NOVEL NEXT Chapter 163: Arson [II]
Arson was a crime both here and in Fall of Ares, for good reason too.
It wasn't just destruction — it was desecration.
It was stripping someone of shelter, livelihood, and memory, all in a single blaze.
There was a reason fire mages had been both revered and feared during the empire's great wars.
They could destroy not just soldiers, but everything you had ever worked for.
Azel took a deep breath, fingers brushing against the edges of the Ghost's Cloak.
The shadow-woven fabric clung to him like a second skin.
He pulled the hood tighter, shaking away the nervous thrum in his chest.
He wasn't afraid of a fight — he could probably hold his ground, heal, and even endure if the swarm came for him.
But this wasn't about brute strength.
This was about precision.
He needed to remove the whole hive at once, just like he planned to.
"Stay alive," he whispered to himself, not for him but for the two girls although they could not hear him, and then he stepped through the shrubbery they had once hidden behind.
The world opened before him.
The snow reflected the pale glow of the moon, broken by the unnatural silhouettes darting through the snowy sky.
Just like before hundreds of Dreadhorns moved in erratic patterns above.
Their shadows rippled across the snowy ground like swarms of shifting ink.
The constant drone of wings vibrated through the air, the sound made his skull vibrate.
Azel froze, every muscle coiled.
They could not see him.
The Ghost Cloak's effect held.
He released the breath he had been holding and forced himself to move forward, each step sinking softly into the snow.
'I need to place these in good places,' he thought, his lips twitching into a grim smile.
The more carefully he placed them, the greater the destruction.
If he planned to eliminate the entire hive in one go, he couldn't just scatter them blindly.
'But how do I gather them all together?' His eyes flicked to the hive, that grotesque structure latched onto the ancient tree.
The monsters streamed in and out in endless rhythm. 'I guess I could always alert the queen… let her call her underlings.'
It was reckless.
Stupid, even.
But it was the best plan he had right now and the only plan that could probably work.
Azel crouched low, moving carefully over the snow-littered ground.
The corpses of felled trees lay like broken bones, their trunks split and abandoned, making a jagged path toward the monstrous hive.
He navigated through them with deliberate silence.
The constant drone of wings above drowned out most sound, but he didn't dare test their senses.
Finally, he stood at the base of the massive tree.
Up close, the scale of it stole his breath.
The ancient bark was thick and dark, wide enough that ten men holding hands couldn't have wrapped around it.
Roots as thick as walls jutted from the ground, some upturned by age, others by the acidic secretions dripping from the hive above.
The buzzing felt louder here, vibrating in his chest like a swarm living inside him.
'Perfect hiding places.'
He knelt by one of the upturned roots, pulling out a vial of resin from the ring.
The liquid glowed faintly, a fiery orange, the viscous sap clinging to the glass as though eager to ignite.
He slid it beneath the root, shoving it deep into the crevice.
Then another.
And another.
The more resin he used, the bigger the blaze.
He moved in a wide circle around the trunk, pushing vials beneath roots, hiding them in the soil and shadows.
His fingers were steady, but his heart pounded harder with each placement.
'This is enough,' he thought when the last vial was pressed beneath a gnarled root.
But Azel wasn't a man to leave things half-done.
He crouched low and pressed a paper bomb against the soil, slapping it flat where the resin pooled.
'System,' he whispered in his thoughts, 'can I set a command code for the explosion?'
Normally it would be set by motion but how did he want it to move?
The familiar chime echoed.
[Note: Once you utter the command code, even in a whisper, all paper bombs placed by you will detonate instantly.]
His lips curved into a dangerous smile.
'How about… Boom?'
[Ding.]
[Command Word: Boom has been made the trigger word. The moment it is uttered, all connected bombs will detonate.]
Azel chuckled quietly, the sound swallowed by the cloak. "Simple enough."
Once the bombs went off, the paper bomb would explode and then the Resin would ignite, spreading like fire across oil.
But he wasn't done.
He stamped a few more paper bombs into the snow, embedding them along the base of the trunk.
Redundancy was survival.
He wouldn't risk the plan failing because he had been lazy.
When he finally straightened, his neck ached from craning upward.
The tree loomed high into the air, a titan among giants.
From this angle, he could see the hive clinging to its side like a tumor, oozing slime and pulsating faintly.
Acid dripped steadily from its edges, hissing as it struck the snow below.
Climbing it would be madness.
Well could he call himself mad then?
'No time to waste.'
He pressed his foot against the trunk, gathering his aura.
His boots stuck to the bark as though magnetized, anchoring him just long enough to push his second foot up.
It wasn't effortless — the bark was deformed by slime but he focused, adjusting the flow of aura until he could maintain the grip.
The world tilted as he ascended.
His breath came slower as he steadied himself.
Every branch in the tree became a potential foothold.
Finally, he reached the first thick branch jutting from the trunk.
He perched there, crouched low, and examined the intersection where branch met bark.
A perfect spot.
He pressed a paper bomb against the wood, smoothing it into the grooves until it seemed part of the bark.
"Stay there," he whispered to it, as though speaking to an ally.
And then he climbed again.
Toward the heart of the nightmare.