NOVEL NEXT Chapter 147: Lunara Awakening
At the southern battleground, where Nyxander and the beast monarch's subordinates clashed in a storm of destruction, the earth itself trembled under their fury. Four Primordial beasts now lay slain, their colossal bodies staining the ground, while one staggered, wounded yet unwilling to fall, and the rest still raged with unbroken ferocity. Across the scarred battlefield, Karl and the remaining three, Kola, Theodric, and Lunara, stood at the very edge of their endurance, their battered forms barely upright, held together only by sheer will.
Karl was the most spent of them all. His hands, trembling, leaned upon the haft of his axe, the weapon's head buried in the fractured ground as though it alone held him upright. Each breath clawed its way from his lungs, heavy and ragged, as if the air itself had turned to molten lead. His eyes swam with dizziness, his body screaming for rest, every limb pleading to collapse. Yet he refused. His axe was no longer just a weapon, it was his crutch, his pillar, his last tether to defiance.
The Primordial beast opposite him stirred, its dim intelligence flickering like fire in its bestial eyes. It could sense weakness. It could smell the end. With a guttural resonance, the beast let out a whistle sharp and shrill, like a siren's death call ripping through the chaos. The sound seized the battlefield, forcing Kola, Theodric, and Lunara to turn, their gazes snapping to Karl.
Their eyes widened, dread flashing like lightning across their faces.
"Karl!" The name tore free, heavy with urgency, Kola and Theodric's voices faltered but determined, while from Lunara's clenched teeth it thundered, sharp with unyielding might.
But Karl… Karl was too far gone. His body refused to answer their call. Even turning his head felt like lifting a mountain. He could only tighten his grip, white-knuckled, upon the axe handle, his soul burning as his body betrayed him. Across the field, the beast's body began to glow, the light swelling with lethal promise, gathering into a beam that hummed with annihilation.
Then, BOOM! The light burst forth, a lance of devastation streaking toward him. Karl's weary eyes shut tight, the brilliance too searing, too merciless for him to bear. His heart thudded once, heavy as a war drum. This was the end.
But fate is cruel and kind in equal measure. BANG! A shockwave struck him. His body was hurled violently across the battlefield, rolling like a ragdoll, dust and blood streaking the ground until he came to a jarring halt.
Coughing, dazed, Karl forced his gaze upward, and froze. Where he had once stood, Lunara now stood in his stead, her figure caught for a fleeting instant against the storm of light. A small smile curved her lips, gentle, resolute, eternal.
The beam engulfed her in the next heartbeat. Her form vanished, swallowed whole, as the devastating energy carved a path across the battlefield.
Karl's hand stretched out instinctively, fingers clawing at empty air, as though he could reach through light and pull her back. His lips parted, trembling, but no words came, only silence, a silence louder than any scream. His eyes shook violently within their sockets, disbelieving, yet forced to witness. He had been spared, but at what cost?
Somewhere in a dimension filled with endless darkness, Lumina's consciousness drifted like a feather in a void, floating vertically with her back facing downward. Her eyelids fluttered open halfway, blinking thrice as though fighting the weight of a dream before fully unveiling her gaze. Slowly, she turned her head to the right, only to find her vision devoured by an ocean of darkness. Turning left revealed the same merciless sight. The void spun her gently, and her body shifted to a horizontal position, as though the abyss itself responded to her unspoken will.
"Karl… Theodric… Kola…" she screamed each name, her voice cracking the silence, but no reply came, only the devouring hush of the void swallowing her cries whole. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Oh… right. I got crushed by that beam attack." Her words hung in the air like fragile glass before vanishing. Still floating without direction, she wondered aloud, "Is this some road… a dimension for the dead?"
Her face turned in restless circles, desperate for a clue, when her body slowly descended as if gravity itself remembered her. Her legs touched a surface, solid yet eerily blending with the surrounding darkness. She sharply looked down, startled, then raised her gaze again. To her surprise, her eyes pierced through the thick veil of shadow, revealing distance that stretched endlessly, a horizon without edges.
"Humm…" she muttered, scanning the empty expanse. "Seriously, how should I leave here?"
The moment the words left her lips, the endless dark dimension quivered, then surged toward her, collapsing into her body like a sea rushing into a bottomless vessel.
Meanwhile, in the mortal realm, the devastating beam attack had already faded. All that remained was a thick haze of smoke, dust curling like ghosts in the air, and a deep vertical wound carved into the earth, an abyssal scar, whispering of the destructive force that had once passed.
Kola summoned what strength lingered in his weary frame, staggering to his feet while leaning heavily on his axe, the weapon now serving as his third leg. Each breath trembled through his chest as though the very air conspired against him. He dragged himself forward, the axe scraping faintly against the scarred earth, steadying his faltering steps.
The smoke and dust that veiled the aftermath of the clash curled and twisted in the air before slowly beginning to settle. Theodric and Kola stood rooted, eyes wide, their gazes locked on the shifting haze as though bracing themselves for an apparition born from nightmare. Their silence screamed louder than words, overwhelmed, consumed by dread.
Karl, who had halted just a few paces short of the devastation, froze as the haze began to part, splitting like a reluctant curtain. From its depths emerged a shadowy silhouette, dark, undefined, yet heavy with presence. Karl's legs refused to obey, his body betraying him. Shock stormed through him, and tears welled, streaming down his face in twin rivers that carved their path with merciless clarity. His lips trembled as he whispered, voice breaking under the weight of sorrow, "It's my fault you got killed… I'm sorry… so sorry…"
The figure stepped forward, deliberate and steady. A low hum, soft yet chilling, escaped Karl's throat as if his grief had found its echo in the figure's silence.
The smoke peeled away like drifting cotton in a phantom theater, unveiling the figure completely, Lunara's shape, familiar yet alien. Her form was woven entirely of shadows, shifting threads of darkness that seemed alive, and in her hands gleamed the same twin daggers she had always wielded.
"Lu…nara," Karl called, his voice fragile, trembling between hope and disbelief. But the shadow did not stir, nor did it acknowledge his plea.
"Lunara!" Kola and Theodric cried in unison, their voices rising like a desperate chorus against the void. Still, the figure remained unmoved, her silence a wall more impenetrable than stone.
At that moment, a surge of power cracked the air. The same Primordial Beasts, which attacked relentless and monstrous, launched another attack. A beam charged forward, splitting the atmosphere with violent force. The very space quivered, air spiraled into chaos, and the winds howled like vengeful spirits as the destructive light closed the distance.
"LUNARA!" Karl roared, shifting his right hand forward and away from the axe's tail, leaving only his left gripping it with trembling resolve. Theodric and Kola, too, cried her name with every ounce of their being, voices laced with desperation.
But to their shock, the blazing beam tore through the shadow figure as though it were mist, intangible, untouchable. The destructive force thundered past, shattering the earth far behind in a devastating explosion, yet leaving the shadow unharmed, untouched, unbroken.
The world seemed to hold its breath. Even the Primordial Beasts froze in confusion, as if their monstrous minds struggled to comprehend what had just transpired.
Then, without warning, the shadow figure vanished. The light itself seemed to bow before her departure, bending as if forced to make way for something beyond its comprehension.
SLICE! The sound split the air, sharp and final. In the blink of an eye, the shadow reappeared above the attacking beast, her daggers whispering through the void. A heartbeat later, the creature's massive horn slipped cleanly from on top it's head , severed as if destiny itself had decreed the strike. The horn fell, crashing into the earth with a dull, echoing thud that shook the ground and silenced everything around it.