The Bastard’s Retribution

Chapter 6

As Victor stepped toward the podium, the stone ground cracked violently beneath his feet, forcing the Sentinels to back away with trembling weapons. They had never witnessed anything remotely like this display of power, for magic was supposed to possess strict limits and exact terrible costs upon its wielder. Yet, Victor appeared to be drawing inexhaustible energy from an endless ocean of pure darkness.

Lady Bianca instinctively shrank back, attempting to hide her diminishing stature behind Lord Hestor's bulk as Victor came to a halt a mere ten feet away. He locked his glowing gaze directly onto hers, and for the first time in eighteen years, the oppressive dynamic had completely shifted; she was the one trembling as she looked up, while he stood tall and stared coldly down at her.

"You called my mother a traitor," Victor stated, his eyes radiating the same hypnotic violet fire that burned within Fiona's gaze. "You spent my entire life telling me she abandoned me because I was nothing but garbage, but your captive Seraph has revealed your twisted lies, detailing how you callously used her and stole her life force just to keep your city powered."

"Those are nothing but the lies and deceptions of a demon!" Bianca screamed, though the violent shaking in her voice betrayed her mounting terror. "You are a bastard, a pathetic mistake that should have been erased from existence long ago!"

Victor observed her frantic outburst with genuine pity, marveling at the strange sensation of feeling sorry for the very woman who had spent years making his life a living hell. "You are completely consumed by fear," he said softly, his voice cutting easily through her panic. "You are terrified because you know that if the truth ever comes to light, the citizens you claim to rule will eagerly burn your precious house to the ground. You aren't protecting this city, Grandmother, but rather desperately clinging to your throne."

"Kill him!" Bianca roared furiously at the paralyzed High Council, demanding to know why they were just standing there when they could be striking him down. 

Prompted by her desperation, Lord Hestor threw his hand into the air and commanded his archers to take the rooftops, ordering them to aim their lethal Sun-Piercer arrows directly at the boy's head. Instantly, hundreds of skilled marksmen flooded the balconies and rooftops surrounding the square, expertly notching arrows tipped with glowing crystals capable of felling a dragon. The entire plaza was suddenly bathed in a brilliant, suffocating golden light as the archers synchronized their deadly volley.

From the trembling masses gathered in the square, a desperate girl—a kind servant who had occasionally risked her own safety to sneak Victor an extra piece of bread—screamed for him to run.

Instead of fleeing, Victor simply tilted his head backward to gaze into the heavens, studying the terrifying tear in reality where the black sun was supposed to rest.

"Sovereign," Fiona addressed him reverently, extending her six magnificent wings until they cast a suffocating shadow over the entirety of the Great Square. "The hunt begins now, so shall we finally leave these pitiful insects to wallow in their own delusions?"

Victor swept his gaze across the faces of his tormentors, taking in Lady Bianca's horror, Julian cowering miserably in the dirt, and the arrogant High Council who foolishly believed they could execute a god with a few glowing arrows. In the face of overwhelming odds and certain death, Victor defied all expectations by throwing his head back and releasing a booming, unapologetic laugh. It was far from a joyous sound; rather, it was a cold, hollow resonance that echoed ominously against the ancient stone walls, marking the realization of a captive man who finally understood that the door to his cage had been wide open this entire time.

"Do you honestly think you are exiling me, or throwing me away like meaningless trash?" Victor asked, his amplified voice carrying effortlessly to every shadowed corner of the square. "Take a good look around you, Bianca, because you are the ones truly trapped within the walls of this decaying city, doomed to live out the rest of your days in absolute fear of the dark."

High above, the archers pulled their weapons to full draw, filling the heavy atmosphere with the lethal, vibrating hum of five hundred tightly coiled bowstrings.

"You didn't throw me out," Victor concluded as his smile widened into a terrifyingly predatory grin, "you simply set me free."

The moment the words left his lips, Hestor shrieked the command to fire. A torrential wall of blinding golden light immediately descended from the rooftops as five hundred arrows, each manifesting as a devastating bolt of pure solar energy, rained down upon the center of the square. The glowing projectiles moved with such ferocious velocity that they superheated the air into a suffocating furnace, prompting the surrounding crowd to shield their eyes in anticipation of Victor being reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. 

A deafening rush of displaced wind and roaring celestial fire consumed the plaza as the barrage struck its target with catastrophic force. 

When the arrows violently impacted the stone altar, the resulting explosion of light was so overwhelmingly brilliant that it felt as though the midday sun had crashed directly into the earth. Plumes of thick smoke and shattered stone dust flooded the square, prompting Lady Bianca to release a high, hysterical laugh of sheer relief. 

"Finally!" she gasped breathlessly, clinging to her fragile victory. "Finally, the shameful stain upon our family has been washed away forever!"

However, as the dense smoke slowly began to dissipate, the jubilant laughter abruptly died in her trembling throat when the clearing haze revealed a completely empty platform. Victor was nowhere to be found, leaving behind no ruined body or charred ash to signify his demise. In the absolute center of the ruined square, exactly where Victor and the Seraph had been standing mere moments ago, a single black feather floated gently through the superheated air before coming to rest upon the blood-stained stone where Julian had previously crushed Victor’s hand.

Emerging from the deep shadows of every doorway and the dark corners of every surrounding alley, Victor’s spectral voice echoed through the silence one final time. The chilling declaration did not originate from any single physical location, but instead reverberated off the architecture as though the very soul of the city itself were speaking directly to the High Council.

"I am coming to unearth the truth, Grandmother," the omnipresent voice whispered with a cold, unbreakable promise, "and when I finally find it, I will be coming straight for you."

In response to his vow, a thousand obsidian feathers erupted violently from the fractured stone, swirling into a massive, blinding cyclone that forced the Royal Guards to cower in defense. By the time the dark feathers vanished into the ether, the oppressive darkness in the sky had begun to retreat, yet the weak sunlight that washed over Dagobah felt distinctly cold and unnerving. Victor Chapman had successfully vanished into the perilous Grey Wastes, completely abandoning the realm to seek out the land of monsters and outcasts. Yet, for the very first time in the long and storied history of Dagobah, the citizens were no longer terrified of the mythical beasts lurking in the wilderness; they were paralyzed by the thought of the vengeful bastard they had so callously cast aside.

Miles away from the political treachery of the city, Victor opened his eyes to find himself standing atop a high mountain cliff, staring thoughtfully down at the glittering, distant lights of Dagobah while Fiona gracefully folded her magnificent wings beside him. 

"Where do we begin this hunt?" Victor asked, his steady voice betraying none of the chaos he had just survived. 

In response, Fiona raised her obsidian sword and pointed the tip toward a dark, jagged forest looming ominously on the horizon—a cursed region where the kingdom's official maps offered no details other than the warning that shadows dwelled there. 

"We begin our journey by seeking the one being who still remembers your mother's real name," the Seraph replied with solemn conviction. "We must start with the Witch of the Weeping Woods."

Nodding in agreement, Victor looked down at the hand that Julian had so sadistically broken just hours before, marveling at how perfectly the magic had healed his shattered bones. The limb was now completely whole and surging with a terrifying new strength, prompting him to slowly clench his fingers into an unyielding, resolute fist as he prepared for the trials to come.