Realm Lord
Chapter 72: They Came From Below

Chapter 72: They Came From Below

Arthur and Aziel slowly walked through the crowd of bodies, their footsteps careful and deliberate. The sound of their boots against stone was occasionally punctuated by the crunch of brittle bone or the metallic scrape of disturbed armor. The air hung heavy with the scent of decay—not the fresh, pungent odor of recent death, but the ancient, dusty smell of long-departed life.

Arthur stopped and kneeled down over one of the fallen. They were wearing a full suit of steel armor... well, half a suit, as the bottom half of their body was nowhere to be seen. The torso ended abruptly at the waist in a mess of jagged metal and what might have once been flesh, now desiccated beyond recognition. The steel, once polished to a mirror shine, was now dulled by time and the elements, covered in a fine layer of the same dust that blanketed everything in this wasteland.

Ripped apart gruesomely, the bisected remains told a story of violence that Arthur wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. Yet curiosity—or perhaps the need to know what they were facing—drove him forward. He slowly reached for the visor of the helmet, his hand hovering momentarily as if hesitant to disturb the dead. With a soft scrape of metal against metal, he lifted it up.

Underneath was the face of a skeleton, the flesh long since reclaimed by the earth. As the visor opened, bugs crawled out of the helmet—tiny, pale creatures that had made their home in the dark confines of what was once a man’s head. Arthur momentarily flinched, his body instinctively recoiling before he calmed himself and took a closer look.

The bone of the skeleton was not the ivory white one might expect, but marred with veins of darkness spreading like a web across the surface. It was lined with that familiar blackness of corruption—the same taint he had encountered before, a signature of something far more sinister than natural death.

Which meant one thing. Arthur’s mind raced as the implications settled in. ’They were killed by void creatures... or... oh shit.’

The realization hit him like a physical blow, sending a jolt of adrenaline through his system. Arthur stood up fast, spinning in place, his eyes scanning the field of corpses before locking onto his companion who wandered between the bodies slightly ahead.

"AZIEL!" he called out, his voice echoing across the graveyard.

Aziel spun around quick, concern etched across his face. His hand instinctively moved to the hilt of his weapon, ready to draw at the first sign of danger. "What!?"

Arthur quickly walked up to him so he didn’t have to yell, his steps hurried and purposeful. The distance between them seemed too great, too exposed. "These people, their bodies are covered in corruption," he said in a hushed tone once he reached his friend’s side.

Aziel’s left eyebrow rose, skepticism clear in his expression. "So they were killed by Void creatures?" The question was casual, as if discussing the weather rather than forces of darkness capable of slaughtering an army.

Arthur gulped, the look in his eyes betraying his growing dread. "Maybe... or maybe by corrupted monsters." The distinction was important—crucial, even—though he wasn’t sure Aziel would appreciate the difference.

Aziel looked confused and unbothered by the information, his shoulders giving a slight shrug. "So? What does it matter? They were killed by a rival army, void creatures, or corrupted monsters—why should it matter to us?" His voice carried a hint of impatience, his gaze drifting toward the castle that loomed ever closer, its dark towers a promise or a threat, depending on one’s perspective.

Arthur looked at Aziel with pleading eyes, willing him to understand the gravity of their situation. "Don’t you get it? If they were killed by Corrupted monsters, that means they could still be around... maybe even behind those walls." He gestured toward the distant castle, its imposing silhouette a stark contrast against the empty sky. "And if they were able to kill this many soldiers, we don’t stand a chance."

Aziel sighed, the sound heavy with frustration. His eyes reflected the internal battle between caution and desperation. "So what do you suggest we do?" The question hung in the air, a challenge and a plea wrapped into one.

Arthur averted his eyes momentarily, busy thinking. The options were limited, none of them good. They could continue forward toward the castle and whatever lurked within, or attempt to find another path—though the barren landscape offered little in the way of alternatives.

"I-I don’t think we should go past those walls," he finally said, the words coming out hesitant but firm. "If there really is an army of monsters around here, that’s where they would be."

Aziel immediately seemed unhappy with that suggestion, his face darkening like a storm cloud. "Well then, what the hell else are we gonna do, Arthur?" His voice rose with each word, frustration giving way to anger. "We’re out of food and water and running out of time... this place could be our only hope and you just want to give it up?"

Arthur wanted to snap back right away, the tension of the past weeks and the horror of their current situation pushing him toward an outburst, but he had nothing to say. He stayed silent as Aziel waited for him to speak, the weight of their predicament pressing down on both of them.

Arthur was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he’d had a bad feeling about this place since first laying eyes on it, and now his feelings might be justified by the evidence of slaughter all around them. On the other hand, they would die if they didn’t find sustenance soon—their Chosen status only delayed the inevitable, it didn’t prevent it entirely.

Time seemed to stretch as Arthur wrestled with the decision, each second marked by the hollow whistle of wind across the field of death.

Arthur’s thoughts were momentarily disrupted by a sound—a large rumbling that started as a distant vibration before growing into something impossible to ignore. It was followed by the very ground beneath their feet shaking, small stones dancing across the cracked surface as if alive.

Arthur and Aziel looked at each other, the argument forgotten in the face of this new development. "Earthquake?" Aziel asked, though the hopeful tone in his voice suggested he already knew better.

"I doubt it," Arthur responded grimly, his hand ready to summon his sword as his eyes scanned their surroundings for the source of the disturbance.

And right after that it happened. The ground split further, the existing fissures widening like hungry maws ready to devour anything in their path. All around them, they came in hordes, thousands of them rising from the huge cracks in the ground from all directions in a stampede of nightmarish proportions.

They were as big as grimhounds but looked eerily like termites—six legs propelling their massive bodies forward with frightening speed, and two menacing pincers that clicked and snapped at the air, as if already tasting their prey. Their skin looked grey and decayed, covered in a layer of the same corruption Arthur had observed on the skeleton, but the bugs themselves looked very, very alive.

The sound was overwhelming—a cacophony of chittering, scraping, and the rumble of countless legs against stone. The air filled with dust kicked up by their emergence, creating a haze that made the already surreal scene feel like something from a fever dream.

Arthur and Aziel stood silent as they looked at the army of monster bugs emerging from all around them, the sheer scale of the threat rendering them momentarily paralyzed. They were surrounded, cut off from both retreat and advance, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

"I think we found what killed the army," Aziel said lightly with a grim chuckle to follow, his hand already summoning his weapon. The spear caught the sunlight, a flash of brightness in the growing darkness of the swarm.

Arthur’s response was simpler, a single word that encompassed the entirety of their situation. "Shit."

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