Chapter 347: Chapter 346: Book 4 Interlude – A Role To Play

“What happened to him?” she asked the remnants of the light’s army.

“I can’t believe it,” a man said to her, “you’re still alive? After all these years?”

“I said what happened to him Jar-Khan!”

“He went mad,” a woman said. “That’s the only conclusion we had gone. The New Talon King took the demon lands and made it himself. Now the Salt Passing and the Holy State want a piece of the pie. Again, where were you?” the woman demanded. “We thought you died and you came waltzing in without a thought? We mourned for you! We cried for you and yet you were alive!”

“I was trapped in an abyss, Arita. It took me years to find the light back.”

“Bullshit!” she stomped her feet. “You have no right to place your feet on the ground. You abandoned us when we needed you the most-”

“Shut your mouth, Arita!” he pointed his face at her. “She’s right. You abandoned us at our time of need, and now you come crawling back as if it matters now. The abyss…if you are telling the truth then I’m sorry, but no one ones other than he became what he is today.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she demanded.

“Lady Ciara,” said Arvan, “the Dragon had started to act like this after he returned to Oasis. At first, he started punishing thugs, criminals, and slavers, but as time passes he got worse. He went after nobles and crucified a priest of the holy state. He stole from Marlon’s disciples and the Witch of Nether taught him.”

“Audrey?”

“That woman fell!” Arita shouted. “She became his and tolerated his behavior! She had helped him defeat the Dragon himself and took on his mantle!”

“Who?”

“Kaiser,” Jar-Khan said to her. “He dealt the killing blow to the Dragon, took on his mantle, and consumed his flesh. After that, he devoured the Guardians guarding the gate, and sealed us.”

Ciara folded his arms.”What about Audrey?”

“She escaped,” said Jar-Khan. “She sent herself away after leaving Old Nolan with the Sword of Zacharia. We tried to stop him, but Ferdinand had one of his legs broken. The one thing we do know is that he took on another mantle. You saw the clouds above, Ciara. The same day that the world darkened, we saw the same clouds.”

“No, it can’t be,” Ciara said to them. “Nolan won’t turn into that. He’s a good man.”

“Is he?” Arita questioned. “When you died he became a Bleak Walker. Most of the Bleak Walkers after the war vanished in the Styx River and died. He was the only one who kept roaming around the world even after we discovered more continents. After we found him barely alive in that graveyard filled the bones of our comrades, he has not been the same.”

Ciara heard of the time when they found her husband in that graveyard. He was laughing as he started pounding his chest madly. He broke the bones around him, created fire using the leftover broken hilts, and pommels and cooked the marrows inside the bone.

Instead of wandering the earth he stayed in that graveyard until someone found him. Audrey, the Witch of Nether, and Ciara’s friend found her husband and took her back to Oasis where he was fed. He was granted titles and young women, but he refused and walked back to the dried-up wasteland until Audrey convinced him to accompany her.

“What happened?”

“Power,” Arita said. “She desired power, and took the Walker with him.”

“You are many!” Ciara asked.

“And most of us are old, Lady Ciara,” said Arvan. “Forgive my tone, but he allowed himself to carve his organs and ate on dragon flesh. Audrey did something to him that made him…stronger. Now he slaughters left and right and shad been killing the members of the Holy State. They had sent 150 crusaders to where he was seen and only one of them returned alive to declare to leave him be. They want his head, and the heroes won’t play. Not after they fought so long, and their lives so brittle. Without you as a medium, their bodies have been bearing the weight of power from the Gods themselves. We are too old, and he seems to have found a way to grow strong. How can we match one of the Walkers who slew devils, demons, and monsters and painted the desert with blood? He is lost, Lady Ciara. I think you need to-”

“To do what, Arvan!?” Power bursts forth from inside of Ciara. “Kill my husband? You are asking me to kill my husband? Do you want me to murder all of you here in one spot!?”

Ciara shook madly. The remnants of the light’s army stood. Arita lifted her head and gave a howling laugh. “Hah! The frozen lady has opened her heart truly! But too late! The husband you treated like a piece of furniture, a dog that you keep by your side is gone!”

Ciara lifted her. “Take that back, you bitch!”

Arita glared. “I said nothing wrong. We saw you shame him, kick him around, and tell him he is not worthy for three decades!? Do you know what we thought in the first few years? A pathetic man clinging to someone's thigh! But then he continued for years while you did nothing but humiliate him! I understand that you might have been creep out, hated him, but why did you not tell him to go away? Why do you care now? You should have heard the wail of the man they called Steel, the unbroken, grieving for his loves one. I’ve done terrible things, but to do that to him. I don’t understand why you care now after being so selfish. Do you want to save the world? Kill him.”

“That’s enough,” Jar-Khan said. “You are asking something hard. Are we monsters now that kill our comrade? Ciara, you might convince him, you are his wife, and I’d think that he might listen to you.”

Ciara gazed at the ground. “Forgive me, I lost my temper.”

“No,” Jar-Khan said. “I just never thought that we’d see you again. Go in peace, War Maiden.”

*****

If there was anything that could be said he looked like a walking corpse with all the cuts around his armor. He had a deathly pale complexion and carried a two-handed broadsword carved with runes. Around him were the fallen soldiers, the horses, and mounted monsters that the light’s army had been using. The light illuminated this figure in Red, whose cuts were being sewn.

“Nolan,” she called out to him.

The figure in red turned, he lifted the mask of his helmet, revealing a scarred diseased look. There was a gash around his face, and he was missing an ear and a part of his face was burnt. His left eye resembled that of a snake. That old look was a familiar one.

“Who are you?” asked him.

“It’s me, can you remember me?”

“Ah,” he planted that sword of his. “You are alive, that’s good, I saw you die, burned, crying, and you die. I see I guess I was right to stay alive.”

“Huh?”

Nolan Salvatore lifted his blade. “I’m sorry, if Audrey is right, no, if Alcina was telling the truth. Then I have no choice but try to kill you. I cannot let you become a destroyer of worlds, Ciara. I cannot let you do that. That’s why…”

Nolan flashed with his sword lifted. He brought his sword down with a savage strike. Ciara lifted her sword, guarded against the strike, deflected the blade down. Nolan pivoted and swung his legs to where Ciara was. Ciara blocked with her arms and saw Nolan thrusting his blade to her stomach. Ciara parried the blade. Nolan lets go of his blade, grabbed hold of her, and tried to put her into an arm lock.

“Tsk!” Ciara used her brute strength to throw him off. Nolan used his weight to throw himself down. He slid his feet on the sand, pulled his sword back, and took a strike at Ciara.

“Stop this!” Ciara blocked him. “Why are you doing this? Why?”

“I have no choice, but to kill you.”

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His sword-arm was shaking. His eyes tearing up as he swings the sword.

“Why? After this time?”

“I have to do it. I must kill you. If you have not lived then it meant that your soul is still stuck here! You cannot leave this realm with a body! You must be able to reincarnate and not transmigrate!”

“Please stop,” Ciara said. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?” he said pleadingly. “You’ve beaten me down for so many times, yet now you hesitate. I have to kill you here, Ciara. I have to. Or else we won’t be free from this torment. With my hand unaffected by the fates, the cogs that run this putrid cycle of suffering!”

Nolan’s arm bursts with power as he swung his sword down. Ciara casts a spell to propel her body up to evade. Nolan dashes like a madman swung his sword up and down and did a wide-open slash. Noland’s martial techniques have always been strange to Ciara. It was a mix of combat techniques that covers his guards. While he was an amateur with the sword, he was devastating with a knife and his fist. He was one of the few that she had seen kill with his bare hands and the way he trained was different compared to the rest of the soldiers.

Nolan feinted with his sword, wrapped his legs around Ciara’s right arm and tried to lever her arm the opposite way. Ciara raised him again, and immediately use her brute strength to smash him on the ground, and stomped on his legs.

Ciara lifted a leg and broke his sword arm. “Please, stop, I don’t want this.”

“But I must do this,” Nolan phased inside the stand and came out with his bones being forcibly healed by these black stone-like flesh.

Nolan wielded his sword as a madman possessed. Ciara avoided contact with the blade, parried, and then without much thought, sliced Nolan’s arms off, which she followed by cutting his legs. Nolan fell, but the black flesh started to create his body. His eyes glowed red as his body was covered with the stone-like black flesh.

“I must do this,” he said to himself.

“Please,” she pleaded

Nolan rushed up to her. No matter how strong he was, Ciara had the upper hand. It was a clear difference between a human and a blessed human. Even as his armor became like rags, and even if his sword was broken into two. Nolan Salvatore fought Ciara Alician until the sun went away.

“I must kill you,” he said, biting her leg. “I need to kill you…if it means saving you from this eternity. I must kill you!”

He bit harder. Ciara’s eyes were empty. It was only at that moment she saw a figure carrying a lamp. She held a smile on her lips. “I see, it seems that poor Nolan can’t even beat the blessed ones. He still plays this role well.”

“Who are?” Ciara asked.

“I am an Observer, Alcina the Cheery. He’s right. If you don’t want this to continue then I suggest letting him pierce your heart with a blade.”

“But why?”

“He holds no ties to the fates here. This will free you, but this world will be damned.”

“Will that save him too?”

The woman named Alcina shook her head. “He will have to find his way.”

“I must…kill you,” Nolan stood up with an arm-like blade.

“Will you die?”

Ciara stood and stared. “I don’t want to leave him alone.”

“I see,” Alcina lifted her hand. “Then I have no choice.”

She froze. That was the only way to describe it. Nolan moved as if strings were attached to him. His eyes showed fear and yet his actions contracted that fear.

Ciara stood while watching the blade-arm inside her chest.

“Very well,” Alcina said. “I hope this will take you away from here. I guess this is better than the first time. Rest Nolan,” she drew a line and blood spurted from Nolan’s neck, his eyes rolled, and he fell without any movement.

“Good night, Ma- Ciara, I wish you happiness.”

*****

Alcina looked at the corpses. Her eyes were glassy, and arms trembling. She placed her hand on her chest and breathed in and out. She pulled on her hair, clenched her hands so hard that blood came out, and suddenly her expression became still.

“This should take them both to their paths.”

She took out a locket with three people in the picture. She held the locket close to her heart and took a step that took her suddenly to an alley where she watched a man fell down into an alley. She changed her robes into that of a waiter girl and approached the man that fell on the alley out of nowhere.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

The man tilted his head. He looked around him, and then to Alcina. He pointed at her, and in return she said. “I am Alcina Cheery, and you are?” She pointed back at him.

He pointed at himself. “Nolan Salvatore.”

“I see,” Alcina said, pulling him up.

“You have a long way to go, Nolan. Ah, but don’t worry, I won’t tire from this.”

The person that fell the alley didn’t understand.

She smiled as she pulled him out of the alley.

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