Chapter 201
There Was Once A Man Who Could Not Die (I)
There it is… Sylas stood on the precipice of a gentle mountain overlooking a vast span of the fields of yellow grass. Somewhere at its heart, there were tall walls of stone framing a city of dreams. Even nearly fifteen miles out, he could still see the tall towers and spires and the grand palace shining like the golden sun amidst the snow-white stone. It was the capital, perched at the heart of the kingdom, shining in all its glory.
And within that heart, there was another–a palace clad in golden hue sitting upon a platform of flight, a floating island in the sky. The platform was suspended by some form of magic, likely laid down long before the memory serves, and was larger than the palace itself, cast out of ancient stone that had turned ashen and grey as do the hairs upon heads after the passage of time.
The palace sat upon the platform, its walls seeming to bleed out of the stone below, with its marvellous architecture showcasing the resplendence of design. Its tall towers and spires and turrets banked toward the heavenly skies with intricate carvings and sculptures decorating nearly every inch of its surface. Their tips reached so far up in the sky that they were surrounded by moats of clouds, swirling and churning, mystifying the tips of the blades that seemed like homes for gods.
It was a palace designed to inspire awe and terror–to provide the light of home for those beneath it, and the fire of destruction for those aiming to conspire against it. Sylas recalled, though it had been many, many, many years, his first and only visit to the capital–and though he was still taken aback by the grandeur, he missed a lot of what he was seeing now.
Surrounding the palace, as well as its majestic towers, spires, and turrets were spirits dancing and darting about, their form translucent and ephemeral and ever-changing. Some were tiny, like motes of luminescent light, while some yet larger, winged and overbearing in appearance. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them, all flitting and fluttering in what seemed to be an eternal dance, one that they were born to lead. But… the world was blind to them, Sylas knew.
Nobody but the very select few could witness the majesty of it, the burning cascade, the manifestation of what the Palace itself was. It was not merely a building of stone housing kings and queens, it was a temple to something larger than life. A monastery of ethereal, a home to many unseen things.
"They are quite the charmers," Asha said as she walked up to him, her hair fluttering in the gentle breeze.
"What are they?" Sylas asked, glancing at her.
"... spirits," she replied. "Of all things living. They have no mortal coil, no form that can interact with anything corporeal. They can never manifest a change, can never influence reality. All they can do is observe in silence and song. They gather around the hotspots of energy, places the world deemed worthy of carrying that mantle."
"Can they die?"
"All things can die," she replied. "They are in a perpetual cycle of birth and decay. Some live for a few minutes, and some live for a few days. And when they are gone, new ones come along in their place. And thus… the cycle never ends."
"Just like life."
"Just like life."
Sylas' gaze grew softer at the sight, his shoulders relaxing. Though there was a battle ahead, a war to be waged that would determine the destiny and fate of everything, he was at peace. He would win. Perhaps not today, or the next time, or the hundreds of times after that. But, one day, he would be victorious.
"Stop that," Asha suddenly nudged him gently.
"Stop what?"
"That look," she said. "It doesn't suit you."
"Rude. I look quite dashing with a contemplative look," Sylas said.
"You just look constipated, to be honest."
"Then what kind of a look suits me?"
"The carefree one," she replied, glancing at him. "That childlike one that surfaces whenever I make a fool of myself."
"Ah, that one does tend to surface often."
"Hey."
"He's inviting me," Sylas said suddenly.
"Yeah," Asha replied.
"... he's strong."
"He is."
"Perhaps," he said. "I won't be bored fighting, for once."
"Seriously. Doesn't suit you at all."
"Ha ha ha, I suppose," his laughter rang like a bell for a moment as he gently patted her head, his gaze still focused on a tiny dot in the horizon. "I should enjoy these moments."
"How come?"
"... soon enough," he replied, leaping off the ledge slowly. "I won't be able to experience the sweet death ever again."
Sylas landed on the open plains without much fanfare, like a gentle cloud. Walking forward, he let the warm winds of the south caress him. For occasion, he even put on a shirt, though was still barefoot, with three swords strapped to his waist. His pace was even, unchanging, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world to get to where he needed to be.
Halfway through, a silhouette of a figure appeared from the hazy mist of warmth, a form distantly familiar, that of a king. Though he looked not like a king, but a soldier heading off into a war, strapped in full battle armour, one explicitly curated for his body. Unlike Sylas, though, the King beheld no weapons, his waist hollow and empty.
Sylas paused some twenty feet from the man–the energy exuded was exuberant, so powerful that it was distorting the world around the figure. He was larger than life, many magnitudes over, Sylas realised. And at that moment, he wondered…
"You could have had the world," Sylas said.
"I already have it. Just like you." The King replied.
"I still have many questions," Sylas said.
"Defeat me and you shall have your answers."
"The city will fall."
"The stage is prepared. They shall fight their war, and we shall fight ours."
"... you won't even see your son?"
"Have you always been this childish?"
"I've been told repeatedly that it's the best look on me," Sylas grinned sheepishly as the world around two men began to bleed and distort. The blue skies turned into the colour of dried blood, the yellow grass burning away into the vanishing ash, leaving behind only black soot and grey, ancient stone, uneven and unleveled. The city and the palace vanished, in their place distorted shapes of things that once were, the forest wilted and the mountains bled out into ashen mounds. The air turned dry and was overcome by the smell of rust and decay. There was nothing in the distance but the swirling, black mist that seemed to frame the hell within. "What's this place?"
"A remnant of a time," the King said. "A battlefield stuck in time long before either one of us. Where the First Races fought and fell."
"Is this your selfish want?" Sylas asked. "To be defeated where you think glory will accompany you?"
"There is no glory to this place," the King replied as the energy around him began to churn. "I should have never fought you, man from beyond."
"..."
"Your journey should have been a simple tale, one not encumbered by the burdens of ethereality."
"..."
"You should have simply voyaged forward with the Prince and claimed the throne that was set aside for the boy. We wrote a perfect story for you, and for that boy."
"..."
"But you went and became something more than a human."
"Summarising my suffering so bastardly is really pissing me off," Sylas said. "I always wanted to cut whoever beset me upon this road into a thousand pieces. Naturally, I can't exactly cut that immortal one. But you… you on the other hand, I very much can."
"Suffering? You think your life is suffering?"
"Words cannot express it," Sylas said, slowly taking out one of the swords. "So let this blade of mine share my poetry."
The energy between the two blew up, rousing the death from its slumber. Sylas turned into a flash of light and blurred forward, appearing in front of the King within the blink of an eye, swinging the sword. The King disappeared, vanishing into thin air as the blade cleaved through, but rather than being surprised, Sylas used the momentum to spiral backward and send out a blade of energy flying behind him as he somersaulted further back, evading a bolt of lightning that dug out a crater where he stood. The blade of energy arched toward the King who vanished once again, appearing a few feet off the trajectory, dodging it.
Right after, another set of lightning bolts came, forcing Sylas to dodge. He was a tad bit too slow, however, with one bolt clipping his left arm, obliterating it from shoulder down. Blood sprayed out massively as he tumbled to the side and recovered, standing up.
"Why did you stop?" Sylas asked, fixing his hair.
"... you're fine?" the King asked.
"Haah," Sylas chuckled. "If only it were that easy to kill me. If only…"
Energy spurred and blood sprayed out even harder for a moment, and yet, under the King's terrified and astonished gaze, a whole new arm grew out of the bleeding stump, fingers, forearm, biceps and shoulders all. Sylas swung the sword, ripping out a gash in the earth as the energy formed a crescent shape of blurry, silver light. The King recovered his senses, forming a barrier of crackling lightning, causing the energy-formed blade to bleed over, destroying the barrier but dissipating itself.
Sylas pressed forward, turning once again into a blur, his hearts beginning to speed. He hadn't felt such a sensation in a long, long time. Even his fight with the Shadow, an opponent that could at one point erase him from existence with a flick of a finger, has become a bore. But now… now the sensation has been returning. His blood was beginning to churn and yearn, his fingers twisting around the handle of the blade tightly, his energy dancing like excited children.
Roaring, he slammed out several slashes in a row, reaming out beams of light each at least a mile tall toward the King who roared right back at him, slamming his palms together and causing the sky above to rip out into a circular void–right after, a bolt as thick as a blasted beam slammed downward at Sylas, ripping through everything and hitting him directly. He felt lives vanishing before him, but in the surging sensation of pain, he swung his sword madly about, slashing like a bedevilled form of nothingness, ripping through the beam and emerging on the other side. His body was battered, bloodied, on the verge of being turned into mincemeat… and yet, once again, the King witnessed a man on the brink of death come forth to life, anew.
"Yeah, this is it," Sylas grinned, licking the blood off his lips, his eyes turning crimson, his handle on the blade tightening. "This is it…"