Chapter 93: Ch 93: Blood

The brilliant emerald light of the spatial formation shattered, depositing Raidan and his battered guard onto the pristine white marble of the imperial throne room. The transition from the suffocating, ash choked air of the Jonas Mountains to the cool, incense laced atmosphere of Olympus was jarring.

​Kael immediately collapsed to his knees. His ruined armor clattered loudly against the polished floor. The heavy sound echoed up into the towering, vaulted ceilings of the grand hall.

​Four members of the Imperial Blood Guard materialized from the shadows of the massive pillars, their weapons drawn. Upon recognizing their Emperor, they immediately sheathed their blades and dropped into deep bows.

​"Take him to the high clerics," Raidan commanded. "He requires immediate restorative magic. Spare no expense."

​Two guards rushed forward, carefully lifting Kael by his shoulders and carrying him toward the medical wing. The remaining guards stood at absolute attention, though Raidan could see the subtle trembling in their hands. They could feel the overwhelming, suffocating aura radiating from his body. He was leaking primordial power with every breath.

​The heavy oak and gold doors at the far end of the throne room burst open.

​Naida ran into the hall. Her glowing white hair trailed behind her like a comet. She wore an elegant gown of spun silver, her supreme thermal blessing radiating a comforting, warm light. However, as she rushed toward the center of the room, she abruptly stopped.

​Her radiant blue eyes widened in pure shock.

​Raidan stood perfectly still, letting his wife process the monumental change in his existence. His physical features remained largely the same, but the energy contained within his flesh was terrifying. His skin seemed to absorb the ambient light of the room.

​"Raidan. What did you do? The entire palace is shaking. The sky outside turned completely purple for ten minutes. The grand clerics felt a massive rupture in the fabric of the world."

​"I made a necessary adjustment to our future," Raidan answered, holding out his hand to her.

​Naida closed the distance, reaching out to take his hand. The moment her fingers brushed against his skin, she gasped. Her supreme thermal blessing, a power that allowed her to walk through boiling lava completely unharmed, flared defensively. The heat radiating from Raidan was entirely beyond natural fire. It was the ancient, world ending heat of a dying star.

​She did not pull away. She intertwined her fingers with his, looking deeply into his golden eyes.

​"You feel like a god," she breathed softly. "But there is a violence in your soul now. It is heavy, ancient, and endlessly angry."

​"It is the blood of a calamity. I struck a bargain with Ignis, the World Breaker. I freed the beast from its eternal prison, and in exchange, I consumed a drop of its essence. My mortal limitations have been entirely burned away. I now possess the strength required to protect this empire from the Architects of the Heavens."

​Naida turned pale, understanding the sheer gravity of his words. "You freed a primordial beast? The Architects will not just send a warning for this, Raidan. They will send their executioners."

​"They are already on their way," Raidan stated casually.

​He walked up the marble steps and turned, slowly lowering himself onto the Zenith Throne. The massive chair was forged from enchanted celestial steel and lined with the pelts of mythical beasts. As Raidan sat down, the celestial steel hissed aloud. The metal actually began to glow red hot where his hands rested upon the armrests, unable to fully contain the passive draconic energy leaking from his body.

​"Stand behind the throne, Naida. Do not step forward, regardless of what happens in this room. You are my most precious treasure, and I will not risk you catching the edge of a stray attack."

​Naida nodded silently, hurrying up the steps and taking her position behind the massive throne. She summoned her own radiant magic, creating a brilliant shield of white light to protect herself.

​Raidan leaned back, resting his chin on his knuckles. He focused inward, observing the vast, bottomless ocean of power expanding within his chest. One hundred and fifty thousand points of mana. It was an unfathomable reserve. He could feel the intricate weave of the world around him. He could sense the delicate threads of magic woven into the palace walls, the life forces of the guards stationed in the outer corridors, and the frantic movements of the citizens in the lower districts.

​Then, he felt the anomaly.

​It started as a subtle drop in temperature. The warm, golden light of the chandeliers flickered, turning a sickly, pale gray. The ambient sound in the throne room entirely vanished. The crackling of the torches, the distant hum of the city, even the sound of Naida breathing behind him became completely muted.

​In the center of the long carpet leading up to the throne, the fabric of reality began to rot.

​It did not tear like a spatial portal. It simply dissolved into a pitch black, empty void. The laws of physics were being forcibly overwritten by an absolute authority.

​Three figures stepped out of the black nothingness.

​They wore long, flowing robes woven from shadows. They possessed no faces, only smooth, featureless gray masks that seemed to absorb the light around them. They carried long, slender blades made of crystallized void. These weapons did not cut flesh; they erased matter entirely from existence.

​They were the Silent Eradicators, the highest tier of assassins employed by the Architects of the Heavens.

​They did not speak. They did not announce their intentions. They moved with a disturbing, disjointed speed, flickering out of existence and reappearing ten feet closer to the throne in the blink of an eye.

​Raidan did not stand up. He did not draw a weapon. He simply sat perfectly still upon his throne, his golden eyes tracking their erratic movements with absolute clarity. His draconic perception slowed their lightning fast advance into a sluggish crawl.

​"You have trespassed in my domain," Raidan's voice boomed. It was not a physical shout, but a projection of pure draconic authority that shook the very foundations of the world.

​The three assassins ignored the warning. They vanished simultaneously, intending to strike Raidan from three different blind spots. One materialized directly above him, plunging its void blade down toward his skull. The second appeared to his left, aiming for his neck. The third appeared to his right, driving its weapon toward his heart.

​Before the battle with Ignis, this coordinated strike would have meant instant death. Raidan would have desperately tried to use his spatial deflection to survive.

​Now, he simply exhaled.

​He channeled a mere five hundred points of mana into his new S Rank skill, Primordial Flame Control.

​A blinding, violently hot sphere of golden fire erupted outward from his body in a perfect, omnidirectional shockwave. The flames did not behave like normal fire. They possessed an absolute, domineering mass.

​The assassin attacking from above was caught entirely in the blast. The moment the golden fire touched its shadow woven robes, the entity let out a high pitched, shrieking sound. The primordial flame devoured the void energy instantly, incinerating the assassin into a cloud of harmless white ash before its blade could even reach Raidan's hair.

​The assassins on his left and right attempted to retreat, sensing the fatal threat of the golden fire. They tried to dissolve back into the fabric of reality.

​"I did not give you permission to leave," Raidan commanded, raising his right hand.

​He activated his Ultra Mana Control, combining it seamlessly with the draconic fire. The golden flames morphed instantly, forming two massive, ethereal dragon claws. The burning claws shot forward, wrapping around the retreating assassins and physically ripping them out of the void.

​The two faceless entities struggled violently in the burning grip. Their void blades struck the golden claws, but the weapons simply melted away upon contact with the primordial heat.

​Raidan slowly closed his right fist.

​The ethereal dragon claws crushed inward with devastating kinetic force. The assassin on the left simply popped like a fragile balloon, its shadowy form reduced to a scatter of gray dust raining down upon the marble floor.

​Raidan spared the third assassin, keeping it trapped firmly within the burning claw.

He finally stood up from the Zenith Throne, and walked down the steps.

​"You serve the Weavers of Fate. You serve the cowards who hide behind the veil of the heavens. They sent you here to end my existence because they fear the anomaly I represent."

​The assassin did not respond, though it continued to struggle against the crushing pressure.

​"I want you to deliver a message to your masters. Tell them their prison is broken. Tell them the Zenith Emperor has claimed the blood of a calamity, and my empire will no longer kneel to their laws. When I march upon the Serpent Kingdom, they will witness the true definition of a catastrophe."

​Raidan reached out and tapped his index finger against the center of the assassin's gray mask. He channeled a tiny spark of primordial flame directly into the entity's mind.

​"Now, run."

​He released his grip. The golden claw vanished. The terrified assassin hit the floor, scrambling backward before desperately tearing a hole in the fabric of reality and diving into the void, retreating to the higher realms.

​Raidan stood in the center of the ruined carpet, watching the rift slowly seal itself shut.

​Naida slowly walked down the steps, her radiant shield fading into nothingness. She looked at the piles of gray dust scattered across the pristine marble floor. She then looked up at her husband, witnessing the terrifying, absolute power radiating from his silhouette.

​"They will come with an army next time," Naida whispered, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind and resting her head against his broad back.

​"Let them come," Raidan replied, a cold, ruthless smile forming on his lips. "We have an empire to prepare for war."