Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Forbidden Edict, The Bone Giant, and The Coward’s Retreat

The sheer size of the skeletal hand was paralyzing.

It smashed down onto the frozen moat with the force of a falling mountain, sending massive shards of jagged ice and boiling geothermal water flying into the dark sky. The monstrous fingers were made of hundreds of human skulls, fused together by a sickly, pulsing black magic.

The earth tore completely open. A towering, grotesque giant made entirely of writhing bones dragged itself out of the abyss. It had no face, only a hollow, cavernous ribcage that glowed with a terrifying, unnatural red light.

The blizzard around us whipped into a violent frenzy, the temperature dropping so fast my breath turned to sharp ice in my lungs.

"Akira!" I screamed, leaning so far over the stone parapet that Rin had to grab the back of my sash to keep me from falling.

Down on the shattered ice, Akira didn’t run. He didn’t even take a step back.

He stood perfectly still, a single, dark speck against the massive, towering bone giant. His katana was drawn, the lethal blue spirit-fire roaring to life along the black steel blade.

"Kill him!" Crown Prince Ryu shrieked from his gold-leafed palanquin. The coward was clutching the bleeding thumb he had used to open the scroll, his face twisted in a manic, desperate grin. "Crush the Demon Prince! Leave nothing but ash!"

The bone giant let out an ear-splitting, hollow screech and swung its massive arm.

It didn’t just aim for Akira. It aimed for the heavy iron gates of the fortress directly behind him.

Akira’s Warlord aura exploded.

A pillar of blinding blue light erupted from his body, completely banishing the dark shadows of the moat. He didn’t dodge the massive skeletal fist. He leaped directly into it.

CLANG!

The sound of his katana meeting the giant’s bone knuckles echoed across the valley like a cracked bell. Akira caught the strike in mid-air, his boots sliding back half an inch on the ice, but he completely halted the monster’s momentum.

"You bring the dead to my doorstep, cousin?" Akira roared, his voice layered with the terrifying, ancient power of his yokai blood. "I will send them back!"

Akira twisted his wrists, sweeping his blazing katana upward. The blue fire sliced cleanly through the giant’s thick wrist, severing the massive hand.

The monster shrieked, stumbling backward as its severed hand dissolved into harmless, black ash the moment it hit the ice.

"No! Fix it!" Ryu panicked, waving the open scroll frantically in the air. "I command you to fix it!"

But the black iron chains attached to the Forbidden Edict suddenly jerked violently.

Ryu gasped, dropping to his knees inside the palanquin.

The heavy iron chains slithered like iron snakes, wrapping tightly around the Crown Prince’s bleeding arm. The dark magic of the scroll began to pulse, glowing a bright, sickly red as it forcibly drained Ryu’s life force to sustain the monster.

"Ah! Help! It burns!" Ryu screamed, his manic grin completely vanishing into pure, unadulterated terror. He pulled frantically at the chains, but the iron only tightened, digging into his expensive silk robes. "Get it off me!"

"He is an absolute fool," Yuki spat, standing next to me on the fortress wall. The ancient spirit narrowed his glowing turquoise eyes in disgust. "A Forbidden Edict requires the spiritual weight of a god to control. Ryu has the spiritual weight of a wet napkin. The scroll is going to eat him alive."

Down on the ice, the bone giant regenerated its missing hand, fueled by Ryu’s stolen blood. It lunged forward again, raising both fists to crush Akira.

But Akira was done playing.

He took a deep breath, the blue fire around him withdrawing slightly, condensing tightly around his blade until the black steel glowed as bright as a fallen star. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Commander!" Akira shouted, not taking his eyes off the beast. "Shields!"

Commander Tomoe didn’t hesitate. "Vanguard! Brace!"

The northern guards slammed their massive iron shields into the ice, dropping to one knee to brace themselves behind the Warlord.

Akira swung his katana in a perfect, full-circle horizontal arc.

"Crescent Wave!"

A localized, devastating shockwave of concentrated blue yokai fire exploded outward. It didn’t just cut the bone giant; it completely enveloped it.

The heat was so intense that the snow falling around the fortress instantly vaporized into steam. The blue fire washed over the towering monstrosity, burning away the dark, corrupt magic in a matter of seconds.

The bone giant let out one final, pathetic wail before its massive ribcage shattered. The entire beast crumbled into fine, white dust, blowing away in the northern wind.

With the monster destroyed, the magical tether completely snapped.

In the palanquin, the black iron chains released Ryu’s arm. The Crown Prince collapsed onto the floorboards, pale as a corpse, gasping for air. The forbidden scroll rolled shut, completely dormant.

The battlefield plunged into a heavy, ringing silence.

The Imperial Mages who had managed to crawl out of the scalding moat water were shivering and terrified. They looked at the pile of white dust, then looked at the terrifying Warlord standing victorious on the ice.

Akira slowly turned his burning amber eyes toward the palanquin. He pointed his katana directly at his cousin.

"Take your prince," Akira commanded the trembling imperial guards, his voice echoing like thunder. "And run. If I see a single silver banner in the North again, I will not be so merciful."

The guards didn’t need to be told twice. They hoisted the gold-leafed palanquin onto the shoulders of the undead beasts and turned tail, fleeing desperately into the dark, frozen woods, leaving their soaked, shivering mages to stumble blindly after them.

They looked exactly like what they were: a bunch of cowards running for their lives.

A massive, deafening cheer erupted from the northern guards on the ice. Commander Tomoe raised her sword, her scarred face split into a fierce, proud grin.

Up on the wall, I finally let out the breath I felt like I had been holding for an hour. My legs suddenly felt like jelly. I slumped against the cold stone, a hysterical, relieved laugh bubbling out of my chest.

"He did it," I whispered, pulling Rin into a tight hug. "He actually did it."

"Of course he did," Yuki huffed, though the cat-boy looked incredibly relieved. "He was trained by the best, after all. Now, can we please go inside? I think my nose is permanently frozen."

I didn’t answer. I leaned back over the parapet, looking down at the frozen moat.

The northern guards were parting, creating a clear path for their Warlord as he walked toward the heavy iron gates.

Akira stopped at the base of the wall. He sheathed his katana. His chest was heaving, his pink hair a messy, windswept halo around his pale face. The divine fire and the massive magical output had clearly exhausted him.

He tilted his head back, his amber eyes searching the high battlements until they locked perfectly onto mine.

Even from a hundred feet away, the raw, intense devotion in his gaze pinned me in place. The Warlord aura was completely gone. He was just Akira. The man who had fought an army, destroyed a monster, and protected our home.

He didn’t smile, but he raised his hand, pressing two fingers to his chest right over the Warlord’s crest, and right over his heart.

I pressed my hand over the Consort Mark on my own chest in response.

We had survived.

But as I watched the last of Ryu’s silver banners vanish into the dark woods, a cold knot of dread settled low in my stomach. The Crown Prince had failed, and he had embarrassed the throne.

The Emperor was not going to let this go.