I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 106: The Fear With a Name

Zarius smelled it before the first charcoal-smudged plume even breached the horizon. It wasn’t just the cedar-sweet tang of campfires or the greasy stench of roasting meat, this was different. Bitter. Acrid. It smelled like canvas, sweat, and that strange metallic tang the Velkyn carried with them, clinging to the air like something that refused to leave. Beside him, the unit slowed, horses huffing great plumes of silver mist into the freezing air, their ears pinned back in a universal language of "something is horribly wrong."

They were supposed to be returning to a camp of orderly rows and the boring, comforting rhythm of the watch. Instead, the perimeter was a mess.

"Formations," Zarius snapped, already lifting his sword into position.

He didn’t need to say more. His men split with a synchronization that usually took years to perfect, but today, they moved with a frantic sort of grace. They engaged the stragglers at the tree line, the Velkyn were there, scuttling like obsidian beetles across the snow, but as Zarius brought his blade down through the thorax of a particularly large specimen, a cold knot tightened in his gut.

These things... they weren’t holding the line. Usually, the Velkyn were tactical, a hive-mind of calculated cruelty. These were frantic. They were scattering, snapping at shadows, behaving as if they were being repelled by a force they couldn’t see but felt in their very marrow.

But Zarius had no room for biological curiosities. Not now.

Because the camp was a graveyard of tents, and the medical wing, the one place that should have been sacred, was a shredded ruin of white fabric and broken cots.

Cherion.

The name didn’t just cross his mind; it sat there, heavy and suffocating, like a stone in his throat. He’d left the Omega in a place of supposed safety. The road was a mess beneath him, but he pushed through it anyway, cutting down a Velkyn mid-feast with a casual strike. Then he scanned the area, looking for that Southern presence that stood out too much.

He didn’t find it.

Instead, he found Reiner.

The younger boy was leaning against the splintered remains of a weapon rack, his face pale and smeared with something dark, holding a blood-stained bandage cutter like a dagger. He looked smaller than usual. Exhausted.

"Your Grace!" Reiner gasped. "They... the tent, it went first. The creatures, they were all over it."

Zarius hauled on the reins, pulling his horse up hard as it tossed its head, restless and spooked. "Where is he? Where is Cherion?"

Reiner pointed a shaking finger toward the rear supply depot, his voice cracking. "I told them to go. I had to hold the monster off, so I told Ezek to take him. They went toward the crates, near the transport wagons. I haven’t..." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Zarius didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. He didn’t offer a word of comfort or a command to fall back. He just took off.

He pushed his horse until the animal nearly skidded on the icy patches between the supply tents. The sounds of the main battle, the clanging of steel on shell, the guttural roars of men, began to fade, replaced by a much more terrifying quiet. It was the silence of the supply area, a labyrinth of towering crates and heavy, winterized carriages.

He vaulted off his horse before it had even fully stopped, his boots hitting the ground with a heavy thud. He went the way Reiner pointed, his eyes scanning every shadow, scanning the shadows as he kept his sword low at his side.

The sound was wrong before the visuals matched it. It wasn’t the rhythmic clash of steel on shell; it was a wall of distorted, chaotic screeching. The closer Zarius got to the supply depot, the more the usual Velkyn tactics seemed to dissolve into a frantic panic.

Zarius spurred his horse between two toppling supply tents, his blade rising to intersect a Velkyn that was thrashing against a stack of crates, ignoring the battle around it. He split the creature clean in half, its dark ichor splattering across the snow, but he didn’t even check to see it fall.

If they touched him...

The thought cut off before it could finish.

Then, he saw them.

He rounded the corner of the last transport wagon, and saw a wall of crimson light that made his very soul vibrate.

It was a perfect, translucent dome, the color of a fresh bruise, bleeding a heat that made the freezing air shimmer. Inside the cocoon, time seemed to stand still. He could see them. Cherion was standing near the center, his eyes fixed on the monsters with a terrifying, calm defiance. He was clutching the necklace.

Ezek was braced against the inner curvature of the dome, his sword drawn but held low.

The four Velkyn Zarius had first seen weren’t circling. They were throwing themselves against the dome, their obsidian shells crackling with blue sparks as they were repelled by the pressure. They were screeching in a pitch that set Zarius’s teeth on edge.

Zarius didn’t think. The visual of Cherion trapped, even protected, by a wall of his magic, finally shattered the Duke’s carefully curated armor.

He vaulted off his horse, landing heavily in the slush. He moved with a brutal, singular focus that was rarely seen on a battlefield. The Velkyn, distracted by their agony at the edge of the dome, didn’t even notice him until he was right there.

He hit the closest Velkyn from the blind side, his shoulder dropping into the impact, sending the massive creature sprawling into the snow. It was a crude, devastating move. A "clean fight" was a luxury. He pivoted, bringing his sword around in one precise strike that split the second creature from jaw to chest.

The other Velkyn turned their milky, pale eyes toward the newcomer, but it was already too late. They were already thrown off by the shield, and Zarius moved in without hesitation.

A quick thrust under a shell. A sharp parry that broke a claw. Then one final downward strike that cut the last creature in half.

The fight was over in less than a minute. It wasn’t even a struggle, just finishing off something that was already beaten.

The noise dropped off all at once, leaving behind a heavy, ringing silence that didn’t feel right.

Zarius stood there for a second, his chest heaving, the Velkyn’s blood dripping slowly from the tip of his sword onto the snow.

He turned toward the dome.

His eyes moved quickly, scanning everything. He checked the line of the boy’s jaw through the shifting red light. He checked the line of the boy’s jaw in the shifting red light. No blood on that pale, almost too-clean tunic. Alive.

He was alive. Unharmed.

The sapphire’s glow faded, settling into a soft, steady pulse. As the light faded, the cocoon vanished.

Something in Zarius finally gave. The tension that had been building since he saw the smoke just broke.

The short distance between them suddenly felt much bigger than it was.

Zarius stepped forward. Then again. There was something heavy in the way he moved, enough to make even Ezek, slumped against a crate and breathing hard, stay quiet.

He stepped closer. Closer than he ever should have. Closer than the distance he always kept.

He could see Cherion’s lashes trembling, his breath coming out in small, uneven bursts of white.

Without a word, without a shred of the logic that usually governed his every breath, Zarius reached out. He caught Cherion by the upper arms and pulled him in, hauling the Omega against his chest with a desperate, crushing strength.

Like he needed to be sure he was real.

Like he wasn’t letting him go again.