Novel Full Chapter 1515 Let's End This
Chapter 1515 Let’s End This
Quinlan descended the cathedral steps with Velara at his side.
“Let’s end this, shall we?”
He asked as the dark helmet returned, once again hiding his face.
“…” The Arch Priestess walked with her staff in hand, her posture straight enough to cut glass. Black Fang flanked Quinlan’s other side, the dark coat draped over her shoulders, and her hand resting on the katana’s grip as if she expected the street itself to attack them.
The first block was empty.
Rubble from the initial assault littered the road. Overturned market stalls, cracked cobblestones, and a wagon missing two wheels sitting at an angle against a storefront. Soul soldiers stood at intersections in their blue-skinned stillness, and the few civilians who hadn’t made it to the cathedral watched from behind shuttered windows. Quinlan caught a curtain twitching on the second floor of a tailor’s shop and a pair of eyes vanishing behind it.
By the second block, they had an audience.
A cluster of city watchmen huddled behind a makeshift barricade of crates and furniture. Their weapons were drawn, but none of them were fighting. They stared at the procession, at the armored figure walking down their main road with the Arch Priestess of their cathedral matching his pace, and the confusion on their faces was louder than any battle cry.
The third block brought the first contact.
A young woman in dented plate armor stepped out from behind a collapsed awning. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, and the way her gauntlets trembled said her body hadn’t stopped processing the last few hours. Blood that wasn’t hers stained her left pauldron. A shallow cut ran along her jaw.
She looked at Quinlan, and the terror was immediate and total.
Then her eyes found Velara, and the terror softened into desperate hope.
“Blessed Mother,” she managed to utter with her voice cracking on the second word. She dropped to one knee in the rubble. “Blessed Mother, please, what’s happening? Why are you walking beside the enemy?”
Velara stopped.
The hardness in her face shifted. Her staff pulsed once with warm golden light, and she reached down and took the girl’s hand in both of hers, pulling her back to her feet with a gentleness that belonged in a temple, not in a war-torn street.
“Because I have negotiated with him, child.” Velara’s voice was quiet. “The church and this man are not enemies.”
The girl’s face crumbled. “What? How can that be? He’s attacking us, Blessed Mother. He killed people. He killed soldiers I trained with.”
“He is an enemy of the Kingdom of Vraven,” Velara said, and the words came measured, careful. “But as you know, the church is its own establishment. We abide by the laws of Vraven, but are not incorporated into its governing body.”
The girl’s grip tightened on Velara’s hands. Her eyes welled.
“Then… then what about me? What about my family? Will we be killed?”
“He has made it clear that anyone who surrenders will be spared.”
“But my duty…” The girl looked down at the sword still strapped to her hip. “My livelihood, Blessed Mother. I’m a soldier. This is all I know. What should I do?”
Velara held the girl’s gaze for a long moment.
“That is for you to decide, child. Consult your heart.”
The girl stood there in the middle of the ruined street with tears cutting lines through the dust on her cheeks. Her hand moved to her sword. Her fingers closed around the grip.
She squeezed once.
Then she pulled the sword from her belt, held it at her side for a breath that lasted longer than it should have, and let it fall. The steel clattered against the cobblestones.
She knelt before Quinlan.
The watchmen behind the barricade watched in silence. One by one, swords hit the ground. Knees hit the stone. A sergeant was the last to drop his weapon, his jaw so tight the muscles in his neck stood out like cords, but he knelt.
Quinlan looked at them.
So he kept it short. He didn’t deliver speeches about the future. He didn’t make promises. He was their conqueror, here to demand their surrender, and Quinlan respected their resentment. It was how people like these defenders were meant to feel in this moment.
“Fighting with your life on the line is brave. Dying a useless death when the battle is already lost is stupidity, and I will not call your surrender dishonorable. You fought. You lost. There is no shame in that.”
Tight nods. Grudging acceptance from people who had no other option. A few of the watchmen looked at Velara, as if checking whether the Arch Priestess’s presence meant the words could be trusted, and her curt nod gave them enough to swallow the reality without choking on it.
The procession grew.
Block by block, street by street, the pattern repeated. Soul soldiers pulled back as Quinlan advanced, creating pockets of calm in the occupied city. Defenders saw the Arch Priestess at his side and hesitated. Civilians emerged from hiding when the golden light of Velara’s staff pulsed through the dust-choked air. Some surrendered immediately. Others needed convincing, a word from Velara, a look at the soul soldiers standing in perfect formation behind the man in black armor, the simple arithmetic of a fight they could not win.
The procession swelled. Disarmed soldiers walked behind them in loose columns, their weapons collected by soul soldiers who carried the steel in organized bundles. Civilians fell in at the edges, some clutching children, some clutching prayer beads, all of them watching the back of the armored man who had taken their city in less than an afternoon.
Quinlan reached the eastern market district in time to hear steel on steel.
Count Aldren stood at the center of a defensive formation, his sword drawn, his officer’s cloak torn at the shoulder. Three squads of armored infantry held a tight perimeter around the market fountain while soul soldiers pressed from two streets, while a certain pink-haired woman with tattoos was spamming flower constructs to make the defenders’ lives hell. The Count was directing the defense with sharp gestures and a voice that hadn’t lost its authority despite the collapse happening around him.
Then he looked up.
The procession filled the boulevard behind Quinlan. Hundreds of disarmed soldiers and civilians walking in the wake of a man flanked by an assassin in a dark coat and an Arch Priestess with a golden staff.
Count Aldren lowered his sword by an inch.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” he called to Velara.
The Arch Priestess looked at him across the courtyard. “That is for you to decide, Count Aldren.”
“But you’ve already decided.”
Velara’s chin lifted. “The Whisperfield Church does not wish to fight the Primordial Villain.”
The Count stared at her for a long moment. Then at Quinlan. Then, at the procession behind them, at the hundreds of his own people who had already surrendered.
The sword lowered the rest of the way.
“Public execution?” he asked.
Quinlan raised an eyebrow. “No. What do you take me for? A bloodthirsty barbarian?”
Count Aldren looked at him with the driest expression in recorded history. “You just invaded my city.”
“Yeah, to claim it.”
“…”
“There’s a difference.”
The Count let out a breath. “So what happens to my people and me?”
“Peaceful integration, if you’re willing to play along.”
“Peaceful integration,” Aldren repeated the words like he was tasting something suspect. “Into what, exactly?”
“The future.”
Aldren’s face flattened further. “We’re surrounded by Elvardia. The undead lords must be furious over the minions we’ve destroyed during the siege. They’ll want to replenish their reserves by harvesting my people. What peaceful integration are you talking about?”
Quinlan smiled.
“You’re right. That’s why we must leave.”
Count Aldren blinked. “…What?”
…
The blue-skinned soldiers pulled back.
It happened all at once, across every contested street and occupied intersection. One moment, they held their positions with that eerie, disciplined stillness. Next, they withdrew in coordinated waves, flowing out of the districts like a tide retreating from shore.
The defenders who had been bracing for the next push looked out at empty streets.
Then the runners came.
“Count Aldren is calling for all forces to gather in the main square!” A breathless messenger sprinted past a cluster of bewildered watchmen. “All soldiers, all officers, all civilian leaders! Main square, immediately!”
“What? Why?”
“Count’s orders! Move!”