THE LAST BLOOD SOVEREIGN

CHAPTER 15: THE CITY OF ASHES

 

A cold breeze brushed against Kael's face.

He groaned as consciousness slowly returned.

His entire body ached, as though every bone had been broken and painstakingly put back together.

He opened his eyes.

Above him stretched a clear blue sky.

For the first time since entering the Valley of Fallen Kings, he saw the sun.

"...I'm alive."

Kael sat up slowly.

He found himself lying in the middle of an ancient stone circle hidden within a dense forest.

The teleportation array beneath him faded, its crimson runes disappearing one by one.

The Eternal Blood Shrine was gone.

Aurelius...

Seraphine...

Varos...

He didn't know whether any of them had survived.

Kael clenched his fists.

"I'll come back."

"I swear it."

A sudden roar echoed through the forest.

Not a beast.

A human scream.

Then another.

Kael immediately sprang to his feet.

Smoke rose above the trees to the west.

Without hesitation, he sprinted toward it.

Minutes later, he reached the edge of a hill.

What he saw made him freeze.

Below lay a bustling city surrounded by massive stone walls.

Or rather...

What remained of it.

The western gate had been shattered.

Buildings burned fiercely.

People ran through the streets in terror.

Soldiers fought desperately against creatures that looked neither human nor beast.

They were wrapped in black mist, with crimson cracks running across their bodies.

Their glowing white eyes held no emotion.

One of the monsters seized a guard by the throat and hurled him through a building.

Another tore through a line of soldiers as though they were made of paper.

Kael's heart pounded.

"What are those things?"

A terrified child cried for help from an overturned wagon.

A monster slowly approached him.

There was no one close enough to intervene.

Kael didn't think.

He moved.

With a burst of speed, he raced down the hillside.

The monster raised a jagged claw.

Kael leapt between it and the child.

The claw crashed against his Crimson Aegis.

BOOM!

The barrier shook violently.

The child stared at him with wide eyes.

"Mister..."

Kael smiled.

"Stay behind me."

The creature snarled and attacked again.

This time, Kael struck first.

"Crimson Pulse!"

Scarlet energy erupted from his palm.

The monster was blasted backward, crashing into a burning house.

It struggled to stand.

Its wounds began healing almost immediately.

Kael frowned.

"They regenerate?"

Before he could attack again, an arrow wrapped in blue lightning pierced the creature's skull.

The monster collapsed.

Its body dissolved into black smoke.

Kael looked toward the rooftops.

A young woman stood there with a silver bow.

Her long blue hair fluttered in the wind.

She wore dark leather armor engraved with the emblem of a soaring hawk.

Their eyes met.

"You fight well," she called.

"But you're late."

Before Kael could answer, the ground trembled.

A deafening horn echoed across the city.

Every monster suddenly stopped moving.

They all turned toward the northern gate.

The city walls exploded inward.

A gigantic armored beast marched through the breach.

It stood over ten meters tall, carrying an axe larger than a carriage.

Black flames poured from its mouth with every breath.

The remaining monsters immediately knelt.

The blue-haired archer's expression turned pale.

"No..."

"It can't be a Warlord already."

Kael looked at her.

"What is that thing?"

She stared at him in disbelief.

"You've never seen an Abyss Warlord?"

Kael slowly shook his head.

The girl muttered under her breath.

"Either you've lived under a rock..."

"...or you've just walked into the worst day of your life."

The Warlord lifted its enormous axe and pointed it directly at Kael.

Its crimson eyes narrowed.

Then, in a voice that echoed across the burning city, it spoke:

"Blood Sovereign..."

"...we have found you."