Realm Lord
Chapter 108: The Dungeon

Chapter 108: The Dungeon

The scene before them crystallized into heartbreaking clarity. Lara sat motionless on her knees, her once-pristine clothing now saturated with crimson that had long since ceased to flow. In her trembling arms lay Jake’s lifeless form, his face unnaturally serene amidst the surrounding devastation. His chest—the same chest that had heaved with laughter mere days ago—remained perfectly still. The vibrant energy that had defined him, extinguished like a candle in a hurricane.

Behind her stood Kay, his imposing frame diminished somehow by grief. He leaned heavily against his massive war hammer, the weapon’s head resting on blood-slicked stone while his white-knuckled grip suggested it was the only thing keeping him upright. His eyes remained fixed downward, as if the patterns of blood splatter on the dungeon floor contained answers to questions too painful to articulate.

Arthur and Aziel remained frozen at the threshold, trespassers upon a moment of sacred mourning. The sight before them radiated such raw anguish that it seemed to physically distort the air, creating an invisible barrier neither of them was eager to breach. They exchanged a glance laden with unspoken understanding.

Aziel delivered a firm slap to Arthur’s back, the sharp sound startlingly loud in the chamber’s oppressive silence. Arthur’s head snapped toward his companion, meeting Aziel’s stern nod with one of his own.

They began their approach, each footstep echoing with damning finality against the ancient stones. The sound announced their presence more effectively than any words could have, yet neither Kay nor Lara reacted visibly. They had registered there arrival from the moment the door creaked open, but grief had anchored their attention to Jake’s still form with chains too heavy to break.

Standing over Lara’s hunched figure, Arthur felt the weight of inadequacy crushing his chest. His teeth ground together audibly as frustration coiled within him like a venomous serpent. Words failed him—all except the most useless ones.

"I-I’m sorry," he finally managed, the syllables falling like stones into a bottomless well.

The hollowness of the platitude wasn’t lost on him. Sorry—such a meaningless collection of sounds in the face of death. What purpose did "sorry" serve? Did it resurrect the fallen? Did it siphon away even a droplet of the survivors’ agony? Did it accomplish anything beyond easing the speaker’s discomfort?

The answer drummed through Arthur’s consciousness: no.

Nothing spoken could alter the cruel reality that Jake would never again rise, that Jonas’s head now resided in realm storage alongside Arthur’s severed arm. Yet the alternative—saying nothing at all—seemed equally unbearable. Arthur had received countless "sorrys" after his parents’ deaths. None had prevented him from sleeping on frozen streets or scavenging for meals. Yet even knowing their futility, he couldn’t deny the human need to offer something, anything, in the face of another’s suffering.

Lara’s head lifted with excruciating slowness, as if weighted by invisible stones. Her eyes—once vibrant pools of determination—had dulled to vacant orbs rimmed in angry red. Dried tear tracks carved pale rivulets through the blood splattered across her cheeks. Her lips parted several times, forming shapes without sound, before finally producing a fragile whisper.

"J-Jonas?"

Just one word—a name—yet it carried the desperate hope that perhaps only one heart had ceased beating today. That half their losses might be imagined rather than real.

Arthur flinched as if struck. His teeth found his lower lip, biting down hard enough that the metallic tang of fresh blood joined the chamber’s already overwhelming miasma of death. He forced his eyes open, meeting her desperate gaze, and delivered the cruelest kindness—truth conveyed through the simplest gesture.

He shook his head once. No.

The unspoken confirmation landed with physical force. Lara’s expression didn’t change—she had no tears left to shed, no capacity for further shock. Instead, she simply lowered her gaze back to Jake’s peaceful face and tightened her embrace, as if she could somehow transfer her warmth, her life, into his still form through sheer force of will.

Behind her, Kay’s grip on his hammer intensified until the skin across his knuckles stretched so taut it threatened to split. The veins in his forearms stood out like rivers on a relief map as a single, perfect teardrop broke free from his lashes. It fell in agonizing slow motion before shattering against the stone floor, joining the larger bloodstains in silent solidarity.

Arthur and Aziel maintained their vigil for several minutes, the silence between them weighted with respect and shared grief. Eventually, through unspoken mutual agreement, they retreated to give the mourners space. Their exploration of the chamber offered both practical purpose and necessary distraction from the oppressive sorrow that threatened to suffocate them all.

The dungeon sprawled around them in medieval splendor, its architecture suggesting both purpose and sadism. The central chamber where Lara knelt opened into a wide corridor lined with cells on either side. Heavy iron bars, their surfaces mottled with ancient rust that spoke of centuries of neglect, separated each holding pen from the main passage.

Arthur and Aziel moved in between them, examining each cell with cautious thoroughness. Most contained nothing more interesting than scattered debris and the occasional pile of moldering straw that might once have served as bedding. The stale air carried hints of ancient suffering—the kind of misery that seemed to permeate the very stones themselves.

"Whoever built this place had a particular appreciation for human suffering," Aziel muttered, running his fingers along a set of manacles bolted into one cell wall.

Arthur hummed noncommittally, his attention already drifting to the next enclosure.

They continued their methodical inspection, moving deeper into the dungeon’s recesses where the torchlight grew increasingly feeble. The temperature dropped noticeably with each cell they passed, as if warmth itself feared to venture this far from the main chamber.

When they finally reached the last cell—a particularly unremarkable enclosure at the corridor’s end—both of them had nearly resigned themselves to finding nothing of value. This final holding pen appeared identical to its dozens of predecessors: same rusty bars, same crumbling stone, same oppressive emptiness.

Except it wasn’t empty.

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