ACT VI
THE AGE OF UNDEAD

CHAPTER 194
I’M PRINCE OF PARV

Tearing all the foliage like paper, Samson eventually reached Hans. A clean vertical wound from head to toe, tore up necrotic skin and broken bones still hanging on. This was the closest Hans got to the Death king. In a hurry, Hans did what he alway did in panic.

~Mana storm~

He couldn’t call his three-step-attack but onestep was enough to push himself back. He crashed like a fallen star, but caught by Bernard. He was out of Samson’s range and his dying Sirius move.

“I ain't’ done, you maniac” Hans stood once again. “Eat this.” He cried.

~Mutilate~

Hans had already stretched a tense mana path and it was time he greeted the death King with his deadliest spell. “Shoo!” The crying seed was shot, encased inside a steel cap.

“Shook!” The death knight caught it before it struck his face. But everyone could see that beneath the necrotic skin, the death king was baffled. “Seed of the Night. How does a human have this—”

“Screech!” Several fine threads, sprung from the opening of steel casing and did what Hans intended. Within a moment, they ravaged his hand made of aura, the only one he had into smithereens. “Agh! Aaaah!” The death king withered in pain that he shouldn’t have.

He was an undead, he couldn’t have felt pain but he did. Just as he was baffled of pain like other. He remained curious as why he was feeling it, and his curiosity took quite a chunk of his lower body, he shook it off. “Ha… I feel.. alive.” After crying, the words left from his mouth gave more frustration to Hans, much more than he got in all of his life.

“Oh, come on. Stay down.” Hans wrecked his brain, there was nothing left for him to try. He was searching, for anything that could give him an edge. The Attack from Reina did damage him, but he needed something decisive.

He was still in battle because of his single yet most absurd trait. The Limitless access to mana while others who fought him directly was on last straws. He couldn’t imagined fighting Samson directly like them, as he knew, once in range, Samson would swat him like Walter.

As he searched, his eyes fell on Dijkstra. “Can you make a jump?” He asked and Dijkstra nodded, standing up. “Catch it.” Hans threw something out of his space bag towards Dijkstra’s hand. As far as he understood, Dijkstra could swap himself with anything that contained ground mana, like pebbles or soil. “I hope Im right.” He prayed and put a stone as big as his fist on mana path right at Samson's face.

“Shoo!” It launched with considerable speed yet it was far from denting Samson. Puzzled, Death king welcomed it but just at his face, Dijkstra swapped himself with the stone and came back with a flash. Only leaving a shiny sunstone at Samson’s face.

“Damn, my money.” Hans cried as the second sunstone launched with the delay clashed with the one Dijkstra left.

The collision of stones was, so quick that even Samson had no time to block. The two collide creating a massive blast sending Samson’s left half gone, permanently.

“You. Who are you?” The death king finally became curious.

“He had that.” Arat murmured. Hans had used the principle of Carronade, their sunstone weapon. He turned flabbergasted audience. “And you checked me for sunstones.” He mocked looking the marvel.

While his mockery was ignored, the knights found themselves an easy target. Assisting Reina, they pounded on Samson’s helpless corpse like hyena. But something changed. The eyes of Samson remained fixed on Hans. He ignored everyone, and began to chant, ‘O Divine mother, our hearts are filled with darkness. Please make this darkness distant from us and promote illumination. Bring the absolute down.—”

“No! No! NO!” Arat ran towards Hans, staggering, stumbling, with no care for his knees. He caught him and shouted, “Command Centre: INGRESS” But nothing happened. He found Dijkstra’s flabbergasted face as the Sad death was trying the same. “Get him out of here.” Arat ordered him but Dijkstra was already spent after that jump.

Arat became frantic like a senile of his age should, while Samson continued, with his dying vigour. “ O! Divine mother. Your son prays for your guidance, for your protection, for your wraith. Destroy my enemies.”

Hans had no idea what was going on, but seeing Arat that scared, he understood something serious was happening. “Whats going on—”

“We are fucked, my prince. He just activated a Celestial weapon. A gift from land of gods that our Osiris had brought.”

“Then lets run—”

“It's no use, the whole capital is in its range. I dare not boast, but it was the reason the world was scared of us. Now we are all going to see how much truth is there by witnessing upon ourselves.”

Hans opened control centre, but all was hazy, fluctuating in zigzag. “INGRESS.INGRESS…” He cried on but nothing happened.

While Hans remained Panick-stricken, Arat ran his mind gears. He shouted for all to come back and pull out there best defensive measures. One after another, all followed his advice since the name 'Celestial weapon' was enough to rally them. They all came back. Some brought the injured and unconscious one.

All of them were together, enemies of past, now allies and progressing towards death. They all saw a star blinking in the sky which soon became clear as a cylindrical structure with its tail on fire. “Here it is.” Arat mumbled. Others had seen weapons like these when Parv was active in DeadLands. These weapons could obliterate a horde of red demons like nothing, but the sheer size of that cylinder was something else.

“Elven King.” Norwin almost out of aura shouted. “This is not time for you to hold back.”

Eleanor was already working on something. He was the second ranked knight and was at that place with his excellent defence. “Spirit king Tarragon, heed my call.” He shouted and a behemoth size turtle rose from the depths of the ground like a ghost. Its immense, emerald-green shell, adorned with ethereal runes that shimmer with old magic. Tarragon's eyes gleam with wisdom and age, reflecting the eons it has witnessed.

It encased all of them inside its transparent body. There was a cost to pay for Eleanor to call the spirit king, but it wasn’t time to hesitate. Far from them, Samson’s torn body was hanging in the air.

For someone who knew what the Celestial weapon was, Bernard, said with no hope in his eyes. “At least he will die with us—”

“Fuck no, I don’t wanna die.” Dijkstra interrupted, probably saying what everyone wanted.

As the falling cylinder became more and more visible. Hans said showing his relentlessness, “what is this, you people are one of the strongest. Hit that thing before it hit us—”

“Its doesn’t work Hans.” Rudolf who wished Hans to live more, he hugged him with so much warmth which he never showed before. He had accepted, it was their last moment. “I never said this, but I’m glad that I got to meet you brat. I’ve always been proud of you.”

Others had never seen the Alastor in tears, but they were witnessing it. Hans contracted those emotion and his eyes began to well up. “Mr Arat, please do something, anything. Call another one of those and make it hit—”

“It is the only weapon and only the king can invoke it.” Arat said dejected. He blamed himself for allowing Hans to remain in the battlefield. He regretted not activating Ingress before. The guilt was killing him. He never dreamed that the imperial bloodline would end again because he failed. Samson calling the divine weapon was an impossible thing since it was not their king's will but an undead's.

Getting no help from the Parvian PM. Hans turned to culprit who was still staring at him, mumbling the invocation in repetition. Hans removed his wailing grandpa from his embrace and stood. He shouted towards the death king, “Father, I don’t want to die. Please stop it. Please…” he pleaded, his all arrogance gone, he was begging, but the death king continued his mumbling.

“Please. I’m your son. Hans. Please stop.” Hans grovelled, he never felt this helpless all his life. “Help me, please.”

However, the Death continued, his hypnotic stare getting more intense as he possessed Hans's mouth. “O! Divine mother…” Hans began to copy his words, “O Divine mother, our hearts are filled with darkness… Please make this darkness distant from us and promote illumination and bring the absolute down.” He picked up speed, raising his voice as he was calling to heavens, “O! Divine mother. Your son prays for your guidance, for your protection, for your wraith. Destroy my enemies.”

A new kind of augmentation, far different from Command Centre appeared before Hans. He stuttered, his words making no sense. But since he saw hope, he answered after thinking, “Interim Administrator.”

“Fuck!” Hans didn’t cursed because he said the wrong, but he knew the answer and was hesitant to say. “Damn it.” He cursed and added, aloud, “I’m prince of Parv.”

“Yes.”

“oh, for the love of god. just do it, YES” he cried aloud.

As Hans said those words, the falling cylinder separated into tow parts, the longer one ejected while the conical one began its descend with twice the speed. However, with reduced mass, it was possible to survive. As others took a breath of relief, Hans turned to the mumbling corpse of his father who came to halt when the Celestial weapon separated. Yet his green lit eyes remained fix on Hans.

“It was nice seeing you son, good job —Boom!” The tattered mouth of the Death king spoke as the Celestial weapon fell.

"No!" Hans screamed, his hands reaching out to his father while Rudolf caught him in his embrace.

In a blinding flash, the sky transforms into a searing inferno. A deafening roar engulfed everything, and a shockwave raced across the landscape, sending the debris of the icy walls all over the city. People of capital, no matter from where all saw, a mushroom-shaped cloud billowed upward. An eerie and haunting scene of destruction as the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion.