Chapter 1206 Not Live Another Day
The Empyrean, backed into a corner, began to truly panic. Gone was the calculated cruelty, the arrogance born of millennia dominating this world. His power, built on stolen moments, twisted lives, and a perversion of reality"s flow felt…brittle. In the face of Arthur"s wrath, the Empyrean wasn"t an ancient villain, but a cornered beast clinging to what little control remained.
With a final, desperate roar, he unleashed the true heart of his monstrous power - not control over time, but something far more insidious. The astral cage pulsed, not with the flickering remnants of worlds, but with raw potential. It was the distilled echo of timelines the Empyrean himself had pruned away, realities he"d deemed unworthy, futures he had discarded with a flick of his temporal powers.
"You think your defiance matters, outsider?" the Empyrean spat, his voice laced with desperation. "I control not just the past, but the very threads of possibility! Behold, I pluck from the echoes of what might have been!"
From the cage emerged a figure both chillingly familiar and heartbreakingly twisted. Emma Agard, sharp features and defiant spirit a cruel echo of the friend Arthur remembered. This Emma was a warrior, clad in familiar leathers, but with runes not of protection or support, but of raw, destructive power. Her eyes, once warm with determination, now burned with the cold fire of stolen potential and a hatred that cut deeper than any blade.
"You left us to die, Arthur!" Her voice wasn"t accusation, but condemnation. "You, and your obsession with grand schemes. He offers me power, purpose… revenge." A spectral sword shimmered into existence in her hand, its spectral flames a mockery of the healing light she had once wielded.
For a moment, Arthur faltered. He knew this was a puppet, a cruel illusion crafted from a discarded timeline. Yet, the self-doubt bloomed - not overwhelming, but undeniable. This was a wound the Empyrean had deftly lanced, a reminder of the heavy cost his choices carried.
But through the guilt rose a chilling resolve. "Emma," his voice was calm, his back straight, a king refusing to bow even in the face of his own fallibility, "Perhaps a version of you fell to this despair. But you are not her. You are a weapon wielded by a desperate coward who doesn"t understand the strength he"s trying to twist to his purposes."
Lilo echoed his master"s defiance, not with a draconic roar, but a chilling rumble that echoed the very heartbeat of the storm. He was not just a familiar now, but an avatar of Arthur"s own relentless will.
Arthur"s gaze met the Empyrean"s, a silent promise echoing in the s.p.a.ce between them. "I know the burden of my choices, old man. Yet, unlike you, I do not run from consequences. When I destroy this cage of twisted possibilities, this…echo will fade. And you will face the consequences of your actions alone."
Silence descended, punctuated by the heavy beat of the storm. When Arthur finally lifted his gaze to the Empyrean, it was with the cold, hard fury of one who has pushed past despair and found an even more dangerous resolve.
"Pathetic," he spat, his voice laced with a venom the Empyrean hadn"t even begun to fathom. With a single fluid motion, he called forth his truest weapon: not a lance of pure destruction, but the black dagger, Nightmare. Its spectral form wavered into existence with a mournful cry, the very air resonating with its hungry promise of oblivion. The storm crackled with renewed fury as if the heavens themselves were bowing to Arthur"s rage. "You dare try to break me with illusions," he snarled, his voice carrying across the devastated battlefield. "You dare twist my failures in my face, you… parasite!"
He looked down at the trembling sh.e.l.l that was the Empyrean. "Make peace with whatever G.o.ds this pathetic world worships. I swear on a kingdom long lost to time…" He raised the dagger, an echo of a forgotten king"s oath. "…you will not survive this day."
The Empyrean, backed into a corner, finally abandoned all pretense of calm control. His composure fractured, revealing not primal terror, but a deep, simmering indignation. It was the outrage of a king who had never been challenged, who simply couldn"t fathom the concept of his own defeat.
His laughter pealed out, a harsh, dissonant sound that grated against the storm"s fury. "Arrogant child," he rasped, "You threaten me? I have walked this world for longer than stars have burned! You think your tantrums shake me?"
He gestured wildly at the remnants of his Yalen army swirling at the edges of the chaos, "An endless legion at my command! Countless timelines to draw upon! And my brethren, the other Empyreans, will not tolerate this… this usurpation!" The last word was a shriek, the final sc.r.a.p of control slipping from his grasp.
Arthur took a step forward, the ground groaning beneath his feet. He made no claims of victory, offered no grandiose speeches of rebellion. There was only a terrifying, focused finality in his eyes. "Old man," his voice was the rumble before the earthquake, "Understand this: even if a legion of G.o.ds descended upon this world this very instant, it wouldn"t save you. Your reign of tyranny ends today."
A ripple of power tore through the tempest, not from Arthur, but from above. The storm-choked sky pulsed like a living heart, and Arthur"s Kingdom of Wrath burst open. A torrent of vengeful souls poured forth, not attacking, but coiling around him like a ghostly cyclone, their spectral eyes fixed on a single target – the cowering Empyrean. Sensing a finality he couldn"t comprehend, the Empyrean"s survival instincts, honed over centuries, kicked in. He lunged, scrambling not towards his army, but towards the pulsating fissure in reality, the one Oriole had vanished through. It was madness, but a calculated one – better to face unknown horrors than the terrifying certainty of Arthur"s wrath. And then, the impossible became a nightmare. The astral cage, his trophy collection of stolen worlds, buckled and groaned. Figures erupted from it - not monsters, but people. Countless people, their eyes wide with confusion, fear, and a desperation that mirrored the Empyrean"s own.
They didn"t attack Arthur. They surrounded him, shielding him. Their cries were not of malevolence, but of fractured pleas, of lives torn from their paths. They were the flotsam and jetsam of the Empyrean"s reality pruning, fragments of timelines he"d deemed unimportant. And as he clawed towards an uncertain escape, they swirled around him, hindering his every step, their spectral forms hindering his flight.
Arthur stood amidst the madness. He was a storm within a storm, his will a gravitational force even the Empyrean"s stolen realities couldn"t resist. This wasn"t a battlefield; it was a prelude to an execution, and the cosmos itself was rearranging itself into a hangman"s stage.