parentshiftbook Chapter 759 - 758 - Millbrook Is Ready for Civil... War?
Chapter 759 - 758 - Millbrook Is Ready for Civil... War?
The rune inscription. The lost language of magic. The power of symbols that did not need mana for activation. The strength of what a ninth-circle mage could pull off. Without a magic core. Without mana. Without anything but the symbol itself. The power, the sheer overwhelming power of that ability, was staggering. With it, he could inscribe ninth-circle magic on a common soldier. Grant them the power to destroy cities. Create an army of ninth-circle mages without a single one of them having a magic core.The realization made him breathe. Deep. Shaking. He needed a moment.
He hugged her. Not sexually. Gratefully. His arms wrapped around her body. Her skin, warm and smooth, pressed against his. Her heart was beating. He could hear it. She was alive and she was his, and she had just given him the answer he needed.
He closed his eyes. His back leaned against a tree. The bark, rough and warm, was solid. Her hair, which smelled of the ocean, was in his face. Salt and sea and something else entirely.
"Thanks for telling that," he said. His voice was muffled by her hair, quiet.
She smiled. The expression was tender, visible even though he could not see it.
"I love you," she said.
The words hung in the air. Three words. The most powerful words in any language. Spoken by a mermaid who had just met him. Spoken by a woman who believed he was her husband reborn.
"You never said that before," he said. His voice was confused. That was not him speaking. Or was it?
His eyes opened. He looked at her face. The golden eyes, which had been soft, were wide. The tears, which had been falling, were streaming. The expression was not grief or joy but both at once.
"Indeed," she said. Her voice was trembling. "I have never said that before."
The realization hit them both simultaneously. She had never told her husband she loved him. Not once. Not in all the years they had been together. Not before he died. The words ’I love you’, which she had just spoken, were words she had never said. But Viktor had responded as if she had. ’You never said that before.’ That response was not his. That was her husband’s. The response a man would give to a woman who had finally, after years, said the words he had been waiting to hear.
The fragment. The piece of her husband’s soul that was inside Viktor. It had spoken. Not Viktor. The fragment. He had responded as her husband would have. It was him. She was certain.
Her doubts, which had been lingering, vanished. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe he was just similar. All gone. Replaced by certainty. Joy. He was here.
She cried. The tears, which had been falling, became a flood. Her husband was here. He loved her. After all these years. She hugged him, desperate, clinging.
"Please do not leave me now," she said. Her voice was broken by sobs, barely audible. Not a command. A prayer.
He hugged her. Firm and warm.
"Should I take you to my other wives?" he asked. Gentle. Also a test — was she ready? Could she accept this?
She said, "Yeah." Immediate. She would accept anything as long as she was with him.
"Can we be like this for a moment?" she asked. Simple. She needed this. Just hold her.
He closed his eyes. Yeah.
They stayed. On the flowers. Against the tree. In the forest. The sunlight, filtering through the leaves, moved across the clearing. The shadows shifted with the light. The outside world with its wars and its schemes and its civil conflicts did not exist.
For a moment, there was only them. A man who was more than a man. A mermaid who had found her husband. A flower bed that was a garden. A silence that was not empty but full.
## Part IV: Millbrook
The town was unrecognizable.
The Millbrook that Viktor had left, the modest countryside town with its wooden walls and its quiet streets, was gone. In its place stood something that was no longer a town. It was a fortress. A territory. A kingdom in miniature that was growing larger by the hour.
The barricades, which had been wooden, were now stone. The walls, which had been modest, were now towering. The magic circles, which hovered in the sky like celestial gears, were visible from miles away. The glyphs, which rotated and pulsed, cast a protective dome over the territory. The dome, which shimmered with a faint blue light, was the work of a catastrophic-level demon. Anyone who looked upon it knew someone powerful lived within.
The dragons, which circled in the sky, were not illusions. The massive creatures, their scales catching the sunlight, cast shadows that swept across the town like moving clouds. Their wings, which spanned dozens of feet, displaced air. The wind, which each wingbeat generated, ruffled the rooftops. The roars, which echoed across the territory, were territorial. Every living creature within miles trembled.
GRAAAOOOR—!!
The sound, felt in the chest more than heard in the ears, shook the windows. The children, who had been playing, stopped. The adults, who had been working, looked up. The fear was real and necessary. Anyone who saw the dome and the dragons and the circles knew this territory was protected, and anyone who thought of rebelling knew the cost.
The people, the citizens of the expanding territory, were divided. Some feared and hid. The ones who had been living peacefully, who had never seen a dragon or a demon or a magic circle, were terrified. They stayed in their homes. They locked their doors. They prayed.
Others did not fear. They moved. The ones who had been soldiers. The ones who had been fighters. The ones who had been looking for a cause. They walked the streets with purpose. They carried weapons. They wore the colors of the lord. Those colors said they would fight.
The confusion, which had been rampant, was being solved. The House of the Lord, the name given to the lord’s mansion, was the center. The building, which had been a simple estate, was now a command center. The messengers, who ran in and out, carried orders. The officers, who stood at the doors, directed. Everything went through the House. The lord controlled everything.
In the sky, two women hovered.
Helena, the divine sovereign whose power had been the foundation of Viktor’s rise, was the higher of the two. Her body, suspended in the air, was surrounded by magic circles. The circles poured from her hands like water from a spring, complex and layered. Each one, a different glyph and a different purpose, rotated around her. The light, the combined light of dozens of active spells, made her a second sun.
Her hands moved with precision, directing the circles. The wall, the massive stone wall being constructed around the territory, was her work. Each block, placed by magic, was fused to the next. No one would break through.
Below her, on the ground, Kaida was yelling. The woman, whose belly was swollen with pregnancy, stood at the construction site. Her hands were on her hips, clenched. Her face was red from exertion, fierce. Pregnant and still working, she made every man within earshot move faster.
"You bastards!" she screamed. Her voice carried across the site, making the workers flinch. "Duck! That teaches now! Move the stones faster! Do you think the enemy will wait for you to finish your lunch?!"