Chapter 169: Chapter 169: A Call for Help
The echo of Jax’s laughter still lingered in the air.
Golden flames continued to burn across the horizon, painting the sky with an infernal glow.
Jax’s clone slowly spread his arms, basking in the silence that followed his massacre.
"Today..." he said, his voice filling every corner of the battlefield, "...today I’ll conquer this entire continent."
His eyes glowed with a mix of madness and divinity.
"I’ll erase your filthy plagues, your rotten kings, your false gods. Today, this world will remember who I am."
The body of King Charles III, still kneeling, was lifted by an invisible force.
Jax’s hands closed midair as if squeezing an invisible throat. Charles floated upward, his feet twitching in desperation.
His body began to glow with an electric-blue light.
"Stop... Jax... please..." he croaked, his voice broken.
But Jax only stared at him with a crooked smile, his eyes burning like twin crimson suns.
The blue light grew brighter.
It poured out from the king’s eyes, mouth, and nose, his flesh tightening as if it were being boiled alive.
Charles screamed.
A scream so raw it made even the demons flinch. The Undead King trembled in horror, imagining himself in his place.
None of the demon kings had ever heard such a pitiful sound from one of their own kind.
"Mercy! Please! I’m begging you!"
"Mercy?" Jax repeated, laughing with almost childish calm.
"Was that what you asked for when you sealed my body and left me to rot in the dark? How curious... now you sound exactly like me that damned day. Too bad you only laughed back then. You treated me like a traitor like a dog just because we were both human. You betrayed me, sealed me away... and now you dare to ask for mercy? You’re pathetic, Charles. Bite down and suffer like the mutt you are."
The clone’s laughter echoed across the land, while everyone turned their faces away they couldn’t bear to watch the king’s agony.
Mountains split apart. Seas began to boil.
The remaining demon kings stepped back, fear finally visible on their faces.
"We have to escape! Now!" shouted the Thunder King.
"It’s impossible! There’s nowhere to run!" roared the Flame King.
Jax clenched his fist.
"My beloved servants... look at them," he said, pointing toward the broken kings. "Those you once feared. Those who called themselves chosen by the gods. Look at them now pathetic mortals, fish on a butcher’s board before the power of the God of Dreams."
Inside the fortress walls, everyone could see Charles’s suffering clearly. Jax made sure of it. He wanted every soul to witness what it meant to defy him to carve the image of divine terror into their memories with sacred fire.
Charles’s body arched backward, the blue light bursting from his chest like a torrent.
Bones cracked one by one. The divine energy inside him was devoured, recycled as fuel for the monster holding him.
"JAAAAX—!" he screamed before his voice broke into a sob.
And then... something changed.
Charles, trembling, reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a small silver pendant, the crystal at its center already cracked.
His fingers bled as he squeezed it tightly.
"I... won’t... let you... win... even if I die... he’ll avenge me... you’ll never have a happy ending... you damn monster..." he whispered, using the last spark of his consciousness.
The pendant turned to dust.
The ground quaked.
The air split apart, and a glowing rift opened at the edge of the battlefield.
From within... a human figure emerged.
Not a demon.
Not a king.
A man.
He wore a gray robe torn at the edges. His white hair fell like ash, and his eyes shone with impossible calm. In his hand, he held a small wooden katana, like a kendo practitioner.
The man’s presence radiated the aura of an ancient master, serene, disciplined, and untouchable, as if the world itself moved according to his will.
Jax slowly turned his head, curious.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" he asked with a mocking smile.
Despite his presence, Jax didn’t feel any real threat — it was as if the man wasn’t powerful at all. His aura felt like that of an ordinary human who had never even held a weapon in his life, making it impossible for Jax to take him seriously.
The newcomer didn’t answer.
He simply raised a hand toward Charles.
The king’s shattered body trembled, and to everyone’s shock, began to rebuild itself.
Skin regrew over muscle.
Bones aligned.
Flesh mended within seconds.
Charles’s entire body regenerated flawlessly, leaving him completely naked as if reborn. His appearance had changed too: from an old man to a young, handsome figure with trimmed hair and a sculpted body that could have belonged to a model.
Charles gasped for air, but his eyes were completely white.
No pupils.
No soul.
He twitched once... then went limp like a marionette with its strings cut.
"He’s... alive..." murmured the Flame King.
"No... that’s not life," said the Thunder King, stepping back. "That’s a corpse that forgot how to die."
The stranger lowered his hand slowly.
His gaze shifted to the hollow-eyed Charles standing unnaturally still.
"That shouldn’t have happened," the man said quietly, his tone calm but edged with danger. "Strange... what did you do, boy? How did you block my healing?"
Finally, he looked up.
His eyes met Jax’s.
For an instant, the world froze.
Not even the wind dared to move.
Two beings stared at each other in perfect stillness—
The clone of a reborn god facing a presence just as unfathomable.
The stranger smiled faintly.
"Interesting..." he whispered. "So, you’re the new challenger walking the path of the ancients."
Jax raised a brow, amused.
"And you... are you the one sent to kill me? You don’t look strong enough for that."
The tension exploded in the air.
Golden flames twisted violently as if they could sense what was about to come.
The sky roared.
The entire continent held its breath.
Two monsters... were about to collide.