Intermission – Quella – Undead Curse & Chimeric Menace – Part Three (Illustrations!)

Intermission – Quella – Undead Curse & Chimeric Menace – Part Three (Illustrations!)

And so, fifteen minutes later, Kaiho grew twenty times his size. He was big enough for us to jump in his shell, and he swam through the air, over the cliff, and headed towards the city in the distance. Its walls were partly crumbling. The closer we got, the more awful the smell became. There wasn’t anything green or resembling life anywhere. Hordes of undead mindlessly walked through the deaf forests below us, and we saw them get attacked by undead wolves, zombie hawks, and skeleton alligators that lived in the blackest, most putrid rivers imaginable. Nêww chapters will be fully updated at novelhall.com

Kaiho landed at the city’s gates—on the south side. Thirty stumbling undead were protecting the entrance. They were called decayed guardians, and they were Lv. 44. The armor was rusted, but their exposed bones shimmered and glowed with charged electricity.

Remy pulled her daggers and merely walked forward.

“[Temporal Slowness].” A white fog burst from her body, slowing everything within by a factor of 100.

That included us.

From our point of view, she moved faster than lightning, zipping between each monster and severing their heads. Enele clapped his hands and used a barrier to make us immune to the effects, and the inverse happened.

The decayed guardians were the ones who acted as if they were standing still.

But then Remy teleported into the air. Then to the left. And the right. And there were four of her, yet she was also standing beside us, juggling her daggers.

But...

Remy laughed and said our confusion was adorable.

Whatever power she held...it was on a different level. Slowing time and teleporting? Was she fast enough to be in five spots while continuing a conversation? Was each teleport bringing a Remy from another world or time to fight in her place?

Or was it something else?

Nothing made sense about her. When the last monster died, she sheathed her weapons and said she wanted us to redeem ourselves from the earlier showing.

Enele remained quiet when I looked to him for help. If I was right, his neutrality was really being tested, or maybe I was naïve enough to think that.

Regardless, we entered the city, enduring a hazy mist of oppressive death that was thick and visible. Breathing was difficult. We were given a debuff, reducing our mana and stamina. Even a mere [Heat Wave], which I used to melt a group of acid ghouls, required drastically more resources. They exploded and dissolved a nearby house, which held thirty zombie rats. They spread like the plague, charging straight for us. I was about to wipe them out when Elly started to sing. She cried and sang [Healing Melody], the deep and haunting lyrics about a girl who wanted her friends to rest in peace.

In shadows cast, where memories reside,

A whispered melody, where sorrow abides,

A girl with a heavy heart, her voice so serene,

Singing a haunting song, to lay souls serene.

[Healing Melody], flow into the night,

Ease the weary hearts, in eternal flight,

Grant them solace, where darkness is released,

Let them find their peace, in eternal sleep.

With gentle notes, she weaves a mournful tale,

Of love once cherished, now lost to the veil,

Her voice resonates, piercing through the gloom,

To bring solace and rest, beyond the tomb.

May the echoes of her song, reach the distant shores,

To mend broken spirits, where anguish soars,

For in the depths of her sorrowful strain,

Lies the power to heal, to soothe all pain.

[Healing Melody], flow into the night,

Ease the weary hearts, in eternal flight,

Grant them solace, where darkness is released,

Let them find their peace, in eternal sleep.

As tears fall like rain, her voice carries on,

Guiding lost souls to a tranquil dawn,

With each mournful verse, she bids them depart,

To find solace in slumber, and peace in their heart.

In the realm of shadows, her song remains,

A healing requiem, where sadness wanes,

May her melody bring peace to the undead,

And grant them the rest they longed for, as she said.

Her voice was so pretty, but it was corrosive poison to the rats. They groaned in pain and almost melted from the inside out, and it attracted even more undead. They all ran to Elly from everywhere in the city, and her singing strengthened. She used every drop of mana, then forced herself to continue, acquiring an ability to overdraw her mana at the risk of limiting herself in the future.

For thirty minutes, we listened. The undead wails and groans tried to drown out our idol's voice.

But Elly never stopped. She refused to quiet. Elly became an idol to help people with the power of music. She yearned for her voice to be a source of hope, not death. And even though she was killing, she probably hoped our enemies received relief on the other side.

The only one who wasn’t crying was Remy. The heartless bitch didn’t have a soul. She didn’t have an ounce of humanity resting in her rotting core.

When it was all said and done, Elly dropped to her knees and gasped for air. She formed fists, silently crying away her feelings before standing up. Her mana bar, now red, not blue, was draining slowly. Until it emptied, she couldn’t use any magic.

But that didn’t stop us.

We pushed past the horde of undead attracted to Elly’s singing and reached the large castle in the middle of town, taking out any stragglers along the way. It was dangerous to fight the undead close, so it was up to me to kill them with my magic. Even with the debuff, my mana regenerated at a crazy rate.

We encountered liches and undead abominations inside the castle’s gate. There was a front courtyard standing in front of the building. The liches were tall and skeletal, with withered flesh stretched across their bony appearance. Of the four I saw, two were dressed like royalty and wore crowns of bones. They used unholy magic via their bone scepters to raise the dead. They barked orders in a raspy voice, sending chills to my bones.

They spoke Arezzian.

The other two were bald, but they were dressed like spell casters. Long, tattered robes loosely clung to their bodies. They each wore ten rings and floated two feet above the ground. I activated [Mana Perception] and almost lost my mind. It... Everything was just the color of death. The undeath energy radiated enough to nearly suffocate me. I didn’t regain my sense of reasoning until Melusine grabbed my shoulders and whispered for me to be calm in my ears.

My tome fluttered and opened its pages while I prepared another [Heat Wave]. Melusine summoned her wings and flew in, launching an assault of [Ice Hail] and [Cursed Ice Spear]. She was agile and avoided the incoming necrotic bolts of gross green energy. When the time was right, I dashed around the wall and sent my prepared spell their way. The hazy wave of incredibly superheated air melted the ground in moments. The liquid remains bubbled and boiled like the witches preparing a cauldron in a play involving a woman orchestrating her way into becoming the Queen of Scotland.

The undead archers focused their hail of bony arrows on Melusine and were killed immediately. The liches turned around too late. They didn’t hear anything, and they died an agonizingly painful death.

The Sanctus Tome is now available for use.

My Ember Tome turned an intense shade of white and altered forms to look like a holy book. The abilities it held were [Divine Light], a spell to cast a radiant light that wasn’t blinding to illuminate the darkness, [Sacred Shield], a spell that created a transparent shield around the target, offering physical and magical resistance, [Benediction], a prayer type spell that healed my allies within an area, [Serenity’s Embrace], a spell designed to soothe the mind and erase anger and aggression, and [Divine Harmony], a spell to cleanse ourselves of debilitating status effects.

It was clearly meant for support, not offense. But we had a new healing spell. It was effective.

That chimera... It wasn’t going to get away.

We felt more confident, and I had the Sanctus Tome ready when we entered the castle. Unfortunately, [Divine Harmony] didn’t work to remove the one debuff we were affected by. Could I apply a debuff immunity status effect? Maybe, but I didn’t know my Soul Weapon had a form with that spell.

Melusine wondered if what she felt was what we experienced when we entered her castle in the dungeon.

“It was a sense of awe and wonder,” I told her, wiping out another group of liches. Their weakness to flames was one thing, but I was starting to understand just how wide the gap of power was between the undead, myself, and that chimera.

They went down like styrofoam boxes.

And we went down like a lion swatting a toy block.

The divide was massive. I knew I was practically a toddler when it came to living in this world, but the difference was staggeringly annoying.

Enele said he felt dark energy coming from the prisons below, but to get there, we needed to walk around the outer halls to reach the inner sanctum. There existed a secret path to the armory and barracks. Going through via the castle was quicker than looping around the city, although I wondered why we couldn’t fly there on Kaiho.

It was probably dangerous.

[Sacred Shield] worked wonders in letting Ami and Greggie join the fight. The defensive spell protected them against wayward scratches or vile magic, and these undead were physically weak to their raw power. Remy had to make crude jokes about Greggie’s weight. She meant for it to be endearing, but that was a load of shit. She said it to be hurtful. Greggie tuned her out and focused on fighting.

He'd gotten better, for sure. His weight was still a problem. I knew he wasn’t as agile or fit as he wanted, but his status as a Soul Warrior helped fill the gaps.

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“Sorry, but if you’re thinking I’m one of them. I’m not. Lord Enele can attest to that, right?”

“How’d you know what I was thinking?” My voice sounded dead. There was no tone. I couldn’t formulate the strength to do anything other than talk.

“Because we’re soul mates, Cutie Qutie. Teehee!”

Lord Enele finally broke his silence and said he was there when Remy joined Bellerophon. They were a guild of chimera hunters—often called their bane—who made it their raison d'etre to rid the world of chimera. Long ago, one of the founding members perfected a spell to detect titles or skills relating to chimerism. It worked like a Scan Stone or [Scan], but it couldn’t be blocked.

It also only returned a positive or negative response, so it didn’t give the caster a rundown of what their target knew.

Every Bellerophon soldier needed to be scanned regularly. If Remy was one, she’d have died. And Meruria would’ve been charged with aiding and abetting a chimera, which would have resulted in her death.

The world hated them.

And I...didn’t harbor any fair pleasantries towards them.

It was a statistical improbability for all chimeras to be evil. Hardcoded absolutes rarely existed in the world, but...

I wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

I was just so done and tired of it. My mind was hanging on by threads. Ami and the others were pushing themselves hard. Burnout was real—and mental breakdowns would most likely follow.

Ten minutes later, Enele led us to a locked door. Keeth used [Material Metamorphosis] to pick the lock without difficulty, which revealed a spiral staircase. We followed it for a while, then...

There...it was...standing in the middle of a room, hunkered over a magic circle that nearly made me vomit when I channeled [Mana Perception].

During our descent, Enele said the chimera had assimilated a necromancer and merged their power with an ability to create domains.

Skill fusion was just another horrible power from the monstrous chimera. Proper use could result in disastrous and unimaginably powerful combinations that had no equal.

But marking the Apival Duchy as their domain meant the chimera couldn’t leave.

But why couldn’t it sense Lord Enele? That was because he was withholding his mana, refusing to let it leak. It was a skill that, while easy to learn and hard to master, was invaluable when you wanted to be stealthy.

Lord Enele gripped the railing. There were stairs to our left and right.

“And how the prey returns to the predator, my Soul Warriors!” The chimera refused to look up.

It didn’t know Lord Enele was here. It foolishly believed he had probably gone somewhere else, something I confirmed a moment when it resumed talking. “You’re foolish to think you can defeat me without that Dark Lord. But I won’t complain. The power of a Soul Warrior will be mine! I'll snatch it! I’ll use it to wipe out that detestable bitch, assimilate Meruria’s Holy Mana, and ascend to a Holy Lord. I’ll rule this country! I'll turn it into my own necromantic domain. I’ll fight the other Divine Countries and consume every Dark Lord I find. I’ll break the gap and emerge stronger—reaching the pinnacle no one has ever reached. I’ll become a god! I’ll force the world to bow to my rule! I’ll--”

Lord Enele hopped the railing and landed hard enough to leave a crack in the floor.

The chimera didn’t like that. He looked up and nearly soiled himself. He started to run away, but...

“[Restraining Shackles of Condemnation]!” Lord Enele’s deep, powerful voice foreshadowed a startling sight. A magic circle appeared beneath the escaping chimera. Chains of mystical energy materialized from the heart of the glowing formation, their links shimmering with an otherworldly brilliance from the concept of justice.

The chains slithered and weaved with purpose, their movements fluid and precise. They coiled, twisted, and latched onto the chimera’s legs before it could transfigure into a bird. Their grip was unbreakable and unyielding, although their captive tried its hardest to break free. The chimera bit and tore, breaking his arms and fingers in a futile attempt to shatter its bondage.

The shackles glowed brighter, sapping the chimera’s strength until it took all it had to breathe.

I watched in fascination and apprehension as we descended the steps to join Lord Enele. The chimera treated us like toys, yet Lord Enele effortlessly achieved what we couldn’t as a group.

In the silence that followed, the room seemed to hold its breath as if acknowledging justice's swift and impartial hand. Lord Enele was a presence to behold. He calmly walked forward, ignoring the hatred and putrid insults that came his way.

“Have you come to accept your end, chimera?” asked Enele.

“Like hell I have! Do you think this is going to end me? I’ve taken every goddamn liberty to ensure my survival. If you kill me, I’ll just transfer my consciousness to a clone I have hidden. Who knows? They might even be behind you? You can’t kill me without destroying the duchy, and I know you don’t have--”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my unholy child. I must uphold justice. I must be a shining beacon of light to protect the weak and cast out the evil.” Lord Enele used a spell to create a wavering, hazy portal just a few feet from us. I stared inside, yet I didn't see anything I recognized. “The only way to free the land of the curse you wrought is by destroying it at its core. You leave me no choice but to bring the end of the Apival Duchy.”

Kaiho grew larger and told us to jump on his back, and we did. The turtle swam through the portal, and we appeared...in the air?

Kaiho grew as large as a house as Lord Enele appeared a moment later. He overlooked a city in the distance. It was small and...

No, it was Sinem... It had to be at least 5 or 6 miles away. Based on the sun, we were somewhere southeast of our previous location.

I felt...something fearful...

My instincts were sounding alarm bells...

Slowly, Lord Enele raised his hands, and he chanted. “From the depths of the Abyss, where darkness reigns, I summon forth the power that nothing restrains. With words of ancient might and unearthly plea, let the world tremble in fear and bow to me. By the swirling void and the cosmic expanse, I command the forces of destruction to advance. Through the abyssal gates, let chaos be unfurled as I invoke the might of a dark, relentless world.”

Lord Enele’s presence cast an ominous shadow over the land. An overwhelming surge of Dark Mana crackled around him, but he showed no signs of ending his chant anytime soon.

“With a voice that echoes through realms unknown, I call upon the energies that lie deep overthrown. [Abyssal Annihilation], heed my dire call, unleash your fury and let devastation befall. Rend the earth asunder with cataclysmic might, engulf all in shadows, banish them from light. From the deepest void, let oblivion arise, infernal flames consuming, burning through the skies.”

My gaze shifted to the once-vibrant cityscape. Its architectural wonders and culture were destined to be lost in Lord Enele’s wake of devastation. The thought of the lives that had been shattered—the innocent souls turned into mindless zombies and other undead by the twisted chimera filled me with profound sorrow.

“Darkness and chaos merge as one, the essence of annihilation has only just begun. No light shall pierce this veil of desolation, for [Abyssal Annihilation] brings utter devastation. Through realms uncharted, with fury unbound, let the world tremble, as destruction is found. In the wake of my chant, let ruin and demise, spread like wildfire, devouring all under darkened skies.”

The skies darkened as foretold in the chant. The ground beneath Sinem trembled and cracked, pouring forth Dark Mana that formed like veins of malice.

But it wasn’t limited to the city,

No.

They spread like without mercy, shattering the ground while consuming all land that belonged to the Apival Duchy. Swirling clouds of malefic energy descended upon the ground, striking the Dark Mana-infused lines with black thunderbolts that shook the heavens. The air

“[Abyssal Annihilation], in your name I stand, a vessel of destruction, holding fate in my hand. With each uttered word, the world shall quake, as I harness the power that no mortal can break. A chant of darkness, an anthem of despair, [Abyssal Annihilation], beyond compare. Let the echoes of my words resound, as chaos reigns, and the world is unbound."

In a cataclysmic burst of power, the spell took form—an ethereal vortex of pure destruction. Its hunger for annihilation was insatiable, consuming everything without mercy. Buildings, fields, cliffs, and mountains crumbled and splintered like fragile playthings while the land disintegrated into an abyss of nothingness.

Within moments, the Apival Duchy was reduced to an unrecognizable wasteland. Whatever used to be there...wasn’t there anymore.

It was just a fragment of a memory.

A deep crater in the ground.

Fractured mountains were left smoldering from the intense power.

And then the pressure hit us.

Remy was the only one who withstood it. If Kaiho hadn’t made a barrier around himself, my friends and I would’ve been flung off.

The dust settled, and silence embraced the ravaged landscape. Lord Enele’s spell had left an indelible mark upon the world. I looked at Kaiho. The wise ancient turtle spirit’s eyes held a mixture of awe as he surveyed the devastation stretching before us.

“The power Enele commands is truly...something to behold,” he said. His voice carried the weight of centuries. “But it comes with great responsibility and consequences. Enele is bound by his sworn promise to uphold justice. He must tread carefully in its use. It’s tempered by the solemn duty he bears. It cannot be harnessed for anger or selfish gain, for to do so would break his sacred oath and strip him of his power.”

“Quella, the power I hold as the Dark Lord of justice is a double-edged sword. It can shape the world, but only when guided by pure justice.” Lord Enele turned around. He was so strong—so strong and muscular, yet he was...so kind. I felt it in his voice.

I couldn’t help but reflect on his last line.

Justice was different from vengeance. Had he gone differently, would he have been the Dark Lord of Vengeance? Did that exist? Melusine spoke of a Dark Lord of Tyranny, so I wondered if that was similar?

But Lord Enele had chosen a path that demanded sacrifice and measured judgement. You could call it a gift and a curse—a reminder that, even in the pursuit of justice, your actions must be tempered by wisdom and empathy.

Even though he had shown us this power, it still felt unreal. So much land... It was just...gone.

Lord Enele said he couldn’t have used [Abyssal Annihilation] earlier because he needed to restrain the chimera. “The magic circle is destroyed. The necromancer is dead, and the curse... It has been destroyed. Time is nature's most valuable partner, so this land will heal. It won’t be easy, but life will eventually return. Kaiho, take us down.”

“Nelly, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Ami. I’ve been alive for five centuries. You get used to this.”

“It’s okay to be sad.” Ami sat down and looked up at Lord Enele. He chuckled softly and joined her.

It was hard to talk. Really, the scene we witnessed was still too difficult to believe. But by the time we landed on the ground fifteen minutes later, I oddly felt better about some things and worse about others.

It was something I couldn’t describe.

Remy front flipped off Kaiho, summoned her daggers, and cut a hole in space and time. “The mission’s done,” she said, turning around. “It’s time to go back. I’ll even be nice enough to get you weaklings a ride. Lord Enele, do you wish to come? Or do you have anything else planned?”

Remy just pissed me off. I hated that bitch so much.

“It’ll be rude of me if I didn’t stop by and report to her,” said Lord Enele. Kaiho shrunk and landed on his back, then we all walked through the sparkling portal.

Some of us were more excited than others. I shared a look with Elly and the others, and we didn’t know if we were ready to see Meruria’s face.