Chapter 635: Ashen Territories (5)
‘Master!’ Erebus and Valeria’s alard voices rang out simultaneously in my consciousness, their panic cutting through my awareness like ergency sirens.
At the sa ti, I felt Luna’s presence stir as she tried to manifest beside . ‘Arthur, it’s dang—’
Her voice was cut off mid-warning.
No, not just her voice—the entire world itself seed to be severed from reality.
Yet sohow, I continued walking forward, my feet moving of their own accord across ground that was no longer the corrupted wasteland of the Ashen Territories. The twisted crystalline formations vanished, replaced by sothing far more disturbing.
The landscape around transford with nauseating fluidity, reality reshaping itself like clay in the hands of an unseen sculptor. Where monts before there had been dark crystals and corrupted vegetation, now I saw gleaming towers of glass and steel reaching toward a clear blue sky.
Cars moved along sophisticated roadways with the quiet efficiency of advanced transportation systems. Children laughed and played in carefully maintained parks while adults moved purposefully along pedestrian walkways, their clothing and manner speaking to a prosperous, technologically advanced civilization.
‘I know what this is,’ I realized with growing horror as recognition dawned. ‘This is New Crestmont. The city the Arch Lich destroyed.’
New Crestmont—ho to over one million people, a major tropolitan center that had been a hub of magical innovation and technological advancent. Not the largest city in the Northern continent, but significant enough that its loss had sent shockwaves across the entire region.
‘I’m experiencing its final monts.’
The realization hit like a physical blow as I understood what I was witnessing. This wasn’t just a vision or hallucination—I was sohow experiencing the actual mories embedded in this cursed land, reliving the last day of a city that had been erased from existence centuries ago.
The scene around possessed the hyper-real quality of mories viewed through magical ans, every detail sharp and vivid despite the impossibility of what I was experiencing. I could sll the clean air of a healthy city, hear the subtle hum of magical infrastructure operating at peak efficiency, feel the vibrant energy of a million people going about their daily lives with no idea that doom was approaching.
‘How many of them knew what was coming?’ I wondered, watching families share als at outdoor cafes, students hurrying toward educational institutions, workers collaborating on projects that would never be completed.
Then the sky began to darken.
It started as a subtle dimming, the kind of gradual change that might herald an approaching storm. But this wasn’t natural weather—the darkness spread with malevolent purpose, accompanied by a presence that made every living thing in the city instinctively recoil in terror.
The Arch Lich was coming.
But first, I witnessed another tragedy—the desperate battle that had occurred before the lich ever reached the city itself.
On the outskirts of New Crestmont, a lone figure stood against the approaching darkness. A knight in the ceremonial plate of the Creighton family’s elite guard, wielding a massive greatsword with the easy familiarity of soone who had dedicated their life to martial excellence.
‘He made it in ti,’ I realized as I watched the confrontation unfold. ‘The Creighton knight reached the city before the Arch Lich could attack.’
He reached with his order. However, his order was already lying dead around him.
The knight fought with everything he possessed—decades of training, magical enhancent, and the desperate determination of soone who understood that a million lives depended on his success. His greatsword blazed with Purelight energy as he threw himself against an enemy that transcended mortal comprehension.
But it wasn’t enough.
The Arch Lich’s power was simply too vast, too ancient, too refined through centuries of accumulating strength. What should have been an epic confrontation between light and darkness beca a brutal demonstration of the gap between mortal capability and undead transcendence.
I watched in helpless fascination as the knight’s valor proved futile against overwhelming force. His final monts were spent in defiant resistance, his blade carving through shadow and bone until his strength finally gave out.
The Arch Lich’s retaliation was swift and terrible. Dark energy engulfed the knight, and where monts before there had been a noble defender, now there was only emptiness—and a headless corpse that crumpled to the corrupted earth.
‘He died trying to protect them,’ I thought with sick admiration. ‘Knowing he was outmatched, he still fought to the end.’
With the knight dead, nothing stood between the Arch Lich and New Crestmont.
The attack on the city itself was swift and rciless. Panic erupted across the tropolitan area as supernatural darkness descended. Ergency sirens wailed from every district while evacuation protocols activated with desperate urgency, but there was nowhere to run.
The local guild branch mobilized with admirable speed, their response teams deploying under the leadership of Kieran Voss—an eight-star adventurer whose reputation for tactical brilliance had made him the natural choice to lead the city’s supernatural defenses.
Under normal circumstances, Voss and his teams would have been more than capable of handling extraordinary threats. His eight-star classification and the guild resources at his disposal should have been sufficient to address most dangers.
But the Arch Lich wasn’t most dangers—it was a force of destruction that operated on scales almost no living human could match.
I watched Voss lead his forces against an enemy that transcended conventional categories of threat. Brilliant tactical maneuvers, coordinated magical strikes, and desperate heroism all proved utterly inadequate against a being whose power had been accumulating for centuries.
The battle was magnificent and futile in equal asure. Voss fought with the skill and determination of soone willing to sacrifice everything for his people, his eight-star magic blazing with intensity that could have devastated armies. But against the Arch Lich’s accumulated might, even his formidable abilities were like candleflas against a hurricane.
‘He never had a chance,’ I realized as I witnessed Voss’s final monts. ‘None of them did.’
The guild leader died as he had lived—protecting others until his last breath, his final spell creating a barrier that bought precious seconds for civilian evacuation efforts that ultimately proved futile. The Arch Lich’s retaliation was swift and absolute, Voss’s form dissolving into nothingness under the weight of necromantic power that defied comprehension.
Around , New Crestmont’s death accelerated. Buildings crumbled as their magical foundations were corrupted from within. The sky rained ash and shadow while the streets filled with the desperate screams of people who had no hope of survival. One million lives snuffed out in a single night of supernatural horror.
‘This is what Uncle Alastor carries with him,’ I understood with new clarity. ‘The mory of being unable to prevent this massacre, of arriving too late to save anyone.’
The vision began to fade as the last echoes of destruction played out around . The gleaming towers of New Crestmont collapsed into rubble while the darkness claid everything that had once been vibrant and alive. Within hours, a thriving tropolitan center had been reduced to the corrupted wasteland I knew as the Ashen Territories.
‘One million people, gone in a single night,’ I thought as the mory-vision dissolved around .
But as the echoes of the past faded, I found myself facing sothing unexpected. Where the ruins of New Crestmont had been, a figure now stood waiting—the sa knight I had witnessed dying in the Arch Lich’s assault.
He held his massive greatsword with the sa familiar grip, his stance speaking to martial prowess that death had not diminished. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of centuries-old guilt and self-recrimination.
“I failed in my duty,” he said, his words echoing strangely in the empty space between realities. “As one of House Creighton’s sworn knights, I was charged with the protection of this realm’s people. I reached the battle in ti with my order, but I was too weak to stop the Arch Lich and my order was slaughtered.”
‘A Creighton family knight captain?’ I thought, studying the figure’s imposing presence. ‘The sa one who died trying to prevent the attack?’
“I fought with everything I possessed,” the armored figure continued, his massive sword gleaming with residual magical energy. “But my strength was insufficient. The Arch Lich killed and proceeded to destroy the city I had sworn to protect. One million souls, dead because I was too weak to fulfill my oath.”
I looked up at the knight’s face, preparing to offer so word of understanding or consolation for his obvious tornt.
And realized he had no head.
Where his neck should have supported a human head, there was only empty space above ornate armor that bore the scars of his final battle. Yet sohow, impossibly, he continued to speak—his voice erging from the void where his head should have been.
‘Dullahan.’
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