Chapter 169: The Unfolding Truth XLIX

Third Person POV

Helen slowly began to spin the kusarigama. The heavy iron chain whirled around her slender frame in a hypnotic rhythm, creating a blinding circle of brilliant blue flame, a ring of absolute death and raw power that had been sleeping undisturbed within her bloodline for centuries.

The curved metal blades caught the flickering torchlight, scattering the reflection across the dark stone walls in jagged, broken fragments.

Yet, the intense fire didn’t burn her skin at all.

It danced harmlessly across her fingertips, over her delicate wrists, and through the long, tangled white hair that had completely come loose from its leather bindings.

She took a slow, deliberate step forward. Then another.

At the far edges of the grand room, the remaining armored soldiers frantically pressed their bodies flat against the cold stone walls.

Their hands shook uncontrollably on the hilts of their weapons.

They had already seen exactly what this woman was capable of doing when her rage was unleashed.

They had just watched her strange, ancient weapon drive clean through the abdomen of their untouchable king.

Not a single man among them wanted to be her next target.

Lysander stood perfectly still, watching her approach.

His flat grey eyes were completely unreadable, devoid of any visible emotion.

He didn’t look at his fallen soldiers.

He kept his gaze locked on the approaching storm.

"Attack her," Lysander commanded, his voice cold and flat.

Nobody in the room moved a single inch.

"I said attack her right now!" Lysander roared, his voice booming against the high ceiling rafters.

The soldiers hesitated for a long moment, their breaths hitching in their throats.

Their hands trembled violently against the leather grips of their swords.

They looked back and forth between the ordinary woman radiating blue fire, the bloody corpse of her dead husband lying in the dirt, and the terrifying ocean-blue color burning within her pupils.

Lysander’s jaw clenched tightly, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"Are you seriously hesitating? Are you actually daring to disobey a direct order from your king?"

That final threat was more than enough to break their paralysis.

With loud, feral shrieks, a dozen warriors launched themselves forward through the empty air.

Their human bodies began to shift rapidly mid-flight, bones cracking and expanding as men transformed into massive, bloodthirsty wolves.

Thick fur, sharp fangs, and elongated claws were all aimed directly at the lone woman standing in the center of the hall.

Helen moved with blinding speed.

The kusarigama spun through the air in a single, wide arc.

The heavy blade flew forward, and the blazing iron chain followed right behind it like a striking serpent.

It was one single, clean stroke.

She didn’t need to make multiple strikes for each attacking wolf.

It was just one beautiful, sweeping motion that sliced through the cold air like a quiet whisper.

Three massive wolf heads instantly detached from their bodies, flying through the air before the heavy torsos could even hit the ground.

The curved blade flew right back into her open palm.

Bright red blood sprayed outwards from the links of the chain, dripping off the steel edge and splashing onto the gray floorboards alongside the remains of the wolves who hadn’t even finished their transformation.

She didn’t stop spinning the weapon for a single second.

The remaining soldiers froze completely dead in their tracks.

Their inner wolves stood rigid, the thick hackles along their spines raised high, their eyes wide with absolute horror.

In all their years of fighting kingdom wars, they had never witnessed anything remotely like this.

They had never encountered a creature like her.

Helen casually walked straight past them.

She didn’t even bother to glance in their direction.

They weren’t her targets tonight. They didn’t matter to her anymore.

Lysander took a slow step backward, his boots sliding through the dust.

His heel hit the jagged edge of the broken oak dining table.

He glanced down at the shattered wood for a fraction of a second, then quickly snapped his gaze back up to lock onto Helen.

He was the Alpha King of all known packs. He was the oldest living creature walking the face of this earth.

And right now, in front of his surviving army, he was actively backing away from a single woman.

"Do you actually know why the Moon Goddess decided to make my entire kind extinct for a long time?" Helen asked, walking forward with slow, steady steps as the weapon kept spinning.

Lysander didn’t utter a word in response.

"Oh, it seems like you have completely forgotten your history," Helen said, her voice dropping into an ice-cold register.

"Let me go ahead and refresh your old memory, grandpa."

She mocked him with the word grandpa, while the sharp steel blade hummed loudly as it sliced through the air.

"My kind are incredibly dangerous creatures," Helen continued, her eyes burning brighter. "To the point where we can easily cause absolute havoc to the entire world. Just because of our anger. Just because of the rage inside our hearts."

She took another step closer to his position. While he took another step back.

"So, what exactly did the Moon Goddess do to fix that little problem?" Helen asked, a bitter edge entering her tone. "She gave us something that no other supernatural creature in this world possesses more than we do. She gave us patience. The absolute ability to endure any pain."

"The ability to wait. The ability to hold ourselves back even when everything inside our souls is screaming at us to destroy absolutely everything around us."

She stopped walking, standing just a few feet away from him.

"But you see, everything in this life has its absolute limits, grandpa," Helen whispered, her voice dangerously quiet.

"You should have never overstepped the patience of a nine-tailed fox."

Lysander’s shoulder blades hit the solid stone wall behind him.

There was absolutely nowhere left for him to retreat in this room.

"You brutally murdered my husband right in front of my face," Helen said, stepping even closer.

"The husband of a creature who was specifically given patience just so she wouldn’t create chaos in your world."

Her voice dropped down into a harsh, freezing whisper.

"And not only did you do that. You actually threatened to hunt down and kill my baby."

She was standing just two steps away from him now.

The kusarigama was still spinning in a blur of motion, the bright blue flames illuminating the deep wrinkles on his face.

"Do you honestly know what a mother’s wrath feels like?" Helen asked, tilting her head to the side.

Lysander remained completely silent, keeping his jaw locked tight.

But a sudden, unmistakable flicker appeared deep behind his flat grey eyes.

It was a look that he hadn’t shown in centuries. It was something that looked exactly like raw fear.

"Maybe you don’t," Helen said softly, studying his tense expression.

"You have lived alone for so long that you have completely forgotten what it actually feels like to have a mother. To be loved by one. To be protected by one for her entire life."

The spinning blade suddenly stopped in her hand, hanging perfectly still.

"You went straight after the one single creature the Moon Goddess decided to wipe out," Helen said, her voice remarkably steady. "And not only that. You purposefully took away the only things that kept my patience intact. Do you honestly think you are going to survive what I’m about to do to you?"

She saw it clearly now, a tiny crack in his ancient, arrogant composure.

He was absolutely terrified of her and he was trying his absolute best not to let it show on his face, but she could see right through the mask.

"I am going to completely destroy you," Helen said, raising the weapon high above her shoulder. "Your kingdom. Your army. Absolutely everything connected to your name. I am going to tear it all down to the ground."

She threw the blade straight at his face.

Lysander moved instantly.

He was incredibly fast, far faster than any man of his advanced age had any right to be.

He ducked his head to the side, dodging the flying steel by mere inches.

The sharp blade embedded itself deeply into the solid stone wall right behind his ear, the heavy iron chain rattling loudly as the blue fire hissed against the gray rock.

The king glanced back at the embedded weapon for a split second, then turned his gaze back to Helen, his chest heaving.

"You are incredibly strong, girl," Lysander said, breathing heavily as he adjusted his posture. "I will easily give you credit for that."

He straightened his spine, forcing his shoulders back as the brief flash of fear vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, hardened expression.

"But you should never underestimate the true power of an Alpha King," Lysander said, a cruel smirk returning to his lips.

He slowly raised his right hand into the air.

From the dark shadows of the adjoining corridor, one of his own armored soldiers slowly stepped into the grand hall.

The warrior wasn’t moving forward because he wanted to.

His legs were moving entirely against his own free will, his boots dragging heavily across the floor.

His arms hung completely limp and useless at his sides.

His eyes were wide open, filled with an absolute, primitive terror as he stared around the room.

He was being violently dragged forward by an invisible force that he couldn’t see or fight against.

Lysander reached out, his hand wrapping tightly around the soldier’s throat, lifting him off his feet.

The young soldier opened his mouth, desperately trying to form words, trying to beg his king for mercy.

But absolutely no sound came out of his throat.

Lysander opened his own mouth wide. In an instant, the soldier’s soul began to violently leave his physical body.

The life force rose upward from the boy’s eyes, his nose, and his open mouth, looking like a thick, wispy white smoke, a glowing mist that should have never been pulled out of a living human being.

The white stream poured straight into Lysander’s open mouth.

The king drank it all down greedily, consuming the essence.

The soldier’s body began to age rapidly right before their eyes.

His smooth skin wrinkled up, shriveling into deep lines.

His flesh turned a sickly, pale grey color, and his eyes sank deep into his skull.

Within a matter of seconds, he looked like a decaying corpse that had been buried in a grave for a hundred years.

Lysander casually dropped the remains. The brittle body crumbled into a pile of ash and bone on the floorboards.

Helen glanced down at the deep wound on Lysander’s stomach.

The horrific gash from her previous attack was actively closing up.

The sliced flesh knitted itself back together seamlessly, the dark blood stopping completely as his skin healed over.

Lysander looked back up at her, his grey eyes shining bright, completely fed and re-energized by the soul he had just swallowed.

"I told you before that you should never underestimate my power," Lysander said, a wide, arrogant smile stretching across his face.

With that, he thrust his open hand directly toward her chest.

And just Helen felt the sudden, crushing pressure hit her instantly. A massive wave of dark magic slammed into her body, trying its best to crush her bones into powder, to twist her limbs out of place, and to break her physical frame the same way he had broken Kai’s father moments ago.

She opened her mouth, her voice cutting through the pressure. A torrent of words poured out of her lips.

They were ancient words, spoken in a language that hadn’t been heard on this earth for centuries.

They came faster and faster, a fierce, overlapping shield of spoken magic that the Alpha King’s power simply could not penetrate.

The crushing pressure around her ribs stopped entirely.

And then Lysander’s grey eyes narrowed into tiny slits, his smile vanishing.

Helen began to spin the kusarigama once again. Faster and faster.