CHAPTER 1118: AFTER THE DARKNESS

The miserable king looked at the four of them with eyes that carried an unbearable weight of pain. He didn’t know who they were, but the fact that they stood there before him, alive and unshaken, told him they were powerful. Perhaps even beings that were powerful enough to face Zerathul. But he was not very sure about that.

"Who are you?" the king asked in a hoarse, cracked voice.

Whatever trace of authority once existed in his tone had long since vanished. What remained in him right now was only the hollow echo of a man who had suffered beyond measure.

Erend looked at him quietly. The man resembled a human but he was taller, easily two meters or maybe more. His build was still strong and muscular, the kind of body that once commanded respect from all of his people.

But his spirit was broken. The strength that body carried meant nothing now.

"We don’t have time for you, old king," Krono said coldly, stepping forward without hesitation. "I need to meet that bastard and kill him."

The king’s head lifted slowly, his dull eyes staring into Krono’s burning gaze. "You... think you can do that?"

Krono’s jaw tightened. "What makes you think that we can’t?" he asked sharply, his pride bristling at the question.

But before the tension could rise, Erend stepped in.

"Wait." His firm voice carried calm authority. He gave Krono a steady look that silently told him to stand down.

Krono met his gaze and took a slow breath. The fury in his eyes dimmed slightly.

He took a step back.

Erend turned toward the king. "Do you have anything else to say about him?"

The king’s lips moved, but no words came out at first. He shook his head slowly.

"No." Then silence fell again. His eyes wandered and gave them a haunted look. Whatever memories he carried of Zerathul were things he no longer wanted to relive or speak of.

"He said that Zerathul is watching us from above," Aesa said, looking upward into the endless dark ceiling with unease. "But why hasn’t he attacked? It feels like... he’s watching us for amusement."

Krono scoffed quietly, his voice growing rough again. "Then let’s not waste any more time."

His wings unfurled with a loud, snapping sound. Massive, scaled, and gleaming with gold and black patterns. Even in their half-human forms the four Dragonborns emanated terrifying power, scales running along their arms, necks, and faces.

Without waiting for the others, Krono launched himself upward into the dark.

His wings cut through the air with huge beating sounds.

Aesa and Eccar exchanged glances.

Erend gave a faint nod. "We follow him."

The two nodded back, unfurling their wings. The air shook with force as they followed Krono into the darkness above.

Erend was about to take off too, but he paused. His gaze drifted back toward the miserable king, who sat slumped in the dim red glow in his high back chair.

"What will you do now? What will happen to you?" Erend asked quietly.

"I... don’t know..." the king murmured, his voice distant. His eyes looked empty, hollow as a corpse that still breathed.

Erend sighed softly. He could see the remnants of a man who had long lost everything.

After such torment and being turned into a lump of flesh that still has consciousness, there was no way he could return back to who he once was. Maybe death truly would be kinder. But this wasn’t the time for pity.

He spread his wings. With a powerful beat, he lifted from the ground and soared into the darkness above.

He caught up to the others a few moments later. Eccar shot him a questioning glance, as if to ask what took him so long, but said nothing. The four of them continued to ascend.

The darkness stretched endlessly. Even with their Dragonborn sight they couldn’t pierce it. No light or ceiling, just an oppressive void that seemed to be closing in around them.

None of them spoke again. The silence felt heavy.

Krono led the ascent with his eyes sharp and teeth clenched. His rage gave him focus. He wanted nothing else but to find Zerathul and end this abomination.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the darkness thinned and they emerged into a vast chamber. The darkness turned into a solid floor under them when they emerged.

The same black stone walls spread around them, pulsing with veins of red light. But unlike the lower chamber there was no throne this time.

Instead, at the center stood a towering figure clad in robes that seemed to be made of stretched blackened skin. Its head was shaped like an octopus, smooth and alien, with two massive eyes burning like red fire.

From beneath the place where his nose and mouth were, flowed writhing tentacles that hung to its chest, twitching and alive.

The four Dragonborns landed on the floor, but the moment their eyes met the creature’s form, a piercing pain stabbed into their minds.

Erend gritted his teeth as the pain surged through him like spikes in his skull.

His knees buckled, his breath sharp and uneven.

"What... is happening?" he thought through the haze.

They clutched their heads, almost losing balance. Their scales flickering faintly under the invisible pressure.

But slowly the pain began to subside and fading into a dull ache no more than inconvenient.

Then, a deep echoing voice filled the room. It was not coming from the creature’s mouth but from the air itself.

"Amazing. You endure the sight of my true form."

Krono’s fury boiled over. He rose to his full height, teeth gritted, and launched himself toward the creature without hesitation.

The creature merely let out a sound that resembled a scoff of cold amusement.

But before Krono could strike, he slammed into an invisible wall.

The impact echoed like thunder.

He roared and immediately summoned his Time power, golden light flashing around his arms as he tried to erode the barrier’s existence.

Nothing happened. His power met resistance as if the flow of time itself refused to answer him.

The creature’s voice rumbled through the chamber again.

"Frustrating, isn’t it?" it said, mockingly calm. "You must be furious... that I’ve taken your precious power away again."

Then it let out a deep and resonant laughing sound that echoed from every direction and shook the air.

Krono’s hands trembled with rage. His wings flared open, scales glowing like molten gold.

"You..." he growled. "You’ll regret this!"

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