Alma 99 Shadow of Despair

For a couple of seconds, he'd even doubted his own eyes but quickly came to terms with it. They'd shown him enough more than proof to convince him, needless to say.

The dubiousness of their tale had concerned him in the beginning, but now… he knew that they'd spoken the truth. This was a time of crisis and if they did not act, the consequences would be catastrophic.

After much deliberation, Reed had come to the conclusion that he and Lu'um could no longer handle the situation on their own. Had it just been dealing with the Holy Church and the Dragoncrest and Ashborn families, he wouldn't have even considered getting help at all.

But now, things were different. The situation had escalated way beyond his expectations. There was no time, and he would need all the help he could get if he was to stop the growing threat before it was too late…

As much as it pained him, he put his pride and shame for the sake of the continent. He wouldn't let his feelings put even more lives in danger. Every second was now a precious commodity.

So, he had made his decision.

He had to go home.

When Reed and Lu'um tore themselves out of the Void into the Shining Nexus, it caused instantaneously caused a commotion amongst every contender and conqueror in the capital city. Anima surged and flared like a raging maelstrom across the city with their arrival in a way that had left them all stunned.

The Prince had returned. He was alive and… different now.

Immediately, the royal guard moved into action and warped themselves over to Reed and Lu'um in a circular formation and created a perimeter around them.

The captain of the royal squad said, "Greetings, Your Highness! I, Kellin, and the royal guard are honored to welcome you back home, Prince! Please, Your Highness, let us make way to the—"

Reed grabbed Kellin and said, "Where's my grandfather?! I need to speak to him, NOW! Get word to him that I have returned and have an urgent matter that requires immediate attention!"

He pushed the captain aside and said, "Send word to all able-bodied conquerors and contenders in this city to assemble at the royal spire, as soon as possible."

"B-But my prince, you don't have the authority to ord—"

Reed released a portion of the Anima he'd stored inside himself, frightening everyone in the process. It was as if they'd instantly been struck by a crushing tsunami of highly condensed Anima.

He turned around and said, "Do. It. Now."

It felt as if he'd locked eyes with the Grim Reaper itself. He'd never seen Anima react in such a hostile way before in all his time as a contender. It was almost as if it'd become a living extension of the prince, in a terrifying way.

Wasn't the prince supposed to be a contender?!! Just a whelp, who hasn't even lived half of a century…!

"Y-Yes, Prince! As you command!"

Reed reigned in his Anima and said, "Good. If anyone tries to reject the summons, tell them that I'll find them myself and drag them over to my grandfather so that they can explain themselves to him why they've disobeyed a royal order."

"Tell my grandfather I'll be waiting in my quarters for him," said Reed and then suddenly vanished along with Lu'um. They'd left.

It wasn't very long — a matter of minutes — before Velvund burst into Reed's room out of the void with a concerned expression on his face.

The moment he caught sight of Reed, a wave of relief washed over him and he said, "You had this old man up all night worrying, you know. Thank heaven the both of you are alive! Where have you two bee—"

"I'm glad to see you as well, Gramps, but unfortunately we don't have time for pleasantries. There is much I have to tell you and we do not have much time left, so listen very carefully…" said Reed and he immediately proceeded to explain everything that he knew.

At first, Velvund had thought that Reed had done something. Perhaps he had offended the Holy Church, or possibly have gotten himself involved with the incident in Fourth Heaven. That, he could handle...

But what Reed had told him eclipsed anything he could have ever thought up — never in his life would he have ever imagined such a disaster.

In fact, he didn't want to believe Reed's words as much as he trusted the boy.

"Are you SURE about this? This too over the top, even for a grim joke. What you speak of is a threat to all of Mulia, son. Do you understand? I cannot stress enough that if you are ly—"

Reed said, "Fine. If you want proof, I'll give you all the proof you'll ever need. He tore open a spatial tear and said, "Come and see for yourself, if you won't believe me…"

When they stepped out of the void on the other side, Reed said, "Here's your proof. I had initially planned to cremate them all but Lu'um stopped me. Told me that we should keep them here in order to prove ourselves should you have not believed us…"

Velvund gazed at the towering mountain of corpses with a severe expression and said then uttered something in the Old Tongue that Reed could not understand.

Perplexed, Reed said, "What did you just say?"

"A prayer for them. An old tradition from my homeworld. We pray that the deceased return back home to nature and rest easy under the shade of the Everbloom — the ancestral tree that our race lived around when we first came to be in our world."

That's not going to happen and we both know that, Gramps…

Reed opened a spatial tear and said, "I'm going to the North to alert them about the attack. It's very likely that they don't even know yet. I'll contact you when I'm at the Reef with the North's forces, Gramps."

Velvund nodded and said, "I'll start working on getting the forces in order while you're gone and inform the South and the East about the situation. Even the King of Flowers will likely be forced to act in light of this crisis…"

And so, they departed separately to take care of their own tasks, promising to meet at the battlefield. It'd begun to turn — the terrible wheel of war.

In a matter of hours, blood would be spilled across the continent once again. The millennilong era of peace that the Four Empires had would come to an abrupt end on this fateful day, out of the blue.

The skies would run red with the wrath, and the earth would tremble in despair like in the days of yore. Such was the destiny of the continent.

It would be a day to be remembered. One that would change the course of the North's history in such an immense way that it'd shake the foundations of the empire…

When Reed returned back to his room in the Shining Nexus he said, "How's he doing? No sign of him waking up?"

Lu'um shook her head and said, "No. I've checked him for anything out of the ordinary, but it seems that he hasn't been messed with. It's just fatigue. His lifeforce is extremely weak, presumably due to harsh conditions he's suffered while he was imprisoned."

Reed took a good look at Sebastian and noticed that he did indeed thinner than when he last saw him. He'd gained deep bags under his eyes, too.

Must've been starving the poor guy, keeping him awake all the while. If he's like that, then it's highly likely that Astrid's probably in the same condition, too. Goddamn savages, the lot of them.

"We'll leave him here, then. Let him recover here while we go out and take care of business. It's time to go alert the North," said Reed.

He opened a spatial tear and they disappeared together into a void…

But unbeknownst even to Reed, it was already too late.

Inside of the Reef, a multitude of screams resounded across Raku, the City of the Sun. There was nowhere to run, nor hide. The contenders and conquerors who'd been in the Reef at the time had put up a valiant struggle but even they, too, had fallen.

There were simply too many of them, even for them. It was hopeless.

By the time Infested Pupa's swarm had reached the Reef, it had already assimilated another four cities into Infested. The monstrosity had already harvested over a million souls since it had left Xibalba.

A million souls had been given new, grotesque bodies formed out of the Infested Pupa's eldritch flesh itself. They had been turned into unwilling slaves and had been set forth on the Reef like a scourge of locusts, killing everyone they could find — adding to Pupa's collection…

There would be no salvation for the citizens of the Reef. They drown in the shadow of despair and would become Infested. 

And then, they would destroy as their master commanded... until nothing was left.

Chapter end