Realm Lord
Chapter 127: As it Crumbles

Chapter 127: As it Crumbles

The sight of those dark veins spreading across his beloved wife’s skin like poisonous roots devastated the king in ways that Arthur could feel echoing through his very soul. Through the monarch’s eyes, Arthur witnessed a man watching his entire world crumble around him, powerless to stop the inexorable advance of corruption.

The king’s understanding of corruption was tragically limited, based more on fearful rumors and incomplete knowledge than on any true comprehension of the void’s insidious nature. What he did understand, however, was terrifying enough: sometimes those affected by corruption underwent horrible transformations, their bodies and minds twisted into monstrous forms that bore little resemblance to the people they had once been. These corrupted beings became creatures of violence and hunger, driven by alien instincts to spread their taint to others.

It was this incomplete knowledge that led the king to make a decision that left even Arthur feeling hollow with its cruel necessity.

Unable to bear the thought of his cherished wife potentially transforming into a monster that might harm their innocent daughters, the king made the most agonizing choice of his life. With tears streaming down his face and his hands shaking with barely controlled emotion, he personally escorted his wife down to the castle’s dungeons—a place that had rarely been used during his peaceful reign, reserved only for the most serious criminals.

Arthur felt the king’s heart breaking as he guided his wife into one of the cells, her weakened form leaning heavily against him for support. She was still beautiful despite the corruption that was slowly claiming her body, her hair now streaked with premature gray and her once-bright eyes dulled by illness and confusion. She didn’t resist as he gently helped her to the simple cot that served as the cell’s only furniture, her trust in her husband remaining absolute even as he prepared to abandon her to this terrible fate.

"I’m sorry," the king whispered as he closed the cell door, the sound of the iron lock clicking into place echoing through the dungeon like a death knell. "I’m so sorry, my love. I just... I can’t risk you hurting the girls. I can’t lose them too."

To ensure that his wife couldn’t escape and potentially threaten their daughters, the king assigned one of the sheepmen to stand guard outside her cell. The empty suit of armor took its position with mechanical precision, its hollow helm turned toward the cell door as it began its eternal vigil. There it would remain, motionless and silent, watching over a woman who had once been the heart and soul of the royal family.

All the king had ever wanted was to protect his family, to keep them safe from the horrors that had consumed his kingdom. But his wife never did transform into the monster he feared she might become. Instead, something far more heartbreaking occurred.

She simply... died.

Hungry. Alone. Consumed by sadness.

The king blinked several more times over the following days, and Arthur witnessed the profound change that had settled over the royal family like a suffocating blanket. The twin daughters, once so full of life and laughter, had become shadows of their former selves. They spoke little, their bright eyes now dull with a grief they were too young to fully understand but old enough to feel with devastating intensity.

Their father did his best to comfort them, to maintain some semblance of the warm, loving parent they had always known. He still read to them, though the sessions were shorter and more stilted than before. He still tucked them into bed each night, though his movements were mechanical and his smiles forced. But there was only so much he could do when their mother was gone and the weight of his own guilt pressed down upon him like a physical burden.

The king blinked again, and Arthur found himself standing before yet another mirror, this one in what appeared to be the royal bathroom. The chamber was luxuriously appointed with marble surfaces and golden fixtures, but Arthur’s attention was immediately drawn to what the king was doing.

With trembling hands, the monarch slowly pulled up his shirt, revealing his torso to the silvered glass. What Arthur saw there made his breath catch in his throat—or rather, made the king’s breath catch, since Arthur was still experiencing everything through the royal perspective.

Lines of corruption were spreading throughout the king’s body like a network of dark rivers beneath his skin. They were more advanced than what had appeared on his wife, branching and twisting in patterns that seemed to pulse with their own malevolent life. The corruption had clearly been growing for some time, hidden beneath his royal garments and his desperate attempts to maintain normalcy for his daughters’ sake.

The king’s hands gripped the marble counter in front of the bathroom mirror, his knuckles white with strain as he supported his weight. His reflection stared back at him with eyes that had seen too much suffering, too much loss, too many impossible choices that had all led to this moment.

Tears began to flow down his face in steady streams, each drop carrying the weight of his accumulated guilt and despair. His voice, when it finally came, was barely more than a whisper, but Arthur heard every word with devastating clarity.

"Why... why?" the king asked his reflection, his voice breaking on the simple question that encompassed all his anguish. Why had this happened to his kingdom? Why couldn’t he save his wife? Why was the corruption taking him too, leaving his daughters completely alone?

He blinked away his tears, and when his eyes opened, the scene had shifted once more. Arthur found himself back in the throne room, but this time the king was kneeling before his daughters, speaking to them with words that carried all the warmth and love he could muster despite his own deteriorating condition.

"Girls, I need you two to go to your rooms for a little bit, okay?" he said, his voice gentle but tinged with an exhaustion that went bone-deep.

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