Chapter 280, 2/3

Erick wasnt useless, however he definitely wasnt alive, both.

He had no physique, however he had one thing of a soul and a thoughts, maybe.

The one factor he really had was a function.

To Perceive.

Even his enemies. Even individuals who deserved no good issues. Even the worst folks possible.

Erick nonetheless tried to know.

After which, to assist in a constructive method.

– – – –

Nhatuan was an outdated man doing the job of younger males, as a result of he may, and so they couldn’t.

He stepped among the many reeds, gently urgent them apart as his toes sank into the mud. It cloyed, that mud. His toes had been naked, so he didn’t get overly caught, however nonetheless this was a hazard. The reed-liars may catch him and drain him dry if he stumbled into certainly one of them. The mudhoppers may hop into his physique, and switch him into mud.

He needed to courageous this hazard, anyway.

Nhatuan was too outdated for this shit, however he was nonetheless one of many strongest hunters of their village, even at 98 years outdated. He had by no means accreted as he ought to have, or else he could be dwelling quite a bit longer than this However what was the purpose of accretion? To reside longer beneath the knives of the Hole elves? If he had accreted he would have been taken from his household, from his spouse and his adopted youngsters, after which all of their grandchildren. The Metropolis took everybody who may accrete. No. This was a greater life by far. Even Nhatuan, who had had no youngsters of his personal, and had thus helped increase all the opposite youngsters within the village, was nonetheless helpful, simply as he was.

Nhatuan was outdated and infertile, however this was life anyway.

A life I’ll spend nicely, or die attempting, he muttered, as he moved. Cloak me Darkish, I urge of you.

He snuck by means of the reeds, silent as a snake, proper as much as the partitions of the citadel. The guards above didnt see him. Nhatuan was good at mixing. He was a hunter, and he hunted nicely, his small knacks of energy serving him nicely, however he was a hunter of beasts and never of males.

The lads within the citadel had been hunters of males, and Nhatuan was going to die tonight, a technique or one other, however he was going to verify his household survived

A window was open? Only a single leap above the waters? What idiot would go away a window open that low! They had been begging to be drained by the reed-liars!

Nhatuan thanked the Darkish and started climbing, his coronary heart racing onerous, his blood pumping more durable. His thoughts was clear and the hunt was on. He scaled into the constructing, grabbing stone that appeared too simple to seize, discovering the window not really open in any respect, however half-open. Simply damaged, although.

A guard slept within the room. Sleeping by a window? The madness. Even a cracked-open window was an invite to be killed out right here, at this hour.

Nhatuans blade got here down within the mans throat after which whipped round into the mans chest, granting him his requested demise.

The person died with eyes flashing open and gurgles that had been simply mistaken for the noise of bugs within the swamp.

Nhatuan breathed onerous. Too onerous. He had by no means killed a person besides in his desires. These desires appeared so distant, and but so shut, on this evening.

Gods personal luck smiled upon him that evening. The soldiers had been drunk off of a feast, and Nhatuan discovered the drunken warriors had been simple pickings. Sleeping evils simple to kill. Had everybody taken depart of their senses tonight? A celebration in enemy territory, held with this a lot alcohol? Madness.

Perhaps they might all die tonight, as they need to have died a long time in the past when the Hole elves first got here to this land, conquering. Again then they’d been quite a bit stronger than this, although. However had been they, actually? Nhatuan lamented all of the years misplaced to the madness of believing these folks sturdy! The ache and ache of their rule! It was all so ephemeral!

Nhatuan was a lot stronger than he thought he was. All he had wanted was the braveness to behave.

He ought to have accomplished this way back.

And but…

Nhatuan made all of it the best way as much as the leaders rooms, which had been unlocked. Nhatuan was crying by now, however they had been silent tears. He had not wished to do that. He had thought that it could be more durable. Nevertheless it was not onerous in any respect.

These males had been rumored to have orders to kill the villages of all the swamp and put together for the expansions of the capital, however they had been lax of their duties. They had been lax of their patrols. They weren’t lax within the beating of women and men within the village, and the claiming of First Nights of all new wives, and the theft of each fairly factor anybody ever been discovered or made within the villages

Nhatuan breathed within the Darkish, and targeted.

The person within the rooms forward had crushed and raped Nhatuans granddaughter final week within the means of stealing the necklace of gold that Nhatuan had made for her.

That had been the ultimate breaking level.

No extra.

Nhatuan stalked down the stone hallway, the shadows swirling round, the evertorches on the partitions making the darkness appear even blacker. He stepped by means of the black, and his knife turned a claw, although he didn’t discover the claw in any respect. His senses expanded, although he didn’t discover the enlargement in any respect. He didn’t discover how his garments fell away, and the way a delusion he had wrapped himself in lastly gave method to a fact.

There was a motive he was hunter, and why the reed-liars and the mudhoppers and the fanged beasts of the marsh prevented him, aside from when he went in to their territory. There was a motive he had such a simple time killing these males. There was a fact he was nonetheless unwilling to see.

However Erick noticed it.

There, for the experience, Erick noticed Nhatuans fact.

Nhatuan slipped into the top guards chambers, clipping little alarms within the air that had been stretched like webs throughout the door, breaking their energy and stopping them from signaling. He had all the time had that knack, that capacity to only break magic. It was essential when looking weavers within the marshes, for weaver threads had been all the time stuffed with alarms. Nhatuan had by no means had a second thought of how he may try this, and each time he tried to show his adopted youngsters they might by no means grasp his easy explanations.

Typically folks had knacks that they couldnt clarify.

Nhatuan slipped into the mattress chambers of the person he would kill and make every little thing higher.

The person lay in mattress

To the aspect, chained to a wall, was a lady. She was Aliani; the girlfriend to Nhatuans favourite grandson. She was thought misplaced to the town. She was a wonderful seamstress. She had instructed everybody how she had gained a giant alternative within the metropolis, and they also had a giant get together for her and gave her items and she or he left. That was what had occurred.

That is additionally what had occurred.

Aliana had a sequence round her neck and she or he lay on a reed mattress on the ground. She had a bowl of water and a chamberpot subsequent to her mattress, on reverse sides of her space. She had no garments and solely a skinny blanket. She shivered as she slept.

Nhatuan had been crying for the ache he was inflicting tonight.

His tears dried.

The Darkish visited him as Nhatuan stared down on the head guard.

This man was the reason for the villages issues.

Nhatuan had killed everybody else of observe in all the citadel, so it was no hassle to start out the top guards execution with a slash throughout the throat and fingers, fast as a flicker of want and intent. The person woke, unable to talk, unable to handle magic together with his fingers, unable to defend himself in any respect. His eyes had been huge open and he gurgled profusely as Nhatuan started disassembling the person.

He began with the mans toes.

His screams had been justice.

When he was accomplished, he seen that Aliana was awake and huddled within the nook, quietly crying, attempting to make herself unseen.

She was quiet pathetic, wasnt she?

She in all probability may have killed that man herself, had she the guts to interrupt out of her station

There was a mirror.

Nhatuan noticed himself within the mirror

Erick noticed himself within the mirror as a really younger white dragon with a leviathan-like physique, perhaps 3 meters lengthy. Underfed. Nonetheless filled with rage, and but now, filled with shock. Mana poured out of Nhatuans physique in that second, deepening the Darkness throughout, and someway Erick targeted inward, realizing that he had deluded himself into believing issues that weren’t true. He had instructed himself these desires when he was younger had been simply that; desires. He instructed himself that he was not a dragon. That he didn’t escape the marsh and imitate a boy after which ate that boy and took his place in that household. Good folks didn’t try this. Good folks like him, just like the boy Nhatuan, didn’t kill.

Thats what his actual dad and mom had instructed Erick, had instructed Nhatuan, that he was actually their good baby, and Erick was boy. That’s what Erick had believed for therefore lengthy, simply ignoring the seems his dad and mom gave him once they thought he wasnt wanting.

Erick/Nhatuan was boy. He was boy, and never a misshapen dragon. He was boy, who helped everybody. He was boy.

Good boys dont homicide 23 citadel guards.

However nice boys did.

Erick coiled energy into himself, like he had lastly opened his mouth to drink the rain that he had been denying his physique all these a long time. It was simple for him to change into greater than he seemed to be; to change into who he was.

Nhatuan was a dragon.

When the Hole elves from the town got here to find what had occurred, Nhatuan revealed himself as greater than a dragon.

With hearth and knives, Nhatuan confirmed the Hole elf military that he was additionally a Wizard.

– – – –

Within the transient moments between moments, Erick knew he was not Nothanganathor, and he was not Nhatuan both.

However part of him was.

Or perhaps part of him had been.

Erick swam in reminiscences older and deeper than both of them. It was like being Ashes Woodfield once more, on the Glittering Depths of Greendale, in Greensoil. It was like seeing an ideal many issues, buried, and but freshly unearthed.

They had been all fragments of The Prince.

They had been all items of Xoat.

That was how Erick was doing this.

He was dwelling reminiscences that werent precisely his, and but, they had been.

– – – –

Nhatuan modified his title and located the Painted Cosmology full of people that didn’t respect him, so he moved on to different universes, exploring the cosmos.

– – – –

Erick was Nothanganathor, and likewise not.

The dragon was a person proper now, himself in a mirror, smiling huge. Erick was in that mirror. Nothanganathor solely noticed himself, although. He appeared happier than ever earlier than. Happier than most males. He wore an ornate black gown over white clothes, whereas his room was the room of a metropolis lord; ornate, however not too ornate. Every part was merely good.

It was centuries for the reason that final time Erick had seen Nothanganathor.

With informal twists of energy, Nothanganathor gestured on the mirror, asking himself, Do I’ve a fae coming to my marriage ceremony right now? Or simply spying on me from the mirrors?

Erick discovered himself stepping out of the mirror, asking, Im not sure.

Earlier than that second, the visions had been unalterable. He had been alongside for the experience.

Perhaps they had been nonetheless unalterable.

Erick had stepped out of the mirror and voiced phrases, however he had been using a groove in historical past, and never really making any choices for himself. He was right here, and but not.

Erick tried to inform Nothanganathor off, to eradicate him with hearth and hate.

Nothing occurred.

They’d survived.

They nonetheless wouldnt perceive any of what had occurred till they bought again to Margleknot.

Margleknot knew what had occurred, apologizing to each of them for placing them in peril like that. He had not thought that will occur. Normally Shadow didnt kill anybody else however him, however it had been a number of thousand years since he had tried visiting the Painted Cosmology, and she or he will need to have been carrying a violent type of persona that day. Margleknot requested for forgiveness, and Nothanganathor was shaken, however he was glad to grant that requested forgiveness.

Nothanganathor wished one other trip to the Painted Cosmology a few years later.

Once more, Margleknot offered the best way ahead, however with the identical caveat.

Nothanganathor and Ara bought a repeat of the identical occasion, with one other model of Margleknot that took the form of a younger girl, and who was Aras cousin. This time no others had been concerned in that younger womans demise. Nothanganathor had tried to remain distant, however there was nonetheless an emotional ache that didnt fairly heal.

The identical occasion would repeat each trip he tried to take to the Painted Cosmology. The one comfort for the emotional injury suffered was that Margleknot didnt appear to thoughts the deaths.

Margleknot had anticipated these deaths. He saved going into the Painted Cosmology anyway.

Nothanganathor anticipated the deaths, too, however he liked these holidays. It was like a reward for all his onerous work to reside a easy life for a short time. And but…

And but, Nothanganathor grew to hate Shadow and her ilk, however it was like hating the sky. He didnt connect an excessive amount of emotion to all of that hate.

Not but.

– – – –

Nothanganathor and Ara stood as the only survivors on a world burned right down to the stone.

On this life, Margleknot had tried his hand at being an archmage and he had gained that energy, due to his uncle Nothanganathor.

After which the Shades had come.

Nothanganathor had killed a Shade that had killed Margleknots avatar and all the remainder of their little metropolis within the rocks of the mana ocean, and that had been the incorrect transfer. He mustn’t have killed a Shade. He had been too indignant to assume proper. He had been too indignant And now, he had killed a Shade.

There could be reprisal, and operating could be a foul concept.

Nothanganathor waited for the Darkness to descend. For Mom to seem.

He didn’t wait lengthy.

Ikaramaliana was not his customer, this present day. Not his mom. No.

Melemizargo descended. Melemizargo, the Second.

Melemizargo, the black bastard that Nothanganathor hadnt seen in an age.

Melemizargo noticed Nothanganathor.

Reminiscences registered.

Melemizargo jerked, after which he attacked.

He ripped Nothanganathor to items, laughing all of the whereas, however he left Nothanganathor alive to listen to his laughter, and his booming phrases,

Welcome again, brother! Take pleasure in your keep! I do know I’ll!

– – – –

Nothanganathor left the Painted cosmology however he got here again, time and time once more.

Typically an area god killed Margleknots avatar together with a thousand different folks. Typically Shadow got here herself. Typically Melemizargo himself did the deed and he took his time in that killing, being positive to inflict as a lot ache upon Nothanganathor as potential.

As soon as, Margleknots avatar lasted 30 years. More often than not Margleknot died inside a yr.

Nothanganathor was too livid to ever think about not vacationing within the Painted Cosmology.

This was past private. This was familial.

This was spiteful.

– – – –

I wish to take away their menace, Nothanganathor instructed his spouse, Ara, inside an area that nobody may overhear. I would like them each gone. All of them; Mom, too. Forever. All their Shades. Every part to do with them. Its not simply defending Margleknot. It’s so rather more than that. It’s the proper factor to do.

Ara opened her mouth and for the primary time this imaginative and prescient, she had a voice. Her voice rang of Reality, Righteousness has no energy on this, Nhatuan. You need it for your self and that’s the whole Reality, my grasping dragon.

Nothanganathor softly requested, So what if I do?

Ara smiled. Her subsequent phrases had been misplaced to Obscurity, however she did look instantly at Erick, her brushstroke eyes shining inexperienced.

Nothanganathor solid a magic and projected it outdoors of himself, saying, Fae arent allowed to observe each a part of my life.

Nothing occurred.

Nothanganathor checked out Erick.

Ara stated one thing.

Ah, Nothanganathor stated, Sure. I suppose I ought to blind the Darkness.

Nothanganathor solid one other spell

Darkness spilled away from Nothanganathor. Far, distant, and Erick floated with it.

Erick watched from far outdoors of Nothanganathors physique as Ara and Nothanganathor had a distant, contained dialog. Area was fuzzy, and so had been the partitions, however Erick knew sufficient to know what was taking place right here.

Nothanganathor and Ara had been brewing up the plan for Goddeath Poison Plan. The precise brewing would come later.

The Darkness raged alongside Erick, realizing what he was , however each of them may do nothing. The previous was the previous, and each of them had been merely observers proper now. To what finish? Erick couldn’t inform.

He would discover out, ultimately.

– – – –

Erick knew how the Goddeath plan ended.

The Goddess of Magic died after which held a match 50 years after her demise to resolve the subsequent God of Magic. Melemizargo and Nothanganathor fought in that Event of Gods, each of them simply surpassing all different candidates.

The view flowed by means of tens of viewpoints of that match, however Erick didn’t care to see all of it too clearly. He targeted on the day earlier than the final battle.

Erick wasnt positive what he was searching for as he sought the tip of that combat, and the causes of all of the Sundering to come back Ah.

That was it.

He was searching for causes of the Sundering.

He was making judgments.

– – – –

Erick lay on the bottom, his white serpentine physique squirming beneath Melemizargos claws. He was 99% useless.

He was 100% livid.

Melemizargo had taken Ara and Sundered her final evening, earlier than the ultimate match spherical. Nothanganathor had not fought his greatest due to that. The fad had clouded his eyes. The fad nonetheless clouded his eyes.

Nothangnathor and Erick yelled, End me, you tormentor tyrant! In the event you dont I’ll hunt you down for all eternity and convey down every little thing you’re, as you have got accomplished to my Ara!

It was a taunt, for if Nothanganathor couldn’t be God, then he would slightly die than reside his life.

In that second, Melemizargo modified his thoughts about killing Nothanganathor.

Melemizargo declared, Oblivion is simply too variety for you.

Melemizargo breathed in Ascension, the very universe itself dipping its tendrils into him, wrapping him with energy, Mantling him in may, with the historical past of each different God of Magic to come back earlier than him. Ikaramalianas ghost vanished into her son.

Melemizargo pushed a claw into Nothanganathor, and twisted, saying, Mine.

Erick got here out of Nothanganathors chest, held in Melemizargos grip. He was a mote of Darkness and himself, all on the identical time, and but he was neither of these issues.

Beneath him lay Nothanganathors still-living physique. The serpent was ashen white and purple throughout, gasping for breath and discovering none. He had anticipated demise. He had gotten one thing far worse. He was too stunned to know the total extent of what Melemizargo had simply accomplished. He was in an excessive amount of ache. He understood nothing.

After which he knew what had occurred.

Unbelieving, ache pushed to the aspect, Nothanganathor whispered, You took my Darkness?

Erick tried to inform Melemizargo to not do it, for he was planting the seeds of his personal destruction. It was not too late. He may put the Darkish again into Nothanganathor after which merely kill the person. However not this. Not this desecration of the Darkish. Something however this.

The Darkness roared with Erick, telling Melemizargo what Erick couldn’t.

Nobody heard both of them.

Melemizargo laughed in evil delight as he held Nothanganathors Darkish Mark aloft, asserting, I Curse you, Nothanganathor. Your scales soften. Your historical past modifications. You’re a creature of straightforward water and nevermore of the True Ocean. Your claws don’t exist and all you’re is a fish flailing round these a lot greater creatures than you. Your solely security is in Obscurity, and that shall be your Curse. Your solely blessing is the blessing of Nothing. Change into one with nothing, Nothanganathor! I Curse you! I Curse you! I Curse you!

Elves within the stadium throughout, stood up, and sang in unison, Cursed to smallness! Cursed to Obscurity! For what you probably did to Ikaramaliana, you’re Cursed forevermore! We Curse you! We Curse you! We Curse you!

Melemizargo broke Nothanganathors Darkish Mark and Erick was solid adrift on the shards of that Mark as Nothanganathor twisted beneath Obscurity, the Darkness eternally denied to him.

– – – –

Erick didn’t see Nothanganathor regain energy in Margleknot, rebuilding himself and turning his empire over to Morbion Blackthorn, for his empire to change into the Wraithborne Tower. He didn’t see Nothanganathor regaining power and preventing corruption. He didn’t have to. He knew what had occurred anyway.

Nothanganathor had tried to reclaim his Darkness many instances, and in many alternative methods.

The following time he noticed Nothanganathor it was from the angle of an outdated girl in a tower overseeing an ideal metropolis.

He solely noticed a flash of a white maw, rimmed in Crimson outdoors of the wizards home windows, however it was sufficient to know the white maw belonged to Nothanganathor. It was sufficient to acknowledge Malevolence. The white serpent had tried to steal a Mark of the Darkish.

It should not have labored as a result of Erick witnessed, from 6 extra views, as Nothanganathor ate him 6 extra instances. Erick had briefly been a Wizard in a swamp, overseeing mushrooms. A Wizard in a tower, 3 extra instances, every of the towers wanting largely the identical however in vastly completely different cities and lands. A Wizard within the ocean. A Wizard on a ship within the mana ocean, in the course of nowhere.

After which Nothanganathor got here for the Darkness as soon as extra. This time he got here with True Energy.

Nothanganathor stole the Darkish Mark out of a Mild Wizard with the Signal of Energy that he had stolen from Margleknots avatar.