Chapter 39: She is cold

Leon stared in front of him, his eyes pinned on the figure that had come and blocked the attack with their body.

"M..mum?" He managed to speak, the words barely leaving his mouth as he saw her, a massive gaping hole through her chest, blood gushing out of it.

"Mum, mum, no."

Leon staggered forward, rushing to her before she fell. He caught her and went on his knees.

"Mum, no, mum," he called out to her, tears gathering in his eyes, his body began to shake and his breathing changed.

He looked at her and her eyes were still open, she was looking right at him, a smile tugging at her lips.

"My son," she muttered, blood seeped out of her mouth.

"Mum, don’t speak, please don’t. I promise I’ll get you help, I’ll get you treated, please."

"I..m done," his mother said.

"No, you are not. I’ll get you treated, I’ll find a way to fix this, there are mages that can heal you."

He tried to pick her up. She winced badly, she was in immense pain and he could not move her at all. He froze.

"Don’t be sad, Le...on." She raised one of her hands and placed it under his chin. "You are the best thing that happened to me," she spoke, still carrying her smile.

"Mum, please, don’t speak, you’ll be fine, I promise you, mum, I promise, you will be fine," he pleaded with her, his tears falling on her face, he could barely keep himself together.

"I’m sorry I have to leave you, Leon, it’s going to get hard, but I want you to know that it always gets better, you will always win at the end, because my son is a winner, and he will always be one." As those words left her mouth, her hands weakened and dropped from his face, her eyes closing one last time.

"Mum, mum, mummmmm!" He screamed and shook her, but she did not respond.

"Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

His scream came from his guts, it sounded like a creature of the night, his eyes turned bloodshot and blood dropped from his mouth.

Snow was still standing across. She looked at him there, raised her hand, and a massive glowing ball of blood began to form, but in that moment, her body resisted attacking. The scream of Leon was enough to snap her back.

Her eyes turned normal and she looked at Leon kneeling there with his mother in his hands.

Snow froze, her body trembled, her breathing shaky, she opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her, tears streamed down her cheek as she realized what she had done.

Suddenly, guards burst out of the corner and into the hallway, nearly twenty of them.

"There she is, attack!" one of them yelled.

Snow saw them coming, she looked at Leon and looked at them. Conflicted. She knew what she had done, she knew that trying to get Leon to stand for her now was a sin, she wanted to speak to him, but she did not deserve to.

The best option was to allow herself to be captured, but most likely she would be killed right now, she would never get the chance to speak to Leon ever again.

She stared at him until one guard got even closer.

"I’m sorry," she muttered and faced the wall. She blasted a hole through it and shut outwards, her tears were all she left as she went.

The guards rushed past Leon, they tried to attack, but she was gone already.

Leon stayed on his knees, he looked at his mother’s face, her beautiful warm glow was vanishing right before his eyes and it was turning pale.

All sound vanished from Leon’s world, all that remained was his mother’s corpse in his hands and the darkness around.

The guards came to him after they could not stop Snow, they saw Leon holding his mum. They all stopped, seeing that the second mistress of the house was dead.

A few got behind him, and tried to lift him.

"Young master, please get up, young master," they placed their hands under his shoulders and tried to lift him.

Leon struggled to break free. "Let go of me, she is cold, she needs me to warm her up," he yelled, but they kept pulling him back.

"Let go, I said she is cold, let go!" He broke free of their grip and rushed back to his mother, but another guard grabbed him.

"Young master, young master, she is gone, please," the guard pleaded.

"No, mum is cold, she needs to be warm, look at her, she is turning pale!" He screamed, but four guards grabbed him and refused to let him go. Another guard picked her body from the ground.

"Let go, she needs me," Leon yelled, but the guards walked away with the corpse while he was dragged away, still screaming.

The world turned dark for Leon, everything turned slow, every step, every heartbeat. It felt as if his world was shutting down, and it was, he had used all his mana in this fight, he could not even fully heal, and his blood loss had caused him to start losing consciousness. He fought as hard as his body would allow him to stay awake, but it all failed as he went unconscious.

The second wave of the attack had been the worst thing the empire had ever seen. In Belmont alone, more than thirty percent of the population of the town was killed and over fifty percent were heavily injured.

It took one full week after the second wave for them to be able to stop the undead and finally regain control over the town.

The destruction that was faced was deep-rooted and the trauma left behind was at a level where it could never be forgotten. People no longer dared to sleep, dared to move. They locked themselves away, scared that even one step could be the step that led to their very gruesome death.

The worst part, no one knew if it had ended.