NOVEL NEXT Chapter 412: Death's Army
Snow drifted in lazy spirals, blanketing the rugged peaks of the Arondale mountain range in cold silence.
Death stood alone at the crest of a ridge, his black cloak unmoving despite the wind, his presence like a wound in the world itself.
In the far distance rose the great walls of Carthage, their pale stone faintly aglow under the faint winter light. His gaze lingered on them, but it was not the city that held his thoughts.
Inside him, the itch kept burning. It was an ever present pain that gnawed endlessly at his soul, the same unbearable craving that had driven countless powerhouses before him into madness.
The itch that only the Primordial Flame could soothe. His fingers flexed at his sides as if clenching invisible chains.
'Soon,' he thought. Soon, it would be his.
Something shifted at the edge of his aura. He felt it at once, the brush of another presence entering the absolute silence that was his domain.
Every bird, every beast, every creeping insect that touched his aura fell into instant death. But this one did not.
Two arms slipped gently around him from behind, soft yet firm. His lips curved, rare warmth softening his austere face. He tilted his head, turning slightly, and caught her scent before their eyes met.
"Luna." He murmured, and in that single word lived a lifetime of familiarity.
Her smile broke the frost around him. Silver hair spilled down her back, catching faint light like threads of moonlight, and her eyes, deep purple and luminous, held the radiance of spring.
She leaned forward, and their lips met in a kiss that was every bit as slow as he felt, as if they both wished to savor every heartbeat.
Death drew her into his arms fully, her warmth a perfect counterpoint to his chill.
She alone could endure the aura that slaughtered everything else that dared to near him. Because she was the other half.
Where he was death, she was life. They had grown together, chosen opposite sides of the same coin. He killed, she healed. He ended, she began.
When they parted, she rested her forehead against his chest. His mind went to what she'd been doing the past few years. She'd been the leader of the town of Ur, guarding the path outside of the mountain range.
"You're worrying again." She whispered.
His gaze drifted back to Carthage, that fortress of stone and secrets. "I can't believe it." He admitted. His voice, deep and harsh to most, softened in her presence.
"After all these years of Searching… all the blood spilled, all the graves we left behind… the end is near. The itch that tore us from Albion, that took everything from us... it will finally be gone."
Luna's arms tightened around him, as though to hold him against despair itself. "Then it will all have been worth it," she said, her voice clear as bells in the snow. "Every step. Every loss. We'll burn that burden away together."
Death turned his head, pressing a kiss to her hair, but his gaze shifted downward toward the valley below.
Spread across the white plain lay a sprawl of tents, thousands of them, smoke rising from their chimneys. His army.
They were men and women from every corner of the Arondale mountains. Isolated clans, abandoned mercenaries, desperate wanderers, he had gathered them all.
Some followed for hope, some for coin, some for the safety that being in the army brought from the surrounding monsters of the mountain range.
They were not even half the size of Carthage's army, but that didn't matter. Because the Blurred Man had given him the perfect Calamity to unleash on the walled city.
"They look up to you, you know." Luna said softly, following his eyes. "Not because you are Death, but because you carry certainty. They would follow you into the underworld itself."
Death's smile was thin, almost grim. "And that is exactly where I will lead them."
Luna tilted her chin up, eyes carrying a hint of steel under the gentleness. "Then I will walk beside you. Always."
Their hands found each other and entwined, one pale with life, the other dark with death, yet fitting together perfectly.
Snow continued to fall, burying the mountains in silence, but to Death the soundless flakes were like a drumbeat in his veins.
Then, all at once, the air shifted.
Light bled into the world. Not the clean gold of sunrise, but a strange brilliance that spread across the sky as though dawn itself had been dragged down into the mountain.
The white expanse shimmered, and the ground beneath their boots began to hum, trembling in deep, resonant waves.
Death stiffened, before calming.
The tremors grew for a heartbeat, the light swelling bright enough to turn the shadows stark, before both vanished as suddenly as they had come. The snow settled again, falling in delicate flakes.
Luna's eyes widened, violet irises shimmering with awe. She clutched at his sleeve, her lips parting in a grin that was almost childlike. "Was that...? How did you… how did you get them to come?"
For a moment, Death allowed himself a grin, sharp and wolfish. "I gave them the only bait the Rank 9s on this mountain can't resist."
Luna blinked. "And that is?"
He turned his gaze back to the distant walls of Carthage, dark against the snow and sky. "A chance," he said softly, "to kill the Elders of Carthage."
Luna's grin widened until laughter slipped from her lips, a ringing sound that wrapped around his grim declaration like sunlight on ice.
Snow crunched nearby. Both their heads turned.
A figure approached slowly across the white plain, careful to keep outside the black ring of Death's killing aura.
His presence was subdued, but his gait unhurried, confident. A straw hat tilted low over his face, its wide brim dusted with frost. A dark green cloak wrapped around his body, the edges flaring as the wind caught them.
Dario. Luna's guide.
He stopped several paces away, boots sinking slightly into the snow. His eyes, shadowed beneath the straw hat, gleamed faintly as he inclined his head.
His voice carried as he spoke. "They've arrived."
Death's grin did not fade. His shoulders straightened, and his black cloak stirred as if the aura of silence itself exhaled around him. "Good."
Luna turned, her silver hair whipping in the wind, eyes alight with wonder and unease. "So it begins." She whispered.
Death stepped forward, boots crunching hard in the snow. The black ring of his aura expanded just slightly, cracking the frost beneath him.
"Yes," he said. His gaze did not leave the far horizon, where the faint shimmer of power could still be seen in the air. "It begins."
Without another word, he moved, walking down the ridge toward the valley where their army's tents lay waiting. Towards the storm of power that had just descended upon the mountains.
Luna fell into step beside him, her lifegiving energy curling around the edges of his deathly silence, the two flowing together like twin rivers of opposing fate.
Behind them, Dario's shadow stretched long across the snow as he followed at a distance, straw hat dipped low.
The Rank 9s had come. And Death was going to welcome them.