Read Novel Full Chapter 528: We Are Coming
Chapter 528: We Are Coming
A week went by, and it was a depressing one. A bleak atmosphere hung over Paradise like a fog, settling over the survivors as heavily as the dome of water above them.
Percival stood before what remained of the council hall. It was little more than rubble now, but they had managed to recover the divided corpses of the Elders, which had been swept away by the flood and left against the side of a building among several other bodies.
It was a sight that refused to leave his mind.
"It’s all gone," Lucy said.
The hopelessness in her voice made Percival turn. She was crouched nearby with her face buried in her palms.
"It’s not." Percival pointed towards the sky, where the enormous dome of flowing water still loomed over the ruined city. "We’re still protected. We pushed them back, and some of us survived."
Lucy lifted her head and stared at him in disbelief.
"What’s wrong with you, Percival?" Her lips trembled. "We’re quickly running out of mana jades. We just discovered that Cain has been rerouting them for years, and now he has the summoner who made that factory possible. You can’t keep this dome up forever, and look..."
She gestured towards the ruins.
"Look at the people who survived."
Percival did.
Only a handful of structures remained standing among the endless rubble. Survivors wandered through the ruins searching for anything they could recover, while others simply sat beside what was left of their homes. Their faces were hollow. Many had found the bodies of family members and wept over them, and even now, Percival could see someone being consoled in the distance.
He had seen crying faces every day since the attack.
No one had found a reason to smile.
Percival drew a deep breath. He looked at Lucy for a moment before turning away, and Isaac’s desolate face immediately came to mind.
His friend’s grief had broken something in him. Isaac had distanced himself from everyone since Neila’s death, while Lucy had been left traumatized by the catastrophic losses and the destruction of a city where she had once felt safe.
A city she loved.
"Cain is done playing," Percival said, looking at her again. "We should be too."
With that, he walked away.
Lucy watched him go, unable to believe that was all he had to say. Sometimes Percival behaved as though he had no empathy at all.
"Perci..." she called.
Percival didn’t answer and continued walking.
Then he stopped.
Lucy slowly rose as he turned back towards her.
Percival finally exhaled.
"If I cry like the rest of you, will that help you find hope?" His expression softened. "People look up to me, Lucy. You look up to me right now, yet you want me to act like you. I can’t."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Percival turned away again.
"Now let’s go convince Mr. Daniels to bring Godfrey back. He prefers leaving Godfrey as the Unknown King because of his wife. We both know that’s grief talking."
Lucy reluctantly nodded, lowered her head and followed him towards the car.
***
Cries. Dragon cries.
She could almost see them falling from the sky again, trailing blood, smoke and fire behind them.
The pain was so unbearable that she wanted to rip out her own heart just to make it stop. Every beat felt suffocating.
Her dragons. Her children.
Isolde could still hear herself screaming. She remembered fighting like a madwoman, driven by a grief so terrible that every act of vengeance had failed to quench the fire burning inside her. Each distant cry had seemed to pull at her heart as thousands of dragons and great wyverns tore one another apart across the sky.
That battle would never leave her mind.
Neither would the name of the Father of Dragons.
Isolde sat upon her throne.
An entire day had passed since she returned and finally understood where she was, but it wasn’t her Godfrey who ruled this place.
Once she learned that, she hadn’t bothered meeting this Unknown King. She didn’t know what she could possibly say to him when he was a stranger and she was hardly in the right state of mind to receive one. He wasn’t Godfrey, and she had believed that knowing this would happen would be enough for her to face him regardless of what he had become.
She had thought it wouldn’t be a problem.
Sadly, it was.
Echoes reached her from beyond the hall. They were faint, but unmistakable.
King... King... King...
The name rose from countless lips.
Isolde stood and left the hall, following the voices because beneath the chanting she could hear another name as well, one that struck a far deeper chord within her.
Godfrey... Godfrey...
Her pace quickened.
Her boots scraped against the floor as she hurried past the patrolling knights until she reached the loggia and leaned against its stone railing.
From the left wing, she could see a black-armoured figure emerging from the grand castle and walking towards the enormous crowd gathered below.
Isolde closed her eyes, her jaw clenching.
Then the chanting suddenly stopped.
She opened her eyes again and saw the Unknown King standing before the crowd with his arms spread wide.
"I am alive. As I said."
That was all.
The courtyard erupted. Isolde stared at the massive crowd packed below, thousands upon thousands of people spilling from the courtyard into the inner grounds beyond. One word thundered from their mouths again and again.
King.
The sheer force of it almost made her shiver. There was so much energy in those people that they seemed ready to explode, each repetition of the chant rising with greater force than the last.
BANG!
A gunshot tore through the celebration.
One of the golden knights standing along the loggia staggered backwards. His head was gone, and in its place drifted a strange mist of purple, blue and pink.
The knight collapsed, his armour clanging heavily against the floor.
Isolde watched the Unknown King turn towards his fallen knight. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that this one would not be returning.
Light flickered somewhere within the crowd. Several people immediately lunged at the shooter, but before they could seize him, he vanished in another flash, leaving them with little more than bruises from the collision.
Silence followed.
The crowd’s soaring morale seemed to falter all at once.
"You know I won’t back down," the Unknown King said.
His voice was surprisingly light, Isolde noticed, yet there was something beneath it she couldn’t quite place.
"As long as I live, I will bring war to those who refuse to let us be free." His gaze passed over the thousands before him. "Take your stand now, nations of Earth. Choose wisely."
He paused.
"We are coming."
Isolde could hardly believe what she had heard. Godfrey declared war on the Authorities. Godfrey could do that? No, this wasn’t Godfrey.
The crowd exploded once more.
Now she understood. The Unknown King was their anchor, and that was all these people needed: someone who could stand before them without wavering and give them hope.
She watched him lift the dead knight into his arms and carry him back towards the doors he had emerged from.
"He’s gone, Your Majesty," the Chief Alchemist said as the King approached.
"They sent a warning, and I find it more infuriating than threatening," the Unknown King replied softly.
"It was the people they wanted to discourage." The Alchemist glanced at the dead knight in his arms. "He was an example. They wanted everyone out there to know they could suffer the same fate, especially now that they doubt they can kill you with a snap of their fingers."
The Unknown King looked back towards the crowd and sighed.
"Many of these people will die."
The Chief Alchemist watched him carefully. "You are leading many that stand here towards almost certain death. That burden must be heavy."
The Unknown King stopped.
"Freedom has a cost. What we fight for is the future of the generations that will come after us, so that their children can live without this discrimination. So that the man I was will find peace. I do this knowing I may never see that future myself."
His eyes returned to the crowd.
"That is what purpose is, and it is what I have given these people. Purpose. Some of them will die so that others might see that purpose born."
The Chief Alchemist sighed.
"Will she be willing to fight with you? She’s already lost a great deal and I can sense what she feels toward you."
The Unknown King turned towards Isolde.
And found her staring at him.
****
A/N: Last week was an exam week. That was why I was unable to upload any Chapter. Chapters will return and I’ll TRY to upload at least one Chapter every day. There might still be some days that I can’t upload because I need to think some things through.