NOVGO.NET Chapter 843: A Warrior’s Death
Chapter 843: Chapter 843: A Warrior’s Death
Ronan’s legs shook as he stumbled across the broken streets, a heavy sack bouncing painfully against his back. Each step was agony—his muscles screamed, his knees nearly buckled. The bag was stuffed so full that it sagged awkwardly to one side, pulling him down with every movement. Any sane person would have thrown half the supplies aside just to move faster, but Ronan clutched the straps tighter.
He fell once, hard enough that the stones cut into his palms. The impact jarred his spine, and he cried out as he tried to rise. The sack pinned him to the ground, dragging him flat like a stone around his neck. He lay there, gasping, his frail body demanding surrender. Just drop it. Just let go.
But he didn’t. With a groan, he rolled onto his stomach and began to crawl, dragging the sack with him. Every pull forward left his arms trembling, but he gritted his teeth. Not far now. Just a little further.
At last, he reached the familiar ruins of a building that had long since lost its roof and much of its walls. One side had collapsed inward, leaving a narrow gap in the rubble—barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. He forced himself into the gap, dragging the bag behind him, scraping his elbows raw as he pushed forward.
The instant his body cleared the rubble, the weight lifted. A small hand tugged at the sack, another grabbed his arm, and Ronan was pulled shakily to his feet. All around him, small faces stared up with wide eyes. Children. Around a dozen of them, huddled together in the hollowed-out shell of the ruined house.
The littlest, no older than three, pressed her cheek against his leg with a smile. The others crowded around the sack, eager hands untying the knots and reaching for the food inside.
Ronan wiped sweat from his brow and gave a weary laugh. “Eat slowly… it has to last.”
It had started with just one. The first child he found, abandoned and sobbing in the ashes of what used to be a marketplace. He’d picked her up, hidden her away, fed her scraps. Then came another, and another. At some point, when he had four, it hadn’t seemed much worse than one. Then it became seven. And once he had seven, how could he look into the tiny, pleading eyes of the others he came across and refuse them? So twelve it became.
He had no idea why he never came across adults, only children. He’d have given anything for another set of hands, someone to help shoulder the burden. But it was always children. Always more mouths to feed.
Strange. But they were his now. His to protect.
As the children tore into the hard bread and dried meat, laughter and chatter filling the ruined walls, Ronan finally let himself sit back. Exhaustion dragged at him, but for a moment, warmth filled his chest. Their smiles were worth it.
Then the ground rumbled.
The eastern wall shuddered, then burst inward as something stabbed through it. A massive, two-pronged spike skewered the stone as easily as paper. Then the entire wall lifted into the air, peeled away by something enormous outside. Dust rained down, choking the air. The children screamed, scattering, clutching their food to their chests.
Through the swirling dust, Ronan saw it. A monster. A towering, insectoid, its arms long and jagged, ending in prongs like a grotesque fork. Its eyes glowed with hunger as it lifted the wall higher, exposing the children’s hiding place.
“Run!” Ronan roared. His voice cracked, but the children heard. “Through the hole! Crawl, now!”
They scrambled toward the gap he had just crawled through, sobbing, pushing each other in their terror. Ronan snatched up the nearest thing he could find—a broken stick, splintered and weak. He gripped it in both hands, turned, and ran at the monster.
His body screamed at the insanity. He knew it was hopeless. But if he could distract it, buy them a chance. He used to be a martial arts champion, surely he could do something when it counted—
He barely crossed the room before a jagged prong speared clean through his chest. The impact ripped the breath from his lungs, and he coughed, blood spraying from his lips. The stick fell from his hands, clattering uselessly to the ground.
The monster raised him into the air, dragging him toward its open mouth lined with thousands of needle-like teeth. Through the pain, Ronan felt something else—an energy flooding into him through the wound, cold and alien. He’d heard stories: Abyssals could corrupt, convert others into their kind. But this one wasn’t trying. To it, Ronan was no warrior worth corrupting. Just meat. Food.
Blood dripped down his chin, his body trembling on the monster’s prong. And yet, strangely, he felt calm.
For too long, he’d lived as a coward. When his body had failed him, when his strength as a martial artist had withered, he had hidden, scraping by, timid and afraid. But these children had changed that. Caring for them had given him a purpose, forced his spine straight again. And now, even skewered, he felt it—the faint echo of pride.
His final thought, as the monster dragged him closer to his death, was not of fear.
But relief.
At least he would die a warrior like he’d always wished.
——————–
Ronan woke with a violent gasp, eyes wide, his chest heaving as if the Abyssal’s prong were still skewering him. His hands clawed at his torso, trembling, searching for the wound. But there was nothing—just the cold sweat soaking through his robes. He was slumped in a chair, surrounded by rows of others, each masked like him.
The air in the chamber crackled with panic. All around, people jolted awake with the same desperate gasps—chests rising and falling like bellows, bodies trembling. Some whimpered quietly, others sat rigid, fists clenched. One woman outright screamed, her cries echoing off the walls as she clawed at her own arms, sobbing hysterically.