and the others, their phantom weapons shimmering faintly against the darkness.But the Shadow Rider was no longer waiting.The air itself buckled. The ground beneath their feet softened into ash. The sky cracked apart like brittle glass.Isolde shouted, “Hold together!” Her flames rose high, a beacon against the encroaching black.Yet the light bent and twisted.Shadows reached up like talons, clutching at their ankles. The world tipped sideways. A howl like a thousand broken promises filled the void.And then the battlefield shattered.The Oathbound were dragged into another realm entirely an endless abyss of black mist and fractured light.Kael staggered to his knees. His sword clattered to the ground, its steel glowing faintly as if resisting the darkness.Nira planted her spear and hissed, “Where is this?”The Rider’s voice rolled over them, heavy and cruel.“Welcome home,
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