Return of the Mythic Bloodline

Chapter 498: The killer

I told you, Ezekiel Silverhart. That wheel of fate had been spun. That you will lose everything.

"Who was it?" Celestia demanded, her irises shrinking to pinpricks. Her voice tore through the burning house. "Who did this to my family!?"

Her voice was raw and loud, filled with immeasurable anger and grief.

You already know the answer, Ezekiel Silverhart. Who took your sword after you faked your death? Who would have hated you forming a family? Who wanted to keep you all for themselves? Tell me, Ezekiel Silverhart, whose name comes to your mind?

Celestia clenched the hilt of the sword, her knuckles turning white as bone. Her face contorted, her eyes burning with a brilliant blue glow that cast dancing shadows across the ruins.

"CATHERINE... YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!!"

A booming blue aura erupted from her body, blasting away the entire house. Its burning debris flew into every direction as she screamed the name of the Queen of the Valtorian Empire.

The blast attracted the attention of every monster in the area. They bolted at Celestia from every direction with gluttonous screams, their faces carrying lust and hunger for her blood. Their eyes gleamed with feral anticipation.

The Soulforce from her body channeled into the blade like thick liquid, covering it completely in a blue silhouette. The aura around the sword became almost double the size of the blade itself, pulsing with lethal energy.

As the monsters drew closer, she pivoted on her feet, swinging the sword in a wide horizontal arc.

Wide, sharp blades of energy erupted outward from the edge of her blade, separating the upper and lower halves of the monsters in a single devastating sweep. Bodies toppled, cut cleanly in two.

A mix of grey blood from the trolls and goblins and the crimson blood of direwolves rained down on her from the severed bodies, bathing her from head to toe in thick, warm gore.

As the first wave of monsters fell, several more emerged from behind them, climbing over the corpses of their kin. She fought through them all, her blade mercilessly slaughtering every one that came within reach. If her sword slowed for a moment, she used her free hand to rip apart their organs. If both her hands became busy, she tore their throats apart with her bare teeth.

"DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!"

Her gluttonous roars tore through the burning village, her jaw opened wide like that of a predator, with metallic liquid running down from her teeth to her chin to the ground below. She was no longer the gentle mother and wife. She had become something else entirely, something carved from grief and vengeance.

Within a few seconds, the village turned into a graveyard of monsters, with corpses spread in every direction. At the centre of it all stood Celestia, the blue glow of her eyes now covering all of her sclera, giving her an otherworldly, terrifying appearance.

She did not stop there. Her fury was not aimed at the monsters. They were merely in her way, obstacles to be cleared. She walked out of the village in slow, deliberate steps, loosely holding her sword with its tip skidding and scraping along the ground behind her, carving a shallow trench in the dirt.

As she moved past the burning farms, an army of dozens of knights appeared before her, emerging from the direction of the city. Their armour gleamed in the firelight, polished steel reflecting the orange glow of the flames.

"My lady, are you alright?" One of the knights asked, his voice filled with concern. "We received the news that monsters have launched an attack at a nearby vill—"

"Look in her hands," the other knight with a heavy shield strapped to his arm murmured in a serious tone, his eyes narrowing.

Celestia’s whole body, along with the sword in her hand, was dripping with the still wet blood of the monsters. It pooled at her feet with every step.

"Did you fight the monsters?" The knight with the shield demanded, taking a cautious step forward. "I have not seen you in the knight’s order. State your na—"

Before he could finish his sentence, his face above his lower lip was gone, split cleanly in one fluid motion. The upper half of his head tumbled to the ground with a wet thud.

It took more than a moment for the other knights to realise what had just happened. Shock froze their faces, eyes widening in disbelief.

"She is an enemy! Prepare for battle," one of them cried out as they quickly took their fighting stances, swords raised and shields locked.

"Do you think I could not sense it?" Celestia muttered, veins bulging across her forehead like coiled serpents. "The blood of my family that you carry on your hands."

She glared at a young olive-green haired knight of the group, standing at the farthest back. He slowly raised his head, a horrible demonic smirk forming on his face as he declared, "This woman must have turned insane from all that monster blood covering her. Kill her."

The knights instantly surrounded her, launching tactical strikes from every direction just as they had trained to defeat a monster of greater strength than themselves. Spears thrust, swords swung, shields pressed inward.

The blade of Celestia glowed again as she materialised the Sword Aura onto it, blue energy humming along the edge. Although the knights had years of experience in this tactic of surrounding and killing their enemy, it was Celestia herself who had come up with this method. She knew all its weaknesses intimately.

With one decisive blow, she pierced her sword through the skull of the knight in front of her. The crack of bone echoed across the field. She grabbed the hilt with both hands and swung her sword sideways, the dead body of the knight striking shoulder to shoulder against its subordinate, who himself hit the one next to him, causing a chain collision. The entire formation was broken with a single move.

Without a single flicker of mercy in her eyes, Celestia slaughtered the group of knights that had once served her as her subordinates.

She left one of them alive, the one from where she had smelled the blood of her fallen family.

"Th-that swordsmanship. Y-you are the Twilight Sword, right?" The knight asked, his earlier demonic smirk completely vanished, replaced by pale terror. "Pl-please don’t kill me. I am Sam. I-I served under you for three years. Y-you surely recognise me, right?"

Celestia moved toward him in cold, measured steps, her eyes glaring down at Sam and sending chills surging through his entire body..

Seeing death drawing closer, he fell onto his back and blurted out with twisted expression, "I did not want to kill them!"

Only for a moment, Celestia halted. Her sword paused mid stride.

A flicker of hope ignited in Sam’s eyes. He continued explaining in a hurried, desperate voice,

"I was sent on a secret assassination mission to kill Tristan Kale, a spy from the neighbouring empire. But when I arrived at the village, it was already under monster attack. I approached him as support sent by the city."

His words began stuttering as he continued with a twisted mouth, his jaw contorting unnaturally. It seemed as if he was being forced to speak against his will, some invisible pressure squeezing the confession from his lips.

"O-once he let his guard down, I stabbed him from behind with the sword given to me for assassination. I-I could not control my strength and accidentally stabbed the child in his arms as well."

Celestia’s complexion darkened further, shadows deepening across her face. The sound of her knuckles cracking echoed through the night as she clenched the sword so tightly that blood began spilling out from between her fingers, dripping onto the scorched earth.

"Who ordered the assassination?" Celestia demanded, standing over him like an executioner.

Strangely, Sam continued speaking, his face already twisted into one beyond recognition, features warping with each reluctant word.

"I-it w...was th-the Qu...Queen."

As soon as he said those words, he finally stopped speaking, as if he had regained control of his own tongue. His eyes widened in horror at his own confession.

However, it was already too late for him. Before he could move from his place, Celestia’s blade pierced through his forehead, emerging from the back of his head with a sickening crunch.

She twisted her sword upward, ripping open his entire skull.

You have confirmed your suspicion. What will you do now, Ezekiel Silverhart?

The blue aura in her eyes began burning like flames as she muttered in a low voice, "I will destroy everyone who destroyed my world."