120. The Purge
The jet shuddered violently, as if the sky had seized it in a furious grip. Outside, the heavens burned—not with storm clouds, but with golden lightning slashing like divine blades across the southern continent. The air thrummed with a sharp, metallic scent—like ozone kissed by something sacred. Inside, Luci's knuckles blanched as she clung to her seat, her heart hammering. Her mind raced, torn between fear and guilt—she was fleeing while others faced annihilation below. The pilot's shrill cry pierced the cabin as his controls sparked, overwhelmed by an unseen force.
A voice—cold, serene, and impossibly vast—echoed in Luci's mind, bypassing her ears entirely. "You who dwell in lands corrupted by demons—some serve willingly, others by compulsion. We do not judge, for their influence is ancient, born of the Cataclysm's betrayal, a sin of your creators that left you in shadow. But now, we bring salvation. Stand with us, the Luminaries, and be spared. Defend the evil you serve, and perish with it." The words carried a weight that made Luci's skin prickle, both promise and threat.
"Luminaries?" said Aurel, his voice tight with dread, his pale face reflecting the golden glow seeping through the windows.
Luci's eyes narrowed, her mind racing. "The Athenari are making their move." Her tone was grim, as if recalling a half-forgotten warning. She remembered her mentor's hushed tales in the shadowed halls of Arkhannis, warnings of the Athenari's wrath, born from the Cataclysm when gods betrayed their own creations. Luci had dismissed them as myths, but now the sky itself screamed their truth. Her heart heavy with guilt at fleeing, she whispered, "We should've stayed."
Aurel shook his head, his usual bravado gone. "No clue how they're here so fast, but Nephra's our only shot—move it!"
Below, the continent was a maelstrom of awe and panic. In a coastal village, a fisherman named Torren clutched his daughter, their faces lit by the radiant sky as the Luminary voice shook their bones. Nets lay abandoned, tangled in the sand, as neighbors fell to their knees, weeping, "Our saviors!" Others ran, screaming, toward boats that would never sail. A general's barked orders dissolved into chaos as his troops scattered. In a shadowed fortress, an Abyssal in a fox mask—Kaelith, Luci had heard him called—snapped commands with a voice like cracking ice. "Assemble the legions! Now!" His calm shattered as he gazed upward, where an armada of glowing warships pierced the clouds, their scale dwarfing even the Abyssals' worst fears.
The Arrival of Dainoric
The sky tore open.
Massive warships descended, flanked by Athenari—beings whispered to be the gods' own warriors, radiant with holy light. Their ships carved scars into the earth, their radiant hulls melting stone into glass and igniting forests with a divine glow that left no smoke, only ash. At their center floated Dainoric, the "Voice of War." His golden armor, etched with runes that pulsed with each step, shimmered with power. His presence was a command, promising submission or annihilation. Kaelith, watching from the fortress, clenched his fists, his mind flashing to a night years ago when the Abyssals had razed a Luminary shrine, their chaotic might unchallenged. Now, that memory felt like a cruel jest as Dainoric's gaze swept the battlefield, unyielding.
The armada was joined by angelic beings, their forms both divine and unsettling. One, with a lion's face, had a mane of molten light that scorched the air. Another, a goat-human hybrid, moved with eerie grace, its eyes like burning coals. To some, they were salvation's heralds; to others, devils cloaked in light.
On the jet, Luci pressed her face to the window, her breath fogging the glass. Her guilt at fleeing sharpened as she watched the radiant warships below, each one a silent monument to the destruction to come. Aurel, sweating and gripping his seat, snapped, "Doesn't matter. We get to Nephra, or we're ash." The jet lurched, accelerating to an impossible speed. Luci's stomach churned as stars blurred into a whirlwind of light. A portal yawned open in the sky, its edges crackling with energy. The jet dove into its maw, narrowly escaping a pursuing warship's radiant beam.
The Unstoppable Tide
In the city of Arkhannis, hidden by a shimmering illusion, magical defenses hummed to life. The rest of the southern continent was not so lucky. The Luminaries struck with surgical precision, sparing those who surrendered and obliterating those who resisted. Kingdoms crumbled, their banners burned to ash.
Kaelith led a desperate stand, his Abyssal forces—Eclipseborne warriors and chaos beings—clashing with the Luminaries' relentless might. The Abyssals, forged in the crucible of the Cataclysm's betrayal, unleashed their true forms, revealing themselves as perfect chaos beings. Their bodies shimmered with a dark, iridescent sheen, their limbs dissolving into writhing tendrils of pure, chaotic energy. These tentacle-like weapons lashed out with devastating force, each strike splitting the earth and igniting the air with black flames. Kaelith himself transformed, his fox mask glowing as his form expanded into a towering figure of shadow and starlight, his tendrils coiling like serpents, each tipped with a pulsing void that devoured light itself. Zorran, his second, roared as he charged, his blade dripping shadow now replaced by a cascade of energy tendrils that shredded stone and steel alike. The ground quaked as he sundered a Luminary warship's hull, its fragments raining like molten glass.
Allies rallied to the Abyssals' side, their numbers vast but doomed. From the marshes of Vyrith came the Skullwraiths, skeletal horrors wreathed in necrotic mist, their claws carving furrows in the earth. From the cliffs of Eryndor, Duskborne sorcerers summoned storms of violet lightning, their chants shaking the heavens. From the blackened depths of the Abyssal stronghold in Thyren, a swarm of Voidkin emerged—formless entities of writhing shadow, their tentacle-like appendages pulsing with chaotic energy that warped the air itself. A single Voidkin dissolved a Luminary sentinel, its screams lost in a vortex of darkness. Even the Malifuge, a hulking beast of twisted flesh and jagged bone, joined the fray, its roar a cacophony of despair as it lunged at a lion-faced angel. Its claws, black with corruption, disintegrated against the angel's radiant shield. With a synchronized gesture, the angelic host unleashed a blinding flash, reducing the Malifuge to dust.
The Abyssals' power was cataclysmic. Kaelith's tendrils tore through a squadron of angelic beings, their radiant shields shattering like glass, their forms dissolving into sparks of holy light. Zorran unleashed a wave of chaotic energy that leveled a hillside, burying a Luminary outpost in rubble and flame. The Voidkin swarm engulfed a Luminary warship, their chaotic tendrils corroding its hull into a twisted wreck, the screams of its crew echoing across the battlefield. A Skullwraith legion ripped through a Luminary militia, their necrotic mist choking the air with the stench of decay. Yet for every blow struck, the Luminaries answered with overwhelming force. A single Athenari, its wings blazing, descended upon the Skullwraiths, its spear of light piercing their ranks, leaving only ash. A phalanx of angelic beings, their wings synchronized in a radiant hymn, unleashed a wave of holy fire that incinerated the Voidkin, their chaotic forms unraveling into wisps of shadow. The Duskborne sorcerers' lightning faltered as a lion-faced angel roared, its mane of molten light incinerating their storm in a pulse of divine fire. Zorran's tendrils met Dainoric's runes, which flared with a brilliance that burned the chaos away, forcing Zorran to his knees, his form flickering as his energy waned. "You cannot erase us!" Zorran roared, his voice a thunderclap as he unleashed a final surge of chaotic energy, toppling a Luminary spire before an Athenari's radiant lance pierced his chest, his body dissolving into a storm of black embers.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The battlefield became a graveyard of chaos. A Malifuge, its tentacles lashing with enough force to crack a fortress wall, faced a trio of Athenari, their synchronized hymn summoning a pillar of holy fire that devoured the beast, its screams echoing as it crumbled to cinders. Kaelith, his void-tipped tendrils weaving a deadly dance, struck down a dozen angelic beings, his chaotic energy surging as he carved a path through the Luminary ranks. But the tide turned as Dainoric himself descended, his golden armor a beacon amidst the chaos. Kaelith faced him, his mask cracked, leaking wisps of starlight. "You finally decided to get rid of us," Kaelith snarled, his voice a low growl that echoed with both defiance and despair. "Did Lumiel finally decide to rid himself of us, his creation?"
Dainoric's face, usually a mask of divine resolve, softened with a flicker of sorrow, his eyes betraying a shared history. "He has no more need for you," he said, his voice heavy yet resolute. "Believe me, brother, I wouldn't want it to end this way." The word "brother" hung in the air, not of blood but of a creator's forge—Lumiel's hand in both their existences. Kaelith's snarl faltered for a half-second, his chaotic form wavering with a flicker of tragic recognition. With a swift, radiant arc of his blade, Dainoric struck, severing Kaelith's head. The fox mask fell, shattering on the blood-soaked earth, as Kaelith's chaotic form dissolved into a fading whirl of shadow and starlight, leaving only silence in its wake.
No matter how many allies rallied, no matter the destructive might of the Abyssals' true forms, they were no match for the Luminaries' divine wrath. Chaos beings shrieked, their tentacle-like energy lashing out in desperation, only to be devoured by pillars of holy fire. The Duskborne sorcerers fell, their bodies charred by radiant beams. The Skullwraiths crumbled, their mist dispelled by the Luminaries' light. The battlefield was a slaughter, the Abyssals' power undone by the relentless tide of light.
Nephra and Vyran stood beside Kaelith before his fall, their faces grim as the tide turned. Kaelith had turned to them, his fox mask glinting, its cracks leaking wisps of chaotic energy. "Go to Arkhannis. Protect the Thyranthe—it's our last hope," he commanded, his voice firm but heavy with the weight of defeat. "They've planned to crush us all. We'll hold them here."
Vyran's eyes welled, his hand gripping Kaelith's shoulder. "I swore we'd fight together, like when we stole that relic from the old temple," he said, his voice breaking. "I won't let them win."
Kaelith's sad smile was barely visible through his fractured mask. "Then make them bleed, brother. For us."
As Nephra and Vyran fled, the battle raged on, but the Luminaries' victory was inevitable, sealed by Kaelith's fall and the annihilation of their forces.
High above, Lumiel appeared, a smirk on his radiant face. "The light shines now," he whispered. Valtherus, another Athenari, knelt before him. "All is in motion, master. The south falls."
"A thousand years of planning," Lumiel said, his voice cold. "The Thyranthe is irrelevant now. The Abyssals can die—I'll forge more if needed. Soon, I'll rise to godhood."
Aftermath and Ascension
The purge was a massacre. Zorran, Kaelith, and their forces fell, their heads displayed outside a towering Luminary temple, its golden spires piercing the heart of the southern continent. Across the ravaged lands, the toll was staggering: entire cities reduced to smoldering ruins, their streets choked with ash and bone. In the port city of Vaelith, fishing boats lay shattered along the shore, their crews incinerated by radiant beams. A marketplace in Eryndor, once vibrant with trade, now held only the charred remains of stalls and the bodies of merchants who had refused to kneel. A child, clutching a burned toy amidst the wreckage, stared blankly at the devastation, her family gone. Her small figure was a stark emblem of the innocents lost to the war. Yet survivors emerged from the wreckage—thousands in tattered clothes, their eyes hollow with loss, wandering through fields littered with the fallen. In one village, a woman knelt beside her brother's corpse, her sobs drowned by the hum of Luminary warships overhead.
The Luminaries declared the south theirs, erecting fortresses and spreading tales of "freedom from darkness." Their golden spires rose not only in the central temple but across the continent: in the coastal dunes of Sylvara, where a fortress gleamed like a beacon, and in the mountain pass of Korynth, where angelic sentinels patrolled the skies. They distributed food and clean water to survivors, their acts of charity laced with purpose. In a makeshift camp near Vaelith's ruins, a lion-faced Athenari handed loaves of bread to a starving crowd, its voice soothing: "The Luminary Order offers life where demons brought death. Join us, and be cleansed." Many, desperate and broken, accepted, their gratitude binding them to the new order.
The Luminaries' influence spread swiftly. In Eryndor, priests in radiant robes preached in the shattered marketplace, their words echoing with divine authority: "The Cataclysm's betrayal left you in shadow, but the Luminary Order brings light." At the central temple, a grand ritual unfolded under a golden dome, where dozens of converts knelt before a radiant altar. A priest chanted, and glowing runes flared, searing sigils into their skin that pulsed with holy energy, binding their souls to the Luminary Order. A young woman, her hands trembling, felt the sigil burn but stood taller, her eyes alight with newfound purpose. A young blacksmith, his forge destroyed, knelt before a priest, whispering, "I'll serve, if it means safety." In Sylvara, a former Abyssal sympathizer, haunted by the purge, donned a white cloak of the Luminary Order, renouncing her past in a public ritual witnessed by hundreds. In Korynth, a grizzled sailor, his ship lost to the purge, stood among converts, his voice breaking as he swore allegiance, haunted by the memory of his crew's screams. Those who resisted were few but faced swift judgment: a defiant farmer in Korynth, shouting of Abyssal loyalty, was consumed by a pillar of holy fire as onlookers gasped, their fear cementing the Luminaries' authority.
The Luminary Order recruited aggressively, forming militias from converted southerners. In the plains of Thyren, young men and women trained under Athenari overseers, wielding spears etched with glowing runes. A teenage girl, her village burned, gripped her spear tightly, her eyes alight with fervor as she chanted the Luminary creed: "Light over darkness, order over chaos." The Luminaries also established schools in their fortresses, teaching children to revere the Athenari as divine emissaries. In one such school, a boy traced glowing runes on a slate, whispering their meanings as a teacher nodded approvingly. Through charity, preaching, and fear, the Luminaries wove their influence into the south's fabric, transforming survivors into followers and dissenters into ash.
In a hidden chamber, Lumiel sat in a pool of swirling energy, its crackling voices whispering of the fallen. Around him, the air shimmered with the echoes of the purged—spectral cries of Zorran, Kaelith, and countless others, their essence fueling his ascent. His eyes blazed as fate and chaos surged into him. "More... more," he growled. "The south is but the beginning. With their faith, I'll forge a new world, and none will stand against my light."