Chapter 103: Chapter 103

At the end of this secret passageway, Gilyan knew what was coming... The question now was how can they avoid it?

“In order for me to become invincible, we must awaken Freya’s full powers. It is only after she has reached her fullest potential that I must take it for myself,” the Lord of Darkness said before when he had informed him of his plan.

His master firmly believed that, to awaken his beloved’s power, he must break her down in the cruellest and most unimaginable way.

“Freya’s weakness has always been her heart. She loves people too dearly. I must start by killing those who are dear to her as violently as I could. Only with violence and hate will she be forced to tap into her full potentials,” he said.

At the end of this tunnel, His Darkness will be laying in wait for an ambush. He was planning to kill the commander in front of the object of his obsession, and then after that, he’ll kill Lady Khailista right in front of Goddess Freya.

“We are almost there,” Commander Rus, said. “We will reach the end of this tunnel soon.”

Gilyan’s heart started to thump wildly in his chest.

“Wait,” he yelled. Their party suddenly halted.

“What is it,” the commander said, slightly irritated.

Gilyan didn’t know what to say. He shouted on impulse. “We... Can we stop for a while here?”

“What for? Sirion might have already discovered that we have gone missing by now. It won’t do well if we don’t hurry,” Eily said, tugging a little more violently at her braid to control her displeasure.

Gilyan didn’t know what to say. He was bound by a powerful oath to his master. He didn’t want to tell them what his plans were, but at the same time, he hadn’t thought of a concrete plan to help Lady Khailis from the fate that awaits her at the end of that tunnel.

“Gilyan, if you have something to say, then say it,” the girl whom the God of Darkness always referred to as ‘Freya’ said. “We will be listening.”

He looked at her for quite some time. Will he really be doing the right thing by saying it?

He doesn’t really care about the other people there save for Lady Khailista’s life. He honestly wanted his master to succeed in getting Goddess Freya’s power and ruling over the world. It’s just that he didn’t want to be the cause of or play any part in Lady Khailista’s death.

“I... Maybe you should all just turn back the way that you came from,” Gilyan said. He didn’t know what else to do so that he could ensure the lady’s safety. He deduced that out of the four people there, only Lady Khailista and the one they called ‘commander’ were at a disadvantage. If worse comes to worse, maybe he could protect the lady at the end of the tunnel, but what can he do when his master demands for her life right then and there? Can he actually defy His Darkness’ will when it comes to that?

“Why would we do that,” the commander asked again very suspiciously. He gave him a look that showed that he did not trust him, but that was fair enough. In a way, he was really leading them into their doom.

“It’s... It’s hard to explain,” Gilyan said. It really was too hard for him to say. He didn’t want both parties to suffer.

“But, we’re almost there. Why should we turn back now,” Eily asked in an irritated voice.

“If the boy thinks it’s a good idea, then, let’s turn back,” Freya said. Gilyan can’t believe she was taking his side for this. Did she already discover the reason behind his plea?

“Me too, I want to go back,” Khailis seconded from behind Gilyan. “I trust Gilyan’s words. If he says it’s not a good idea, then, I’m sure he has a good reason for it.”

Gilyan didn’t say anything, but he felt a great relief in his heart that Lady Humphrey trusted her enough to heed his warnings.

Before anyone could do anything, however, the tunnel began to shake once again.

“Are we still under the training ground,” Freya nervously asked the commander.

“We are beyond it already,” he said. The tremors became more violent. That was when it occurred for Gilyan that the shaking might not necessarily be of natural causes.

“Run back,” Gilyan shouted as it occurred to him what the tremors must have meant. He directed his next words to the lady in his back. “Hold on tight, my lady!”

Gilyan had started to run where they came from, and everyone followed suit, but before they could cover more ground, the whole tunnel gave way; the walls and the roof came crashing violently down at them all at once.

******************

The moment that Gilyan had asked them to turn back to where they came from, Shia had already had a hunch.

How did Gilyan find them there effortlessly? Why didn’t he try to stop them before then and even tried to help them out?

Whether Gilyan’s actions were prompted by his conscience or whether Sirion had put him up to it, it doesn’t matter. Shia could feel in her gut that something was deathly wrong, and she was going to follow her intuition to keep everyone with her safe.

Thus, even before the walls and floors collapsed upon them, Shia had already channelled the power of light and stretched it as widely as she could against them.

Everybody staggered as they were thrown off by the violent collapse, but Gilyan was quick enough to stabilize his steps when the tremors began and safely eased Khailis afterwards gently into the ground.

“Everyone, are you alright,” Shia asked quietly against the darkness. Unfortunately, the light orbs she placed in the walls earlier had been destroyed.

“I’m fine,” Khailis said, “and so is Gilyan, right?” Shia heaved a heavy sigh of relief when she heard this.

“Sister Eily? Commander?”

A fit of violent cough resounded through the darkness. Shia could hear faint scuffling sounds as if rocks were being turned about.

“I’m okay,” Shia heard Eily speak.

She was relieved once more, but her worry has not fully dissipated.

Shia called in the darkness again. “Commander Rus?”

Unable to hear a response, Shia, produced an orb of light, and as soon as the light illuminated her surroundings, she understood why the commander could not respond.

A thick collect of octopus-like tentacles surrounded Commander Rus from all four limbs and from the waist down, pinning him against the barrier Shia had set. Surprisingly, although Shia had already made a barrier, the tentacles were squirming. They wouldn’t let go of the commander.

“No, Commander Rus!”

Shia tried to pry the commander’s body away from the tentacles that were squeezing the life out of his body, but they wouldn’t budge. She struck it with the fire poker, but the thing was immediately bent as soon as it got into contact with the thick and slimy tentacles.

“It’s okay... I’m okay child,” the commander weakly said. As soon as he spoke, the tentacles tightened around his limbs and neck even further.

“No, commander!”

“Freya, what’s the rush?”

Shia searched around for the voice, but she didn’t see where the source was. It seemed to come from the limbs of the giant octopus itself, but there can be no mistaking who that voice belonged to.

“Sirion, let him go! Let the commander go!”

“Why would I do that, dearest?” His voice was filled with disdain and mockery. “This man is cursed. He belongs to me, and so does everyone else with you...”

“Nothing belongs to you!”

“Are you sure of that, deary?”

Shia produced a bigger light orb from her hands. She struck it against the tentacles over and over, but they continued to simply tighten their grip around the commander’s airway and appendages.

“How about we make a deal? If you remove that shield you set and come out of your own, I will free your friends. How’s that?”

Shia cursed Sirion in the vilest ways she could think of a thousand times in her head. He has cornered her once again. Can she trust the words of this damned god?

“Don’t do it,” Eily said, her lower limbs still struck on the rubble. Gilyan and Khailis, who were both nearest the Goddess of Childbirth, were digging as fast as they could to get her out. “Don’t listen to Sirion. It’s a trick!”

“Choose now, Freya... I am not such a generous person when it comes to exercising patience, you know...”

As he spoke, Commander Rus’ body was further squashed by the tentacles. Shia could practically see the end of his limbs turning blue.

“Don’t listen to him,” Khalis shouted as she dug through the rocks to the point that her hands were already bleeding.

Shia took one last look as Khailis, Gilyan, and Eily. She looked back at Commander Rus who had already fainted.

“I’m sorry...”

This was the last thing Shia was able to say. As soon as she said those words, she waived her hand, and the barrier around them collapsed. The earth shifted violently on all sides yet again.

As soon as she let go of the shield she made, the tentacles also lost their grip against Commander Rus’ body. Instead, they went straight for Shia.

Slippery tentacles coiled around Shia’s arms and ankles very quickly that she didn’t even had time to yell. They hoisted her up from the ground. She was only able to make a quick wave of her hand before the resulting impact made by the tentacles buried her friends underneath the once functional passageway, never to be seen again on the face of the earth.

“No,” she said, looking at the place where her friends were. “Khailis! Eily! No!”

The giant tentacles propped her into the air, and she was thrown haphazardly around until she landed into a pair of arms.

“Good job, dearest. Now your friends are free from their mortal sufferings at last!”

Shia immediately clawed at Sirion’s face, attempting to gorge out his malevolent-looking eyes, which she hated so much. As soon as she raised her hands though, the tentacles of the giant octopus coiled around her four limbs once again.

“You devil! Let me go!”

Sirion stuck his mouth into hers, kissing her forcefully. She spat against his face when it was over.

“What do you want?! What the hell do you want from me?”

“Freya, I need you – your mind, your body, your powers – everything,” he said as he wiped his face at the back of his hands. He dug his nails into her shoulders as he clung into her body. “All of you - I want it! Give in to me, Freya! We can rule this earth, you and I! You are my only rightful queen.”

“I am not your queen,” she said, “and I will never be your queen!”

“Then, if you can’t be mine, no one can have you,” he said, his eyes turning more wicked than ever. His nails were now digging forcefully into Shia’s skin, puncturing it. He strode forward with Shia still clutched in her hands. She thrashed forcefully around, and when he couldn’t handle her wild actions, he dumped her into the hands of two Gaulane knights that were obviously under his power.

“Drag her to the balcony,” he said coldly.

Shia was forced to climb the steps leading into the balcony, the same place where the vile King Caldwell had once kissed her and pronounced her as his betrothed. Now, she was yet again being forced to go there against her will, and she knew that nothing good can come out of this.

Just like the first time Shia was there at the castle balcony, the view below was teeming with people, who immediately shouted when they saw Sirion and her.

“All hail the new king, King Danterion!”

“The empire’s sun!”

“Glory be to our new ruler!”

Sirion smiled and raised his hands to signal the crowd to silence.

“Dearest citizens of Gaulane, today, I present to you one of the reasons why our former ruler, King Caldwell the First, had died in vain!”

He walked to where Shia was standing, and he cupped her head violently forward for the crowd to see.

“The rumors are true! This woman, as well as my dear brother, Prince Langrion Zephiry Romualdi, are cursed!”

The people began to roar in anger. The knights began to subdue them as Sirion raised his hands to signal for silence.

“Tomorrow, she shall face the consequences of her acts of treason at the royal courtyard. I, Danterion Alexy Romualdi, sentence this woman to die! She will burn at the stake to cleanse away her sins against our beloved Gascone!”

Shia can’t believe what she had just heard. He – Sirion – the same person who had just declared that he needed her, that he wanted to have her everything, had just announced her death!

“Devil,” she said breathlessly to him, her body shaking with such hatred and fear. “You are truly the devil!”

He looked back at her, his eyes burning in rage that she had never seen before. “Like I said, my Freya, if I can’t have all of you, neither can anyone else! Now,” he whispered further, “let’s see how that useless prince of yours crumbles when he finds your mortal body reduced to nothing more but ashes!”

Sirion looked back at her with hatred and madness in his eyes before he had finally left her standing and trembling in shock of what had just taken place.