The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 857: Even Gods Bleed

Critically injured, yet a god was a god.

Once the combined might of Lightbringer, Nimrel, Star-Spring, Ruinweaver, and Faerunian transcedents started knocking out Beast Nation transcendents, the ancient god opened his eyes.

He was barely conscious, not even fully aware of the situation, but his instincts warned him of the imminent threat, and the god of beasts returned to his most natural state.

Primal rage.

He cared for nothing anymore; his survival instincts took over all voices inside. The Beast God unleashed the full might of his physical form. It was even a step above what he had unleashed before Illuminator, Nimrel, and Nerenis.

Even the combined might of the three most powerful primordial gods, and even that abomination Lightbringer, fell short against the most divine of the Beasts. Still, it wasn’t completely one-sided like before. There was a chance. A tiny window of opportunity, but opportunity it was.

The Beast God sent flying every warrior that came close. The scheming lord of decay—Ruinweaver, the proud queen of elves—StarSpring, the unnatural fury of light and fire-Lighbringer, and the beloved God of Music. All were the same to him.

Even the monstrous abilities Lightbringer showed using First Dawn to the fullest were barely keeping him alive. The others had no time to react to Lightbringer’s questioning strength. The transcendents from Faerunia were long since dead. Lightbringer matched the strength of the scions. Even Nimrel, the strongest of the new generation gods, was lacking in explosive strength compared to his nephew.

Harmon enjoyed describing in detail how the arrogant queen of elves was slammed into dirt and stone alike again and again, all her beauty and elegance, battered and bruised beneath the feet of Drazhan Kaelvar Thalaras.

Rage. Rage is a monstrous thing. It benefits no one.

Harmon and Kelmira were trying their best to keep the injured beastmen transcendents alive with the limited high-grade healing potions they had. Beast Nation was our neighbour, though we fought at times—the bond between our two kingdoms was better than most.

Harmon and Kelmira did not think it wise to go against the scions and Lightbringer. For they knew, they could not face those centuries-old monsters. Lightbringer was supposed to be their friend, and yet he had not listened to any reason, expecting that from others was simply foolish.

They knew some of the beast god’s descendants personally, so helping them was a given. If Lightbringer was with them, they would have even supported Beast Nation’s claim on the divine blood of their patron god. But they were just two against so many. Neither Harmon nor Kelmira were true fighter class; they were craftsmen and explorers.

As the two of them tried their best to ignore the gruesome battle and heal the beastmen, suddenly, Ruinweaver was sent flying towards them, even though they were quite far from the battle. Ruinweaver crashed near Kelmira. Harmon left the beastmen and rushed towards Kelmira; she, too, had sensed the threat and had made a run for it.

But moments later, an enormous aura fist came crashing down from the heavens. In his fury, the Beast God couldn’t even recognize his own descendants. That attack was the strongest one he had unleashed since the start of this insane battle.

None could run or fly fast enough to escape that. Harmon saw Kelmira use her Vein Caller job skill to split the land and enter inside. He also activated the strongest defensive runic tool he had on him and enhanced it with his skills.

Ruinweaver also used his decay spells to dig a hole inside the earth, in the hopes that the land would cushion the blow enough to prevent instant death.

The fist of pure aura was so ridiculous in raw power that it broke through all the protection spells Harmon had prepared with his runic tools. The old fourth ranker swore nothing in his life had hit him hard enough after becoming a fourth ranker than that fist.

Harmon lost consciousness. In the darkness of his mind, he was fighting a battle to stay alive. Though fragile before a god’s attack, his runic tools were made using prime spells. Among all who were crushed beneath the fist, he was the one who had received the least amount of damage.

When Harmon’s mind returned to him after the darkness, he was in the golden palace of Dawnstar. It had been ten days since the day of the battle.

Unbelievable as it was, the God of Beasts was dead.

It wasn’t without casualties, though. Only Ruinweaver and Lightbringer were left alive from all who had fought.

Nimrel was dead. So was Star-Spring. And plenty of others.

Kel.. My wife, My Kelmira.. She wasn’t even a part of the faithless fight and yet..

My sorrow was limitless. When Harmon returned home with all our people that Lightbringer had somehow received from Eldoris, now that one of Star-Spring’s daughters was the queen. And told me all that had happened, I was devastated and mad with unreleased rage.

The Stone God, Stone Father Branthur, chose me as his scion. I was beyond furious with him for not helping his only daughter. The Stone Father tried to talk sense into me, but I was too bullheaded to listen.

The anger in me reached the boiling point when Stone Father said the gods had talked among themselves and had decided not to interfere. They had stopped the fight between Sea God and Beast God and had even punished the Sun God for interfering and breaking the divine code. The Beast God was still relatively new to his powers as a fifth ranker.

Beast God had fought hundreds because of the death of his one distant descendant, and here my own god was saying fighting would just make everything worse? Was Lightbringer right? For the gods, were we mere insects, living on their mercy, constantly worshipping them without any complaint?

Of course, more than the Stone God, I was made on myself for ever letting Kelmira go beyond those doors. Stone Father was the wisest among all the gods. If I were a better believer, better king, better husband.. I would have listened to him.

War in the name of my peace-loving wife was the worst possible mistake I could have made. And I did just that.

It didn’t even make sense. Beast God killed my wife, and I went after Ruinweaver and the innocent people of Ashkara. The Beast Nation had already waged war against Dawnstar. The lords of Dawnstar begged before Lightbringer to lead them. The exaggerated tale of Lightbringer killing the Beast God had spread far and wide by now.

One of the Dawnstar Dukes, a distant relative of the Illuminator himself, led the second most powerful house in Dawnstar, called the Blackfire. The head of house Blackfire was chosen as heir to Nimrel by the Sun God, but the country had been too divided by then.

You see, after killing a god, both Ruinweaver and Lightbringer had reached the very peak of their potential. Lightbringer had transcended once again in just under a century—the fastest fourth ranker in the entire living history, they said. People had started calling him the Battle God, mostly influenced by the title Illuminator had given him in his teenage years—The Battle Born.

Ruinweaver, on the other hand, seemed to delve deeper and deeper into his decay spell research. With newfound knowledge of mana and the world around him, the dark mage was full of new, horrifying ideas. People around him heard him mutter, making the most powerful spell possible in the world. For some reason, he believed he would become a true god if he achieved that.

The God of Chaos, just like his scion, didn’t much care for the mainland or humanity in general as long as they had some chaos going on to occupy their time.

With the queen of elves’ death, the seal placed on Fallen Branch had finally been lifted. Even though Ruinweaver did not care about his kingdom, she did. Ignoring her partner’s newfound obsession, Fallen Branch raised an army from what remained of Ashkara after all the wars and disasters and led the charge towards the borders to face me and the might of Bouldor behind my back.

The battle was a brutal one. I had chosen only those from Bouldor who truly craved war and violence, for I was too far gone to care for anything else other than carving a path straight to reach Ruinweaver and kill the bastard.

The only reason for this misguided vengeance of mine was the last few moments of Harmon’s consciousness before he blacked out. Kelmira’s Vein Caller ability could create instant paths beneath the land. I believed she had survived but somehow captured or died by the hands of Ruinweaved—the one closest to her when the fist landed.

Lightbringer was crowned as king of Dawnstar, and the new king, with the army of his supporters, raised banners to protect Dawnstar against the Beast Nation’s invasion.

Between all of this, Faerunia had quietly crowned a stranger their king. Someone called The Blue Abyss—Nemeir—another of the Sea God’s children.