CH.108

"Amar!” A shrill of agony tore from Sahar's lips, shocked to have watched her firstborn slain before her eyes.

“My precious boy!" Her scream shook the very foundations of the castle as her powers roiled up from deep within her being.

Her eyes shone with a searing light and face contorted into a mask of purest fury and hatred as she glared at Knox.

The power building within her suddenly burst forth in a blinding blaze of raging energy that threatened to consume everything in its path.

She prepared to unleash it with everything she’s got but a deafening roar like the peal of a thousand thunderclaps shook the entire hall.

Frederick who was driven into a berserk rage by his son’s death, had shifted into his massive dragon form.

He towered over thirty feet tall, its dragon scales gleaming like burnished steel. He opened his cavernous maw and fangs as long as swords glinted in the flickering light.

The dragon let out another earth-shaking roar before charging straight at Knox with its jaws gaping wide to swallow the treacherous prince whole.

Knox braced himself. Shadows erupted around his fists as he prepared to strike the oncoming beast. However, Enzo was quicker on the draw.

An invisible shockwave of force slammed into the dragon king's flank with the impact of a hundred battering rams.

Frederick's massive body cartwheeled through the air before smashing through the opposite wall of the great hall in an explosion of stone, mortar and timber.

The entire castle seemed to shudder from the impact as a hail of debris rained down, throwing the gathered nobles into chaos.

Many were struck by falling rubble amid their panicked shrieks and cries. Others turned and fled for the exits as the realization that their lives hung by a thread truly set in.

Through it all, Knox stood like an unmovable monolith amidst the devastation. He turned his impassive gaze back towards the distraught Sahar, who was practically glowing now with the intensity of her anguish and rage.

Tendrils of grim energy whipped around her, causing her hair to levitate and her gown to snap like battle emblems in a hurricane.

Knox titled his head to one side and removed the masked covering his face.

Sahar’s eyes went large like saucers when she beheld Knox's true visage for the first time in forever. She hadn't seen his face since he was nine years old.

Knox had sustained a nasty scar from the cruelty inflicted upon him by his own siblings.

Even as a child, Knox bore no resemblance to anyone in their family or circle. His features had always been strikingly unique, setting him apart in a way that both intrigued and unsettled those around him.

But it was his eyes that truly haunted Sahar. Those piercing amber orbs had unnerved her from the very moment she first gazed into them, moments after regaining consciousness from a harrowing labor that had nearly claimed her life.

Sahar believed that her own child had been replaced with an imposter because she couldn't connect with Knox no matter how hard she tried. There has been a gap between them since the beginning.

“Impossible!” She muttered incoherently, staggering a few steps back. “You… How… Its…”

So, it turned out everyone had been played from the very beginning. It turned out Knox was truly not her child. But how… how did he look like… like Myra? How was he Myra’s son? She could swear on her life that Myra died ages ago. So how come?

Knox could see the shock registered on the woman’s face. "This is payback for the life you stole from my wife and I. For the child you ripped from her before it even had a chance to take its first breath." he stated in a tone as cold and pitiless as the void between realms.

Sahar snapped out of her daze at that. Her shock was instantly replaced with hatred. “I should have done more than that. I should have killed her and send her ashes to you—”

Her hateful words were cut off when an invisible force lashed out, seizing the queen and sending her body tumbling through the air to smash against the far wall in a sickening crunch of snapping bones.

But before she could crumple to the floor in a motionless heap, her body suddenly disappeared along with that of King Fredrick’s and the princes including the lifeless one.

Knox, Enzo and Meredith whipped their heads to where Isolde’s lifeless body should be and found it gone.

“I should have known that evil soul wouldn’t stay down for long,” Meredith muttered displeased at their negligence.

Knox was unbothered. In fact, he was quite amused that Isolde managed to break through the barrier in the hall that kept everyone from escaping.

His burning gaze swept over the panicked crowd, pinning them all in place with an oppressive aura of dread and power. They tried in vain to attack, to flee, to do anything. But it was as if their minds and bodies were being controlled by some invisible, irresistible force.

A particular figure of Duke Hendrick and his son, Gareth caught his attention. Recognition flickered in Knox's eyes, followed swiftly by a look of malice.

The duke seemed to soil himself when he felt the terrifying gaze on him. He braced himself for the inevitable. However, what he least expected was his own son to suddenly whirled on him with a feral snarl.

Gareth's hands lashed out. He seized his father by the throat and ripped his head from his shoulders, causing torrents of blood to splatter all over him.

Screams of shock and horror tore through the crowd as the severed head went bouncing and rolling across the floor to land with a sickening thud at Knox's feet.

Gareth snapped out of whatever force had possessed him to kill his own father. He stood there, staring down at his own bloodied hands with an expression of dawning, gut-wrenching horror.

"That was for what your sister did to my wife," Knox stated in a tone of finality as he stepped over the gory remains towards Gareth. "For her attempt to eliminate the woman I will burn the entire world for."

He came to a stop before the shuddering Gareth, eyes boring into the young man's with an intensity that seemed to sear the very soul.

"And this..." Knox's hand whipped out, talons sinking into Gareth's torso and bursting out the other side in a spray of crimson. "This is for your own arrogance in standing against me."

With a casual flick, he tossed the prince's lifeless husk aside like so much garbage. It crashed into the far wall and slumped to the floor, leaving a grisly smear of red in its wake.

Knox turned his pitiless gaze upon the remaining nobles, who shrank back in open terror. Many fell to their knees, hands clasped in desperate pleas for mercy that would not come. Even the bravest knights and warriors could do naught but cower before the sheer, overwhelming force of Knox's power and fury.

"Let this be a lesson to any who would oppose my reign. I am the Imperial, and my word is law!" Knox's voice rolled out in a booming proclamation that seemed to reverberate through every bone and fiber. “All those who served the old regime will be thoroughly investigated. Any found to have participated in crimes against me or those I call family will face swift and merciless death.”

His words seemed to hang heavy in the air, more weighty than any physical threat. For in that moment, it was clear to all that this was no idle boast, but a brutal new reality.

An era of light had just ended, and a dark renaissance was being ushered in through a baptism of fire and blood.

Even Enzo and Meredith exchanged glances. For a brief moment, they both wondered if they had helped unleash something far more terrifying and destructive than they could ever have imagined.