adbindia Chapter 257: The Centurion
Chapter 257: The Centurion
Within the Soul Link, there was only a vast, ringing silence.
Punishment Legion Centurion No. 269 stood at the absolute edge of the stagnation
zone, the soulfire in his sockets vibrating with a frantic intensity. He
attempted to hail any of his comrades within the grey field, but he received
zero response.
The soldiers frozen by the [Space-Time Cage] had had their very consciousness
locked away. Aside from himself and the Aegis Legion units maintaining the
shield at the city gates, there wasn't a single mobile Evernight unit left on
the prairie. Tens of thousands of elite vanguard troops had been reduced to an
immovable forest of bone.
No. 269's gaze swept across the silent battlefield. Hundreds of thousands of
Necrotic Realm thralls and Imperial soldiers were frozen in a chaotic
mosaic—some in mid-stride, others with weapons raised to strike. It looked
like a gargantuan tapestry, violently paused by the hand of a God.
He knew that the broadcast range of the Soul Link had been throttled by the
enemy's arrival. But he had to try. He bypassed every intermediate protocol,
aiming his focus directly at the highest authority of the Evernight Empire.
[My Sovereign!]
As expected, there was no reply. But No. 269 did not cease his broadcast.
[My Sovereign, you once taught us that a soldier who fights to the death without
a plan is a fool. Yet, today the Empire has been out-calculated by pests. Tens
of thousands of your finest have been taken without a blade being drawn.]
His voice echoed into the void of the link, heard only by himself.
[This is the failure of your servant. It is a stain upon the Empire's glory.]
With those words, he unslung his Bone-Cleaving Greatsword. The heavy iron
manifested in his grip with a sharp clack.
"PUNISHMENT LEGION. CENTURION. UNIT DESIGNATION: 269!"
"INITIATING ACTIVE CHARGE!"
No. 269 didn't wait for a response he knew wouldn't come. He turned and ignited
his Od, his boots shattering the earth as he broke into a frantic sprint toward
the gargantuan silhouette on the horizon.
He was charging Thanatos, the King of the Necrotic Realm, the architect of this
war.
The Liches flanking Thanatos spotted the moving variable instantly.
"An outlier. A rat that escaped the cage." "Process him."
Across the blood-soaked prairie, No. 269 became a streak of sapphire light
weaving through the frozen bone-sea. He moved with staggering velocity,
constantly banking and pivoting, using the statuesque bodies of the Necrotic
thralls as physical cover to break the line of sight from the casters above.
Elite units from the Necrotic Realm lunged to intercept, but No. 269 refused to
engage. He swerved around the high-tier hunters, intentionally diving into the
densest clusters of frozen Tier 3 and 4 thralls where the casters would have to
risk friendly fire.
The Necrotic mage-batteries didn't care about collateral damage.
Dozens of curse-rays converged on his position, weaving an inescapable web of
neon-green light across the sky. No. 269 performed a violent roll, the first ray
grazing his pauldron. But the second and third were surgical, locking onto his
trajectory.
A curse struck his right arm. The bone withered and corroded instantly, turning
a sickly black. No. 269 didn't slow down. He tossed his greatsword to his left
hand mid-stride and continued the assault. More curses landed.
Sloth. Weakness. Fragility. Senescence.
The negative status-effects clung to him like leeches, methodically eroding his
physical parameters. His velocity dropped. His soulfire began to dim.
But he kept moving forward.
Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle tore through the air from above. No. 269 looked
up to see thousands of obsidian arrows trailing plumes of dark energy,
descending like a localized storm. The Bone Withers had synchronized their fire.
He reached for the pouch at his waist, his fingers brushing the cool glass of an
Emerald's Respite vial. But his fingertips had barely made contact when the
impact arrived.
BOOM!
A series of thunderous explosions consumed the sector, kicking up a blinding
curtain of dust and grit. When the air cleared, only a massive, smoking crater
remained.
At the bottom of the pit lay a single, scorched skull. It was all that remained
of No. 269.
His frame had been pulverized. As the fragments began to vibrate, attempting to
reassemble, dozens of grey Mana-chains shot from the shadows. They wrapped
around the partially formed skeleton, pinning it to the floor of the crater with
the weight of a mountain.
The soulfire in the skull still burned. No. 269 thrashed within the chains, but
they held a powerful sealing Authority that strangled his ability to channel
Mana.
In the distance, Thanatos lowered his right hand. The Crimson Boundary resumed
its crawl, claimining Gale City and its protective dome within its red reach.
Once the city was fully enveloped, Thanatos ceased his output. His Od was
currently below thirty percent—a dangerous threshold should a counter-assault
manifest.
He turned toward the prisoner in the pit. "Bring the outlier to me."
Two Liches glided forward, using their magic to hoist the shackled skeleton from
the dirt and present it to their King. Thanatos looked down at the skull from
his towering height. He spoke with a calm, flat curiosity.
"Will you submit to my banner?" he asked. There was no mockery in his voice,
only logic. "I can grant you anything your soul craves. Strength. Status. A
legion of your own to command. Even the 'Glory' you seem to value so highly."
No. 269 offered no verbal response. He was vibrating within the chains, focusing
every ounce of his remaining logic on attempting to detonate his own soul core.
He wanted to die on his own terms.
Thanatos recognized the defiance in the flickering blue flame. He adjusted his
terms.
"Since you decline citizenship, provide the intelligence I require. The secret
of your immortality. The logic of your resurrection."
"In exchange, I shall grant you your freedom. You may depart this world."
At this, a raspy, clicking laugh erupted from No. 269's jaw. The sound echoed
across the prairie, dripping with unadulterated scorn.
"Pathetic ants!" he wheezed. "You dare peer into the Evernight?!"
Thanatos's soulfire remained still. Over thousands of years, he had broken a
million "Hard-Bones." As a King of the Dead, he knew exactly what the Undead
feared most. He raised a hand, addressing the Liches.
"Tear at his soulfire. Do not wait for his frame to recover. Feast upon his
spark until it winks out."
"And when he returns... repeat the process."
The Lich paused, then bowed in realization of the King's cruelty. He turned to
the nearby Tier 4 thralls.
A dozen Skeleton Swordsmen surrounded the prisoner. They unhinged their jaws,
revealing jagged, yellowed teeth, and began to greedily drink from No. 269's
soulfire.
Being consumed while fully sentient triggered a level of agony that bypassed the
nerves and struck the very essence of the soul. No. 269 thrashed, his logic
circuits screaming for the release of self-destruction, but he could only watch
as his spark was methodically devoured, piece by piece.
Crunch. Click.
More thralls swarmed the skull, their mindless hunger eroding his identity.
No. 269's vision dimmed. The blue fire flickered, sputtered, and finally died.
Three seconds of absolute silence followed.
Then, the soulfire ignited once more.
He had barely regained awareness—barely processed the lingering echo of his own
death—when the thralls lunged back in.
No. 269 gritted his teeth, his jawbone clattering with the strain of the pain.
Between the sound of grinding bone, he whispered a single mantra.
"The Evernight... is with me."
☆☆☆
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