Chapter 658: 658
The prince’s eyes hardened. For a moment, hesitation flickered there. His father was not a man easily loved. Years of harsh words and cold lessons had carved distance between them, a chasm too wide for most bridges to cross.
And yet...
He clenched his jaw, his grip on the spear tightening.
No matter what kind of man Erik was, he was still their father. The foundation of their blood, the source of their strength.
And that was enough.
He remembered it clearly, even as they closed in on the beasts, the creatures barely seemed to acknowledge their presence. They moved single-mindedly, indifferent. Only when struck did they react, and when they did, the counterattacks were brutal.
That, too, was strange.
After their retaliation, they simply stopped. No pursuit. No hunger.
The prince’s breath misted in the cold air as he slid down the frozen construct, boots scraping over jagged ice. He landed halfway before pausing, his eyes narrowing.
His father’s figure was drawing near cutting through the haze and dust like a blade of gold. But something else caught his attention, something worse.
One of the monsters was gone.
The very one he had struck, the one that had hurled him across the courtyard in return was missing from sight.
A low rumble carried on the wind, followed by the faintest echoes of screams. The prince turned sharply toward the city beyond the castle walls, and what he saw turned his stomach cold.
From his vantage point atop the frozen remains, he could see the streets below erupting in panic. Figures cursed beings, their enhanced forms were fleeing in disarray. They ran through alleys and over bridges, their cries echoing through the city.
Behind them came the missing monster.
Its form was leaner than the others, humanoid yet grotesque, its skin a deep, pulsating red that seemed to drink in the surrounding light. In its hand it carried a staff crowned with a gleaming pearl that pulsed softly, like a heart.
With a slow, deliberate motion, the creature raised its staff.
The pearl flared.
From the ground around it, water burst forth only it was not pure. The liquid was threaded with red, alive, twisting. Water tendrils entwined with what looked like roots, pulsing faintly as they lashed outward like whips.
The first struck a fleeing man.
He didn’t even have time to scream properly before his body began to desiccate. The water within him was drawn out in seconds, skin shriveling, eyes sinking, until what hit the ground was a lifeless husk dry and grey.
More tendrils followed, snapping across the street in rhythmic, merciless strikes. Each contact left behind another corpse, brittle as parchment.
The cursed beings, those who might have once believed their new condition made them powerful soon realized the truth, their corruption meant nothing here. Their energy could not touch the red creatures, could not influence them. Their curses offered no protection.
Panic spread like wildfire.
The prince’s hands trembled on his spear as he watched the slaughter unfold below, anger flaring beneath his fear. But then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the monster stopped.
Its movements ceased mid-swing.
The tendrils hung motionless in the air before falling away into vapor. It stood still, head tilted slightly as if listening to something distant.
Then, slowly, its gaze shifted.
From the crowded streets to the castle courtyard.
To Erik.
From the prince’s vantage point, the world seemed to hold its breath.
The red creature, now eerily still, was not standing freely anymore. From beneath its feet, thick crimson roots erupted from the earth, cracking through stone and soil alike. They coiled and twisted upward, anchoring it firmly in place like the trunk of an ancient, corrupted tree.
The monster raised its staff slowly. The pearl at its tip pulsed once then began to draw in the surrounding moisture. Thin streams of water bled from the air itself, spiraling toward the pearl until a dense sphere of liquid formed at its point. The pressure built visibly; the water compacted tighter and tighter until the air around it trembled.
Then, with a sound like a thunderclap, the pressure was released.
The recoil pushed the creature backward, but its rooted legs held fast, unshaken. The released water tore through the air, a compressed torrent shrieking toward the sky. Its target was clear.
Erik.
He sensed it instantly. The golden glow in his eyes flared brighter as he stopped midair, hovering just beyond arm’s reach of his son. He brought his spear up in one smooth motion, both hands gripping it tight.
The weapon began to spin. Slowly at first, then faster, faster, until it became a blur of steel and light. A vortex of energy formed before him, a rotating barrier that met the incoming stream head-on.
The collision was explosive.
The pressurized water struck with the force of a storm, the shockwave rippling outward in expanding rings. The impact sent a deafening roar across the courtyard. Erik gritted his teeth, holding his ground midair, the wind whipping violently around him.
For all his power, the attack did not break him, but the world around them was not so resilient.
The pressure dispersed in all directions, crashing into the nearby walls and shattering stone like glass. The frozen construct beneath the prince groaned, fractures racing through the ice before it collapsed entirely, breaking into shards that rained down like falling stars.
The prince leapt from the crumbling structure just before it gave way, he needed to test something, too.
Without hesitation, the prince tightened his grip on his spear. The cold energy around it pulsed, spreading along the weapon like veins of blue frost.
As the creature maintained its assault, the prince moved.
He launched himself forward, body slicing through the mist and spray. His spear thrust into the path of the water stream, freezing the torrent mid-flight. The sudden shift in temperature sent cracks racing along the frozen column, mist rising from the collision of heat and cold.
Using the frozen stream as a bridge, he vaulted forward, descending toward the red monster with speed born of royal blood and years of training.
The monster didn’t flinch as the prince charged.
Its gaze remained fixed on Erik. Whatever awareness lay within it cared little for the young warrior closing in. Instead, it let its current attack fade, then the air shimmered around it.
From the rippling mist, dozens of aquatic shapes began to form. Ethereal fish, each carved from water and threaded with faint red veins, emerged from the creature’s body. They darted forward in coordinated motion, a silent school of death. Their forms caught the light as they launched themselves toward Erik, completely ignoring the prince’s incoming strike.
The prince reached the monster in the same heartbeat, his spear flashing. He slashed clean through its arm, severing it at the elbow.
For an instant, victory gleamed in his eyes. Then the severed limb melted into water, flowing seamlessly back to the stump and reforming. The creature turned its head toward him at last, its faceless features twisting into what could only be described as recognition.
It roared.
The sound wasn’t just loud, it was felt. A deep, resonant vibration that ran through the ground and the prince’s bones alike. Before he could strike again, the monster slammed its staff into the earth.
A circle of shimmering water appeared instantly beneath it. From the pool, tendrils of liquid erupted twisting, thrashing each intertwined with pulsating red roots that pulsed like veins.
They lashed toward the prince.
He moved fast, spinning his spear to deflect the first wave, dodging the next. But even the near misses filled him with unease. He had seen what those tendrils could do, drain the life and moisture from anyone they touched until nothing remained but a husk.
As he cut through them, he noticed something shift in the monster’s behavior. Its movements changed like a restraint was released.
Then, without warning, it stopped attacking.
The prince, breathing hard, frowned. The creature’s head turned away from him, from his father and toward the distant sounds of chaos echoing through the ruined city. Its pearl pulsed again, brighter now, and it took a slow, deliberate step in that direction.
Erik, still midair fending off the spectral fish constructs, caught the shift as well. "It’s ignoring us," he muttered under his breath.
And it wasn’t just this one.
Across the city, the rest of the royal family was locked in battle with the other red creatures. Each of them noticed the same disturbing pattern: their opponents would engage briefly, then lose interest. As soon as a gap appeared, the monsters turned away, abandoning the fight entirely to target the fleeing citizens.
No matter how much damage they took, swords through hearts, limbs severed, bodies frozen or burned, they simply reformed. Some melted into liquid before stitching themselves together again. Others reconstituted from mist, reforming whole as though their very essence couldn’t be undone.
Even decapitation changed nothing. Heads regrew. Wounds closed.