Chapter 97

97 A sick obsession

A man in white armor descended from the sky. It was armor similar to the royal guard’s armor, but much more detailed, as if the creator cared more about its appearance than its functionality.

His eyes were glowing with amber energy, but Trevor saw that there was a man’s body beneath the armor. This bastard had already sent soldiers against them, as well as assassins, but it should be impossible for him to attack them personally.

“How, how are you here?!” Selena suddenly screamed, her eyes bloodshot as she gritted her teeth until her molars cracked. The sand beneath his feet turned to glass as it cracked to dust, the surroundings turning so dark it felt like night.

Kastil looked into her eyes as he flashed a hideous smile. “It’s quite simple. I noticed that the old man had the same energy signature as me, because he parasitized himself with a part of my body. I did the same with one of the prisoners from the roots of the damned, after breaking his mind, it is clear.

But the result was much better than I imagined. Not only did his energy signature match mine, he became a perfect vessel for my avatar. Now I have all the power of a God with a body that can move freely!” Kastil’s eyes flashed with a maddened light.

The truth is, there was a limit to how much energy his body could handle before it exploded, but he’d spent the last decade adapting this and other bodies to reach the same level his avatar had. Also, yggdrasil’s core energy was useless, only amber energy could be used.

“You son of a bitch!” Selena was about to run to break Kastil’s face, but Trevor stopped her.

“You didn’t come all the way here for her, did you? You came to kill me, because it’s the only way to shut the voice in your head constantly reminding you that you lost to a lesser being. But I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to stoop so low as to ally yourself with the races you always considered lesser.” Trevor said with his best sneer, trying to draw the enemy’s attention to himself.

“Ally with these filthy things? They’re even lower than you, elves. No, I enslaved them and used them as disposable tools. They tried to resist at first, but all it took was kidnapping their cubs and they became obedient.” Kastil clicked his tongue in disgust, remembering all the work he’d gone to to gather all these pawns.

.....

“But aren’t you a few years too late? Or are you going to tell me that the great and mighty Kastil was waiting for this old man to die of age before he attacked?” Trevor continued to tease while his family cast their best spells.

Kastil sensed his intentions, but pretended not to. The only way to heal his bruised ego would be to crush these bastards to the hilt. Kastil wanted them to fight with everything they had, before crushing all their efforts and taking back what was rightfully his.

“You guys left a big mess behind so I’ve been kind of busy cleaning up the trash. The other dukes wanted to follow your example so I killed them along with anyone who objected.” Kastil started to laugh, explaining the events that happened in Evergreen after they were gone. As soon as Kastil’s consciousness returned to yggdrasil, he raged and devastated half the capital.

Once he regained some lucidity, he hunted down all the remaining members of the Elven family. The remaining members were Selena’s cousins and uncles, family members who feared Kastil’s wrath and refused to participate in the rescue plan. Ironically, they were the only ones to suffer the consequences of the attack.

They tried to flee the moment the attack began, but the sea of trees was vast and Kastil captured them before they could reach the border. Kastil spent the next few days torturing them and taking out all his anger on them.

This gave time for the other dukes’ families to gather clandestinely and debate what to do next. Kastil didn’t make the same mistake as before and kept an eye on the entire capital while torturing the Elvens, but the dukes had emergency countermeasures for that.

The duke of the dark elves devised a method to escape Kastil’s surveillance, using an ancient dried yggdrasil leaf. She would temporarily create a zone where Kastil’s senses could not reach. It was a flawed product that would be noticed immediately under normal circumstances, but with half the capital destroyed, it was just another point that his senses couldn’t reach.

The decision they came to after deliberating was that they needed to get away while they could. The Sylph family that ruled the spirits objected to being left behind, but the other two families fled anyway. The news of the attack on the sprout, as well as Kastil’s rage, spread like wildfire throughout the sea of trees, on a level that would be impossible to cover.

Kastil was forced to stop the torture and deal with the uprising that was about to start. The families tried to use the opportunity to flee, but Kastil slaughtered them all mercilessly. The only surviving family of dukes were the Sylphs, but this came with great consequences. The people, who did not know the immensity of Kastil’s power, were outraged by the destruction of the capital and the murder of its leaders.

Kastil then killed all the people who revolted, making the survivors fear that their king has gone mad. People tried to flee next, but Kastil closed the sea of trees, trapping them inside. What was once a barrier protecting them has become a prison.

“You crazy...! Those people were innocent!” Malena screamed indignantly after hearing such nonsense, but Kastil’s reaction was cold.

“They were the fools to rebel. It’s just the consequences of pissing off a God.” Kastil replied nonchalantly, before smiling at her. “Have you guys finished getting ready? I want to break them all at once.”

“Of course, I’m already ready to break your face.” Trevor said with false confidence, exchanging a determined look with Malena for a second, before run at Kastil. He cast the diamond spear spell aiming at kastil’s forehead, while punching his chest with the shattering fist skill.

The spear made of light with a sharp stone as hard as a diamond flew within inches of Kastil’s forehead, but shattered harmlessly into a shield of light conjured right in front of his face.

Kastil grabbed Trevor’s fist aimed at his chest and crushed it, before lightly touching Trevor’s chest, sending him flying backwards like a bullet with a dent in his chest.

Malena stepped forward and pointed her staff at Kastil, summoning a hurricane of concentrated frost and a giant hailstorm from the sky. The storm left a trail of ice across the ground as it flew towards Kastil, while 1 meter long ice boulders rained down on it.

Kastil kicked the ground hard and ran, facing the ice hurricane head-on. Her armor turned white as a surface of ice covered her, but that didn’t stop her movements. He caught up to Malena in two strides, punching her stomach with his fist until he reached her elbow.

“You are irrelevant to me, so I will give you a quick death. Be grateful for my mercy.” Kastil whispered in Malena’s ear, but the latter just smiled at that.

“Thank you so much, you fucking God.” Malena grabbed Kastil’s arm, a layer of ice covering them both before all the hailstones fell on them, forming a makeshift ice coffin.

“...How irritating.” Kastil muttered as he frowned. Pillars of light shot out of his eyes and cut the ice coffin in a perfect circle, before punching him with the back of his hand and sending the ice boulders flying.

“You son of a bitch!” Selena cast her second sun and sent it against him as she cried. The spell conjured a sphere of flaming rock over 20 meters in diameter. The second sun hit the ice coffin and exploded, opening a crater in the middle of the desert.

“That’s it?” Kastil emerged from the smoke unharmed, carrying Malena’s body by the throat. He threw the corpse in front of Selena, before speaking in a disinterested voice.

“I thought you guys would fight a little longer before you die, but you guys are too weak.”

“Hahaha.” Trevor suddenly burst out laughing, causing Selena to tilt her head in confusion.

“What are you laughing at, old man?” Kastil didn’t like his tone.

“You’re still as dumb as ever.” Trevor spoke with a smile, releasing a flash of light that blinded everyone.

Kastil has also blinded thanks to his elven body, but he still fired dozens of light bullets that broke the sound barrier to ensure the enemy wouldn’t flee. Kastil didn’t want him to die a quick death, but he couldn’t bear the thought of them running away once more.

Most of the bullets missed their target as Kastil focused more on quantity than accuracy, but a few still found their way and hit Trevor in the calf, stomach and left shoulder.

Trevor just gritted his teeth and endured the pain, his armor protecting his body from being pierced, but some bones were still broken from the impact. He ran over to where Selena and Treevor were, before picking up an almost full teleportation crystal of your dimensional storage ring.

He tried to power the crystal with what little energy it lacked, but a blade of light conjured by Kastil cut his arm at the elbow and sent the teleport crystal flying, before falling into Treevor’s arms.