The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 858: Beasts of Ocean & Shards of Doom

Other than Eldoris, under the rule of Aeryth, Goddess of fog and secrets, the entire mainland was burning in the ruthless fire of war.

Dawnstar was already split in two. The ones who respected strength and opportunities more than an uncaring god, who let their prince of love die, were supporting Lightbringer. And the ones who still remembered and feared the ancient Sun God crowned the head of Blackfire, Rivena Blackfire. The new scion of Sun God.

She was also the first transcendent scion ever in history. The division was clear: strength or faith.

Lightbringer had charged towards Beast Nation with his supporters, and Rivena was trying her best to protect the border of northern Dawnstar with her people. The stranger king of Faerunia was hellbent on fighting anyone willing. Later, we learned that King Nemeir was none other than Nerenis’s older brother.

From what I observed in a few fleeting moments, even today, Faerunia is still not ruling the mainland in its entirety. So I believe the Sea God is still following his own divine code.

You see, the Sea God, much like the Beast God, was slightly different than other gods. The two of them could still reproduce with their physical form, unlike other gods. And both gods had claimed territories since ancient times. The master of the water element ruled the open seas and could drown the entire mainland beneath the ocean any time he wished. But he still needed believers, like every other god.

So he was permitted by other gods to send one of his children to the mainland to keep his name alive. If the sea-born was killed by followers of any other gods while doing that, the Sea God was not to interfere.

Over the centuries, the Sea God had fathered numerous children. Most of which were enormous sea creatures unfit to remain on land. But some were intelligent, powerful, and able to live outside water. They were called Tidewalkers.

Only those were sent to the mainland by him. For the outside world, they usually pretended to be a part of the Faerunian royal family. But some old houses of Faerunia knew the truth, and for that, their loyalty to their god was unshakable.

Unlike other gods’ scions, the Sea God did not interfere with the matters of the mainland, leaving everything to his children’s own will. His children always did their best to win their father’s approval, though if they strayed too far from the path set for them, there was a serious chance of being replaced.

The Blue Abyss, Nemeir chose the path of vengeance. Nerenis wasn’t the most beloved of her family for no reason. Over the centuries, she had healed and cared for as many of her siblings as she could. The competition among the Tidewalkers was a brutal one; some had even died fighting each other for the chance to stay on the mainland.

And yet, Nerenis, despite being one of the strongest, was also the kindest one.

Nemeir did not care about which kingdom was at the end of his spear; he did not care for his own fate; he only wished for vengeance. The Faerunian noble houses, after losing their beloved queen at the hands of a god, along with many of their family members, fully supported The Blue Abyss’s

path of destruction.

Faerunians fought against Dawnstar, against the Beast Nation, and even joined in our battle against the Fallen Branch and Bouldor. Creating a chaotic mix of death and destruction.

The might of Ashkawa wasn’t great, and we, the dwarves, were untouched by battle till then. The powerful Fallen Branch wasn’t anything like a typical transcendent; many of my people died at the clever warrior’s hand. But, at the end of the day, our runic tools and greater numbers easily dominated the battlefield, even with the Faerunians’ interruption.

And then the day came when I landed the last overwhelmingly powerful attack using the steel titan, and ended the tragic tale of Fallen Branch.

The greatest mistake of my life. The whole war was a mistake. If I had retired and made my son king, listening Stone Father’s words.. things might have been different.

Were I wise then as I am weary now, the stones would not whisper my failures so loudly.

We won.

Bouldor took almost the whole Ashkara. But I wasn’t content; After I had killed Ruinweaver, my next plan was to take as much of the falling Beast Nation as possible before Lightbringer had it all.

Before Lightbringer, no descendant of Beast God was worthy enough. The Battleborn needed no lessons in waging war. The rumors were that he gave every beast tribe two options: either kneel before him or be killed. Pride was the greatest strength of the beastmen, in loyalty, even we dwarves looked up to those masters of fist and fury.

It was given that more would choose to die than to be enslaved by a faithless heretic.

And it was a very wise choice not to surrender. Lightbringer, that bastard, somehow knew the truth of gods. After he had taken over the whole of Beast Nation, all the beastmen gathered by him were burned alive in a massive fire.

We were all busy in our wars and had failed to notice that the beastmen pathfinders were not as strong as they should have been. Being a believer of a god gives one strength. But that connection works both ways. A true god needed his followers’ strength and memories to take another physical form.

This process isn’t instant either. Beast God had taken more than he should have from his believers to take another physical form as soon as possible and enact his vengeance against the ones who had killed him.

But by killing thousands of beastmen, Lightbringer delayed the Beast God’s process of reincarnation to centuries instead of decades.

Well.. that was still not the most terrifying event of our age.

The words of his wife’s demise had finally reached the mad king, Ruinweaver. We were celebrating our victory. Too arrogant to believe anything can take Ashkara from our hands now.

We were wrong.

The scion of the Chaos God was the most unhinged individual I had ever met. By all definitions, the man was a monster. Till this day, I have no idea what the Fallen Branch had seen in him that inspired her to be so loyal to him.

Ruinweaver stopped his insane research. Before this day, he had not stopped creating this spell of his for even a second. Not leaving for food or anything at all. He hadn’t talked to anyone face-to-face for months. Anyone who did anything to distract him was killed in the most gruesome way possible.

This spell was his everything.

Who knew what revelations the divine had shown him after killing a true god that the slightly insane king had lost all his humanity and had literally started to become a God of Ruin.

And he was interrupted while finishing this spell by the words of his wife’s demise.

In the dark of night, Ruinweaver flew straight towards the army of Bouldor, destroying everything that came in his path. No dwarf could match him, I knew, so Harmon and I went ourselves. The God of Ruin against the two Gods of runic tool users. Needless to say, the decay esper powers of Ruinweaver were the bane of our craftsman abilities.

But unlike Harmon, who could use limited runic weapons and tools at a time, I was a true warrior-class fighter. With my army of thousands of steel golems, the enormous steel titan I had built for decades, and the considerable assistance of Harmon and his prime spell runic tools—we pummeled the God of Ruin to the ground.

Defeating a god as old as Ruinweaver was not easy at all. But somehow my fury had won over his. I questioned the bastard again and again where my wife was or what he had done to her that day—but the bastard only kept laughing maniacally.

Maybe I was seeing things, maybe the battle had worn me out.. but in that crazy laugh of his, in those lost dark eyes of his.. I saw a glimpse of myself.

What was the difference between him and me?

Ruinweaver had ignored his god, and so did I.

The loss of his lover had destroyed all remaining reason left in him, and what wise things had I done after losing Kelmira?

There was no fear of death in the eyes of this man, who had lost everything. And.. wasn’t I hoping to find something similar going against Lightbringer right after Ruinweaver?

I hesitated to end him; my hammer stopped.

But the mad king’s laughter did not stop.

The God of Ruin had chosen the fate of ruin long before we had started fighting. For the whole battle, he was holding his damned abomination of a spell he had worked on for centuries to complete.

Those horrifying words he said as he activated the spell repeat constantly in my head day and night.

’Dwarf… a broken god still has one shard left. Doomshard… may your mountains choke on the shadow of my greatest creation. Activate Doomshard.’