The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 444

My sword, conjured of pure aether and held together by my will alone, plunged into the interwoven threads of aether around me.

Revealed by the God Step godrune, the network of amethyst paths connected every point to every other point around me—through the aetheric realm, I had learned from the last djinn projection. The godrune had changed when I made that realization, and the knowledge had sat dormant in the back of my mind ever since, a deepening of insight but without a clear use.

Until the moment of necessity when I had no choice but to translate knowledge into action.

My senses flowed through the aether, the paths, the in-between space that connected everything together.

I saw Cecilia, the final vestiges of her last attack still burning the atmosphere between us, the many-armed silhouette of mana wrapped around the body she’d taken from Tessia. And Nico beside her, his uncertain gaze drifting between us, his hand reaching for her shoulder but not daring to touch her.

The aether blade plunged deeper into the lightning-bolt network of aether.

I saw Draneeve, his unconscious form curled up beneath a chunk of fallen stone from the roof, his shattered mask in the rubble at his side, and Mawar, the inky shield clinging to her flesh not able to hide the steady flow of blood from her hips, and Melzri in front of her, her bloodshot, blood-colored eyes slicing through the air like her blades as she moved focus from me to Sylvie’s back.

The pathways drew my strike into themselves, guiding it through space itself.

I saw the collection of mana particles shrouding the figure in the shadows of the twisted and broken ceiling, the threads of mana under her control spilling across the chamber and down on Sylvie and Chul like probing fingers in their brains.

The blade struck home, and a scream rent the air.

Each point, connecting each other point. The connective tissue of this world, the aetheric realm. A strike delivered from one space but falling in another.

A beam of violet light hovered for an instant in the air. Shadows rippled, and Viessa formed around it, the blade sprouting out of her sternum. She coiled in on herself like a spider, her scream cutting out just as sharply as it had sounded, but her mouth remained open, her silent cry somehow even worse than the banshee wail. As she writhed, waves of purple hair rose up around her face like a ghostly nimbus.

I pulled the blade free, and it retracted back through the aetheric paths, sliding out of her body so that she plummeted to the ground.

Cecilia and Nico had both glanced toward the source of the scream. Mezlri was frozen in place, horrified and transfixed as she watched the other Scythe bounce off the crumbling tiles. The only noise for a handful of heartbeats was the crackling of phoenix fire.

Despite the blood matting her hair to her head from where Chul had struck her, the pieces of Sylvie’s confused mind slid smoothly back into rhythm with the illusion spell broken. She lunged forward to grab Chul’s arm. His face was slack, his eyes glazed over, and he did not fight her as she jerked him out of the way as Cecilia sent twin blades of mana slicing down toward them.

“Cecilia!” I shouted, unleashing an aetheric blast from my open palm.

Nico dodged to the side, but Cecilia took the blast head on, aether rippling over the surface of the mana condensed around her. With one mana-formed hand, she waved away the last vestiges of the blast like smoke. Still, her attention snapped back to me, her spell slicing deep into the floor but missing my companions.

I let the point of my sword dip toward the ground, but my knuckles were white as I gripped the aetheric handle. “Enough of this.” I looked up from my blade, my gaze hard. “Cecilia, come with me. I’ll try to find a way to separate you and Tessia.”

She scoffed, her cheeks turning bright red, her lips twisted in a disbelieving sneer. “As if I could be so easily swayed—or tricked. You are a liar, Grey, and a bad one.”

Behind her, Nico’s mouth half opened. He hesitated, his throat working dryly, then finally said, “We should hear Arthur out…his insights into aether surpass even the dragons. Maybe he can—”

Cecilia cut him off. “Don’t be fooled.” It was Cecilia’s turn to hesitate. Her eyes flicked from Nico to me, then back again. “He's the one that killed me, remember?”

I couldn’t help but let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Has your mind twisted your memories after all of these years or did Agrona do that for you?” Speaking to Nico, I continued, unable to mask the bitterness in my tone. “The hatred you have for me—the reason you’ve strived so hard to destroy everything I cherish—was based on a lie. I wasn't the one who killed Cecilia. She—”

“Shut up!” Cecilia screeched, the blistering emotion in her voice so raw that it stunned Nico and me both.

“So…” I started, realization dawning slowly, “it isn’t that you didn't remember…but you’ve chosen to lie to and manipulate the only man that has ever loved you—”

Like a sudden hot breath on the back of my neck, black wind slammed into me from behind. A pent-up scream exploded into the air, oozing fury and loss.

I spared a quick glance back, squinting against the storm of void wind.

Melzri was kneeling next to Viessa, the other Scythe’s limp body pulled into her arms. She was rocking back and forth, her mouth half open, disbelief and horror written in every line of her face. The void wind was spilling out of her, a physical manifestation of her grief.

Then her eyes met mine, and she seemed to collapse into herself, the scream becoming a snarl, all that tension exploding downward as she dropped the corpse and leaped into the air, one blade gripped in both hands and trailing soul fire like a dark flag.

Black wind buffeted me, pushing dust and smoke into my eyes, coiling around my limbs and throat, entangling in my hair and attempting to pull me off balance. Tendrils of Cecilia’s mana wove in and around Melzri’s, reinforcing the spell and holding it against my influence.

I felt the regalia imprinted halfway up her spine activate as she channeled mana into it. Mana condensed from the atmosphere and into her spells. Her body swelled with it, hardening and strengthening. The sword blazed darker, the flames roaring ten feet up from the blade. The wind’s claws sharpened, digging deeper and harder. Cold white flames licked her body, a thousand candle flames burning from her pores as her body overloaded on mana.

Aether burst throughout my hips, spine, shoulders, and arms, instantly bringing my blade up into a defensive position with enough power to rip through the clutching wind. The Burst Strike delivered all its potency directly into the center mass of her weapon.

With a gust, the soul flames puffed out like a candle. Steel shrieked, and the sword exploded, sending a shrapnel of broken metal spraying across the throne room. Melzri’s arm wrenched unnaturally, and something inside cracked and splintered.

Her momentum carried her past me, where she stumbled and fell to her knees, clutching her broken hand and arm with the other.

Mana condensed around her, scooping her up and carrying her away from me. “Go,” Cecilia said. “You are no more use here.”

I could have stopped her, could have followed Melzri and struck her and her retainer down before she could withdraw the tempus warp from her dimension artifact, but I had a feeling whatever punishment that Agrona would deal out in response to their failure here would be worse than the quick death I could offer.

As the tempus warp wrapped Melzri, Mawar, and Viessa’s body in mana and pulled them away, I let it happen.

Mana was already coiling around Cecilia, preparing to strike, but Nico flew between us. I was surprised when he turned his back to me. “What did Grey mean just now?” he asked Cecilia.

“It’s all in the past,” she answered, jaw tight and eyes flaring. “It’s not what’s important now—or for the future!”

“I never murdered Cecilia!” I snapped, my ire rising.

Nothing about Cecilia’s or Nico’s actions made sense to me. Nico had apparently made himself a weapon for an evil tyrant purely to revive his dead love, but then he had allowed her to be turned into a weapon as well—a fate identical to that of her last life, which she had killed herself on my blade to escape. In return, she hadn’t even told him the truth and seemed to be using his hatred of me to continue to fuel this confrontation.

He had reached out to me, hadn’t he? Sent me Sylvia’s mana core as a token and a plea so I would help Cecilia—how, I had no idea—but he’d made no effort to stem the violence of this confrontation.

“Liar. I watched as your blade went through her, Grey!” he yelled, bobbing up and down in the air, the mana vibrating around him in agitation.

Cecilia slashed her hand in the air, and I dodged as mana gouged through the floor like a giant scythe blade. “This isn’t even about what happened on Earth! Nico, Agrona wants Grey’s core. That’s it! Grey doesn’t matter anymore, he’s just a road bump between us and getting exactly what you want, don’t you see?”

Before Nico could respond, the mana around Cecilia surged. Thousands of fist-sized chunks of rubble jumped up into the air, flying high above our heads. In an instant, they were burning bright orange, heated from within by her power. I saw what was coming before it happened.

Shield yourself! I sent to Sylvie.

The dark sky was alight with ten thousand new stars. Then the stars began to fall.

Burning meteors punched through what little remained of the ceiling and burst against the floor all around me. The throne room vanished in a cloud of dust and the heat-haze afterglow of a thousand burning projectiles streaking the air.

I sensed more than saw the swelling of mana around Sylvie and Chul as the first of the meteors struck them.

I dodged back from one meteor, pivoted as another glanced off my shoulder, then slipped into the woven paths of God Step to avoid a cluster of the projectiles.

The palace was crumbling, the air choked with heat and dust. My ears rang from the concussive blast of the meteor shower, and sulfur burned my nose and lungs.

The beating of wings sent gusts of wind billowing through the palace, carrying away the dust in large swirls and revealing a towering silhouette.

Dark scales reflected starlight and huge golden eyes glowered around at the wreckage. Sylvie’s graceful draconic neck lifted high toward the heavens, and she bared rows of fangs like swords. A long, serpentine tail shifted through the rubble, sending broken stone cascading into the many gouges ripped through the floor.

She gave a shake of her neck and wings, dislodging the meteors that had penetrated her mana shields to lodge in her scales.

Chul stepped out from her shadow, unhurt as he gazed up at the dragon in amazement.

The beating of Sylvie’s wings had revealed the full devastation of Cecilia’s spell. The entire center of the structure had been leveled; the throne room was all but gone, just a pit in the ground.

I felt a shift in the aether around me. The relic armor had left Sylvie when she transformed, and I could once again feel it tether to me. Touching that tether, I conjured the armor.

Cecilia gazed down at me in disappointment as the black scales feathered into being over my flesh. Beside her, Nico was pale and fidgeting nervously.

I held his dark eyes. “How do you expect me to help someone who doesn’t want it?” I asked, unconvinced he would respond. “Or was your message just meant to throw me off…”

“Message?” Cecilia snapped, looking sharply back over her shoulder at Nico. “What message?”

I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t told her, but I seized on the opportunity to keep them both talking. “Nico sent me a gift and asked me to help you. He said I ‘owed you a life.’ Because you never told him what you did.” My tone grew sharper as I spoke, my anger burning just below the surface. “You killed yourself on my blade, Cecilia! Do you even remember why?”

She blanched, and I saw in her haunted gaze the memory of that moment, and I knew she remembered all too well.

“W-what?” Nico choked out.

Cecilia turned her back on me, reaching for Nico, although her fingers stopped just short of touching him. “It’s more complicated than that, I—”

“You knew they’d use him against you, Cecilia,” I cut in, unable to mask the frustration and bitterness in my voice. “You made me kill you because you knew there wasn’t any other way out, not for you, not for Nico. You died to protect him!” I scoffed, clenching my fists so hard that the bones ached. “Damnit, I don’t understand either of you. There is nothing to justify what you’re doing for Agrona—”

“Enough!” Cecilia screamed.

The word resounded throughout the ruined palace, growing louder and louder with each reverberation. The few remnants of structure around us collapsed. My hands clapped to my ears. I felt blood trickle from my nose. To my right, Chul leaned on his weapon, his arms wrapped around his head, his teeth bared like an animal. Above us both, Sylvie’s head lowered, her eyes closed against the punishing volume. _{fгeewebnovёl.com}

Taking a steadying breath, I reached for the mana with my aether. The manifestation was wild and uncontrolled, lacking the overpowering force of Cecilia’s focus. I broke it, and the noise faded away, leaving an echo ringing in my ears.

Cecilia had already turned back to Nico. “I’m sorry! I was afraid you were still under Agrona’s influence, and that something bad might happen if I told you.”

“It’s true?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “Grey didn’t—”

She shook her head, her body tense, her limbs pulling inward like she wanted to curl up into the fetal position.

Nico pulled away, aghast. “But I saw…”

“I’m sorry,” Cecilia repeated quietly. She waited for a moment, watching him carefully. “Does this mean your mind isn’t controlled by Agrona?”

Nico dragged his hands down his face. “Whatever he’d done to inflate my rage and bury the talents of my previous life leaked out of my core when Grey pierced it at the Victoriad.” His voice was flat, totally devoid of emotion. “But I knew what he’d done to your memories, Cecilia. I knew—I helped…and I thought you were still…” He hung his head, his staff dangling limply at his side. “I’m so sorry…”

They were completely engrossed in one another, their worlds having shrunk to the few feet around themselves in any direction. A cold, distant part of my mind—the piece of King Grey that I had resurrected to survive my trials in Alacrya—recognized the opportunity. A quick thrust of my aether blade and I could end the threat they each posed right there. Whatever Agrona planned for the Legacy made even Kezess Indrath fearful. Striking them both down would end that threat, and possibly the war.

After all, I hadn’t discovered some fatal flaw in Cecilia’s magic. Fighting her had brought me no closer to understanding how to separate Tessia and Cecilia. Tess was a warrior, no stranger to risking her life in the field of combat. She had been ready to die fighting in the dungeons beneath the Beast Glades, in the forests of Elenoir, in the city streets against Nico and Cadell…

She would understand. She would forgive me.

But could I ever forgive myself? I’d already denied myself the chance once, choosing to strike out at Viessa instead of Cecilia when the opportunity had presented itself. Did I really think I was prepared to end Tessia’s life alongside Cecilia’s?

“How can you be so certain?” Nico asked, his voice raising in frustration and drawing my attention back to them. “Because I don’t know anymore.”

After a beat of hesitation, Cecilia took Nico’s hands in her own. “Those are just the words of that awful Scythe sticking in your head. If Agrona can reincarnate us from across the universe—bring us into this world and make us powerful with only the resources he has now—why wouldn’t he be able to send us back with all the power of Epheotus at his disposal?”

There was a pause, and she dropped his hands, turning to look at me with dawning realization. “Is that why you took that dragon’s core? To ask Grey for help? You…want us to turn against Agrona?”

Nico’s pale face went even whiter. “No, of course not—”

“Grey can’t help us!” she shouted, her voice magically amplified but lacking the crushing resonance of her last sonic attack. “We’ve given everything to this, Nico, to Agrona. And we’re so close! Don’t let Grey manipulate you, he just wants his precious elf girl back. He’d kill me to get to her, you know he would.”

Nico also looked at me, frowning with confusion. “I…”

“Maybe I would,” I interjected honestly, my tone bitter cold. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you back then, Cecilia. I was so engrossed in my stupid quest to reach the top—to be powerful enough to right the wrongs that happened to our home, to Headmaster Wilbeck—that I ignored everything else.”