Chapter 228: The Fall of the Queen

Zahliver’s POV

I bent down slowly, grabbed her severed leg by the ankle with my sharp claws, and walked a few paces closer to her. For someone as feared and revered as she had been for centuries, I could clearly see the deep disbelief swimming in her eyes. It was not just the physical pain eating away at her soul it was the profound shame. The total shock. The brutal realization that she had finally lost.

I held her blood-soaked leg up in front of her face and looked down at her crumpled form. "We gods do not simply die," I said, my voice calm and ice-cold. "You already know that very well. But did you ever stop to seriously consider... even if a limb is completely removed from the body, you can still feel everything that happens to it?"

Her vivid green eyes narrowed instantly, flickering rapidly between my face and the severed leg in my grasp.

"I was curious once upon a time. Did a little bit of dark experimenting," I twirled the heavy limb slightly in the air, watching her flinch violently. "But here is the real fun part of the curse. Even when your physical body is no longer connected to it... you can still feel every single agony that happens to it."

To prove my point clearly, I slowly dug my black claws deep into the muscle of the severed leg. Her fresh blood spilled warmly over my hand.

She shrieked in absolute horror, her swords slipping entirely from her weakening grip. Her body curled tightly around her bleeding stump as she gasped and screamed, clutching the mangled end with shaking fingers. She kicked out weakly with her remaining leg, pure reflex rather than strategy. Pathetic.

Time and endless power had truly softened her up. The Alstha I had known long ago would never have ended up sprawled out on the dirt, weeping openly right in front of me.

"Beautiful," I whispered darkly. "That sound right there. Do you hear it?" I let out a rough, humorless laugh that did not feel quite right even inside my own throat.

She completely broke right then and there. "I am so sorry," she sobbed, her voice hoarse and trembling violently. "I was completely wrong! I did horrible, unforgivable things to you. Please stop this madness. I am begging you for mercy!"

The sky above us wavered and rippled again, and this time, it did not recover. The massive illusion shattered completely into nothingness. Her mental control had completely crumbled, her fading power unable to hold the fake facade together any longer.

Now I could step directly into her hidden stronghold without ever having to walk through the mental hell she had once cloaked it in.

And she could do nothing at all except sit there and bleed.

I stood tall over her trembling figure, watching the hot hatred and the cold fear twist together tightly in her eyes as she looked up at me. She was still desperately trying to look defiant, even as she shook uncontrollably with blinding pain. Pathetic. I crouched low to the ground, making sure her wounded leg stayed pinned safely out of reach before I drove my claws deeper into the dirt. Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream no sound came out, just pure agony etched across her pale face.

The rich scent of her warm blood tugged heavily at the darker, feral part of my soul. My gums throbbed, my sharp teeth aching with the primitive need to rip straight into her flesh. I could almost taste the sweet satisfaction of it. But not yet. That specific kind of final punishment was a dish I was saving for later.

"If I took every hollow apology tossed at me as absolute truth," I said, my voice dropping until it sounded like sharp, broken glass, "I would not be the man I am standing here today, would I?" I leaned in just close enough for her to feel the heavy weight of my overwhelming presence. "And let us be completely honest with each other... you do not mean a single word of it."

I pushed myself upright again, letting out a cold, low chuckle. She glared up at me with pure hatred, those vivid green eyes swimming with a mixture of blinding fury and intense pain. The edges of her eyes had even begun to turn a sickly yellow whether from lingering poison or sheer terror, I did not care in the least.

"Venom," I called out loudly, not tearing my fierce gaze away from her until I caught a bright flash of stark white moving toward me from the side.

There was only one creature in this world who could casually stroll through a bloody, mud-soaked battlefield without getting so much as a single speck of dirt on his clean clothes. Not a single hair out of place. Venom.

His pristine snow-white hair caught the dim light as he strolled leisurely toward me, his hands tucked casually deep inside his pockets like he was just out for a quiet evening stroll instead of crossing a brutal warzone. Completely casual. Untouched. And entirely lethal.

A squad of Alstha’s remaining loyal soldiers noticed him approaching and made the fatal mistake of thinking he would be easy, defenseless prey. Poor, stupid bastards. They lunged at him all at once as a group, foolishly hoping that sheer numbers would somehow tip the bloody odds in their favor.

Complete idiots.

Venom did not even flinch. He just rolled his striking golden eyes, the expression on his handsome face landing somewhere between utter boredom and mild annoyance. I was not the only one watching now Alstha’s terrified eyes followed mine as her confusion rapidly bled straight into raw fear.

As the charging soldiers closed the distance, Venom’s skin suddenly shimmered, a faint, translucent sheen of hard scales forming rapidly across his exposed arms and neck. His handsome face sharpened aggressively, becoming more angular and distinctly alien. The vertical slits of his dark pupils widened for a single breath, then narrowed down into lethal, cold slivers. When he finally stopped moving, his jaw parted just slightly, and I caught a quick glimpse of his forked serpentine tongue flicking out into the air.

The desperate men surrounded him completely, their sharp weapons drawn and ready.

He still did not move an inch.

Mistake number two.

Venom exhaled a long breath slowly, and with that single breath came something truly otherworldly thick, white smoke shaped like a long, coiling serpent poured directly from his parted lips. Wraithlike and unnatural, it slithered swiftly through the air straight toward the surrounding men.

They tried their best to fight it off, swinging their heavy swords wildly through the harmless-looking vapor like it would actually matter.

It did not matter at all.

The dense smoke coiled tightly around each of their necks like a lover’s embrace turned instantly deadly. Venom stood completely motionless at the dead center of the sudden chaos, watching with detached, mild curiosity as the men clawed frantically at their own throats, blind panic completely taking over their minds. Their heavy blades dropped uselessly to the dirt. Their eyes bulged wide. Their faces flushed a dark crimson.

And then

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

All at once. Every single neck was broken clean. Their lifeless bodies collapsed heavily to the ground like broken marionettes with their strings suddenly cut.