Lord of the Foresaken-Chapter 198: THE WOUNDED SOVEREIGN’S RAGE

The Rift’s horizon pulsed like a hemorrhaging sun, each heartbeat spitting shards of molten possibility into the void. Reed hovered at the center of that storm, cloak torn to ribbons, silver hair lashing around a face warped by grief. The ∞ glyph burned across his chest in jagged fever-bright lines, but something new crowned him now: a halo of fractured runes—broken, serrated fragments of the resurrection seal. They whirled above his brow like bleeding moons, each shard sparking wild currents of raw creation. It was power stripped of balance, a crown forged from agony instead of vision.

He stared down at the fortress where Shia and the Legion regrouped far below. The keep was a ragged silhouette of scorched towers and shattered ward-stones, yet banners still fluttered from its ramparts—emerald on black, stubborn proof that his army still breathed. The knowledge twisted inside him like poisoned wire. They had defied him—him, who had dragged them from oblivion, breathing life into their broken stories. He had given them purpose beyond decay, yet they repaid him with chains and doubt.

Crimson rage bled into the air. Lightning rippled from his outstretched palm, carving holes in the Rift’s oscillating sky. For one dizzy instant Reed saw the universe beyond: galaxies spiraling in quiet beauty, unaware of the storm metastasizing at their edge. They would know soon. If the Legion refused his gift, he would force the cosmos to accept salvation. The dead would rise—all of them—until even the stars bowed to eternity. No more endings. No more grief.

Another flash below: the fortress gate burst open, disgorging ranks of goblins and humans alike, shields locking into a wall of angled iron and cracked bronze. Reed’s voice shuddered with thunder. "So be it. Return to dust, if dust is what you crave."

He snapped fingers crowned in blood-bright light. A wave of resurrection energy—twice the potency of anything he had unleashed before—screamed toward the charging phalanx. The ground ruptured. Corpses buried days, weeks, even centuries earlier clawed up through stone, bones knitting into twisted parodies of life. They lurched forward not as allies, but as weapons of Reed’s fury, lashing at the living with claws forged from grief-coded marrow.

The Legion balked. Spear points shattered against resurrected flesh constantly reforming, as if every wound was an insult swiftly forgiven. Warriors cried out when phantom chains of memory lashed their minds, threatening to yank them back into the death cycle. Korr Bloodseam, leading the vanguard, bellowed orders above the cacophony, but each command felt smaller than Reed’s rolling thunder.

Shia raced along the parapet, emerald hair whipping in a gale of unreality. Her voice pierced the din through the Network. Hold ranks! Anchor your wills to mine! She leaped from the wall, landing amid the chaos with a slash of her obsidian glaive. Logic lines ruptured around her blade, severing the ghost-flesh from the energy that kept it immortal. Each enemy struck dissolved into motes that drifted skyward like sparks. But there were too many, and Reed forged more with every heartbeat.

Seeing her on the field cracked something deep in him. Love curdled into betrayal, then into an ache so fierce he thought it might tear the glyph from his chest. "Shia," he whispered, voice lost to the storm, "why did you choose them over me?"

He dove, trailing a comet tail of soulfire. The ground quaked on impact, stones liquefying into bright magma that hissed beneath his boots. Soldiers staggered back from the blast, and for an instant the battle froze as he strode toward Shia, resurrected abominations parting around him like lesser tides.

She faced him, chest heaving, glaive steady though her eyes shimmered. There was no accusation in her gaze—only sorrow deeper than the Rift itself. Yellow light pooled in her irises, tears reflecting the prophecy that had once haunted Reed alone. It spilled down her cheeks in luminous rivulets. Yellow Eye Tears. They glowed with the same hue as the glyph on his heart, linking their fates in brutal symmetry.

"Reed," she called, voice shaking the banners overhead, "listen to me. The path you’re on destroys the very meaning of life you wanted to protect."

He laughed, but the sound cracked midway. "Meaning? Meaning died the moment you raised a spear against your creator."

His fractured crown spun faster, shards grinding sparks that fell like meteor dust onto the cratered earth.

Without warning he hurled a lance of condensed eternity—a javelin forged from resurrected timelines—directly at her. Korr saw it an instant too late. The captain shoved Shia aside, taking the missile through his cuirass. His body twitched once, then shattered into blue cinders.

Shia screamed a name that vanished under Reed’s next barrage. The Legion rushed to close ranks around her, but the resurrected tide pressed harder, turned frantic by their sovereign’s wrath. In moments, the shield wall buckled.

Grief flared in Shia’s chest—grief that fed the glyph on Reed’s brow, brightening his rage. She felt the paradox of their bond like split bone grinding. Every tear I shed fuels him. Yet she couldn’t stop the flood. She loved him still—across lifetimes, across resurrection, across betrayal—and that love hurt more than any blade.

Reed summoned pillars of living memory that blasted through goblin ranks, pulling warriors skyward before ripping them apart into concept shards. The scene painted nightmare silhouettes across the Rift’s burning canvas. Panic surged in the Network, but Shia buried her terror.

She extended her arms. Her emerald hair unfurled in a thousand strands, each glowing with runic light. They shot across the battlefield, weaving through bodies, spears, and ruin, converging on Reed in a lattice of shimmering jade. He slashed once, twice, vaporizing half of them with arcs of cosmic flame, yet the rest re-knit, braiding thicker cords that wrapped his wrists, ankles, throat.

The Emerald Chains tightened, siphoning energy away from his fractured crown. Reed snarled, muscles flexing against the binds. The glyph on his chest blazed brighter, fighting back, but Shia poured the Network’s will through the chains—every surviving consciousness bolstering her resolve.

"Stop, Reed. Or I will end you," she whispered through gritted teeth.

He froze, every vein of light in his body trembling. For a fragile heartbeat the storm calmed, and in that hush Shia saw the man she loved trapped behind rage and prophecy. His eyes flickered from molten gold to the soft gray she remembered. His lips parted in a silent plea.

Then the crown cracked.

Shards shot outward, carving deep trenches in the ground. The chains loosened for half a breath, and Reed wrenched one hand free. He grasped the emerald lattice and flooded it with raw, unfiltered existence. The chain writhed, smoking.

Shia bit back a scream. The backlash coursed through her scalp like molten glass. Strands burst into sparks, sizzling away. Yet she held on, driving remaining cords deeper, binding tighter, screaming his name across the Network.

Reed’s roar shook the sky. The glyph pulsed like a supernova, and for an instant Shia feared the universe itself might fracture. But before he could break the chains entirely, a new force slammed into the battlefield: a swirling vortex of luminous silhouettes—the Consciousness Intervention.

They were the merged defenders: refugees, mages, spirits, even pieces of Korr’s shattered essence, fused into a single radiant gestalt. They coalesced above Reed, arms outstretched, singing in thousands of overlapping voices. The air vibrated with their hymn—notes pitched to frequencies that rewrote probability. Golden tendrils lanced down, locking onto Reed’s crown, sealing each shard in bands of compassion.

The effect was immediate. Reed’s power guttered like a lamp smothered by wind. He staggered, eyes wide, the fractured halo crushed flat against his scalp into a dull circlet. Yet even diminished, he was far from defeated. His aura trembled, ready to explode outward if the bindings slipped.

"I offered eternity," he rasped, voice threadbare yet lethal. "You return my gift with shackles. Then let me die and haunt you in silence."

Shia shook her head, tears spattering stone. "No, Reed. We won’t let you die. We’ll save you in spite of yourself."

Her words struck him harder than any blade—hope offered like poison. He trembled, torn between love and the corrosive need to finish what he’d begun. He inhaled, preparing one final surge.

The Consciousness Intervention tightened their hold, beginning to crystallize Reed in a shell of auric stasis. But as the golden prison closed, Shia felt a foreboding thrum in the chains—a feedback she hadn’t accounted for. Reed’s core was collapsing under incompatible forces. If the shell sealed completely, the infinite glyph might implode, dragging reality down with him.

She looked up at the swirling gestalt. "Wait—too much pressure! He’ll detonate!"

Their chorus faltered. The shell quivered.

Reed’s laughter spilled out, broken and desperate. "You see? Even your mercy is lethal."

Cracks began to spiderweb across the cage. Shia felt the resonance in her bones, like an over-tuned string about to snap. She only had moments.

Her gaze swept the battlefield. Fallen goblins struggled to rise, resurrection beasts crumbling at last into ash. The Legion’s remaining captains watched with hollow hope. All eyes were on Shia and the man they once called Sovereign.

She drew a ragged breath, reached toward Reed’s chest, and pressed her brow against the golden shell, ignoring the scorching heat. Through the barrier she whispered, "Remember the first dawn after you saved me? You said life is precious because it ends. Don’t turn that truth into a lie."

His gray eyes fluttered beneath a veil of blazing gold. For a heartbeat, the rage receded. She saw Reed—the dreamer, the healer, the man crying at funerals of strangers because no one else would.

And then the shell ruptured.

The glyph howled. Reality buckled.

A cone of blinding light lanced skyward, carving a hole through the Rift’s crimson firmament. The gust threw Shia backward into shattered stone. Emerald strands ripped free, smoking. The Consciousness Intervention convulsed, scattering into flickers that winked out one by one across the battlefield.

Reed emerged from the dying shell, body wreathed in tearing spirals of energy—unstable, unbound. His eyes burned white, void of iris or pupil. He rose into the air like an avenging star, Ifini rune blazing on his forehead, the fractured crown transmuted into a storm of orbiting ruin.

"Last chance," he said, voice distorted into infinite echoes. "Stand aside... or vanish."

Shia’s lungs burned, hair in tatters, chains reduced to molten embers around her fists. Yet she stood, shoulders squared, charging what remained of her power. Behind her, the Legion, bruised but unbroken, raised weapons one more time. They formed a half-circle, surrounding their sovereign in grim silence.

Reed lifted both hands.

The Rift above yawned wide, revealing a swirling maelstrom of unborn timelines—each spinning like a jeweled wheel. He reached for them, intent on dragging the whole cosmos down into his resurrection vortex.

Shia shouted a single order. The Legion surged.

Reed hurled the first star.

The world vanished in white-hot annihilation.

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