Nightblade (Darkest night)

Chapter 244: Origins

I once had a master," Merlin said in a forlorn voice. But I haven’t seen her in the span of several lifetimes."

"What was her name?"

A gentle breeze rustled the grass and the trees around them.

Merlin turned, staring at Emily for a few moments.

His silver eyes burned into her own almost as though he was looking straight through her at something only he could see.

The air grew strangely still.

The n eventually, he whispered.

"Her name was Mileas. Mileas Halecrest. She gave me her last name."

"It’s almost haunting, how alike they look," he thought, staring somberly into the distance.

Emily went silent, allowing him to take a stroll down memory lane.

It was almost as though he was remembering something from a distant past.

He gently gestured,d and in the next moment, particles of light gathered together, inflowing shimmering streams before slowly taking shape into a new phantom.

One of the stunning women.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, possessing an almost unreal elegance that made her seem more like a dream than a mortal being.

Long dark hair cascaded down to her waist in soft silken waves, swaying gently in a ghostly l breeze.

Her vivid green eyes shone with warmth and quiet strength, their emerald glow standing out vividly against the pale light of the projection.

Emily slowly circled the figure, taking in her ethereal appearance.

Even as a phantom conjured from light, the woman exuded a regal aura.

"My master was not the firstborn with the unique powers that make us Talented who are..."

As Merlin spoke, oke his eyes shone with pride and seeming reverence.

"But she was the first to discover the origin of these strange, angelic, wondrous powers the talented wield."

Emily stared at him in disbelief for several moments.

"What is that supposed to mean? Are you saying the power of the Talented is not their own?"

Merlin fell silent.

The crackling lightning around him dimmed slightly as his expression became unreadable. For a moment, only the distant rumble of thunder echoed across the heavens.

Then, slowly, he looked back toward the phantom woman formed from light.

"No," he said quietly. "They were never ours to begin with."

"The powers we carry come from the lineage of beings far beyond humanity," Merlin said quietly, his voice carrying an almost sacred weight. "Ancient entities... deities that vanished long before modern civilization ever rose from the ashes of the old world."

Lightning crackled softly around him as the phantom figures continued moving within the sea of light.

"They are extinct now. Forgotten by history. Erased so completely that most would call them myths."

His silver eyes darkened.

"But traces of their power remained."

Emily felt a chill crawl down her spine.

The more she discovered, the more shell-shocked she became.

"Every Talented carries a fragment of these beings."

"The Talented," Merlin continued, "are descendants of those beings. Fragments of their bloodlines still flow within us, and through that blood we inherit echoes of what they once were."

He slowly clenched his hand, silver lightning writhing violently around his fingers.

"That is the true source of our abilities.

What you’re witnessing now, these runes, they’re part of it."

Emily stared at him speechlessly, her mind struggling to grasp the enormity of what she was hearing.

Then Merlin’s expression hardened.

"And the assassins..." he said, his voice lowering into a colder and more chilling tone,

"Though most of them may not even realize it themselves... are a breed created for a single purpose."

The storm overhead rumbled violently.

"They are godkillers."

*****

Two lone figures pressed onward through the endless ascent of the frozen mountain range, their silhouettes swallowed by swirling snow and biting wind.

Behind them, the path they had carved was littered with broken, half-frozen forms, hideous creatures twisted by the harshness of the highlands, now lying still in the snow, their dark blood staining the white ground in stark, violent contrast.

In life, some had been hulking quadrupeds with jagged, ice-encrusted bone protrusions jutting from their backs like broken spears. Others were lean, wolf-like things whose limbs bent at unnatural angles.

Yet even in death, they were not what made this place truly lethal.

Far from it, the most dangerous adversary was the biting cold.

It was the reason the barren, snowy plains that stretched for miles around were completely devoid of life.

It aggressively seeped into the bones, relentlessly draining the life out of any unfortunate, careless enough to venture out into the desolate place.

But contrary to the norm, the two figures seemed unbothered, slowly trudging through the snow with silent determination.

After taking several steps, they abruptly stopped, glancing up at the dark sky.

"Do you see that?"

In the distance, a pale beam of light lit up the sky, followed by furious bursts of wild, chained lightning with thunder in its wake.

The frozen plains trembled faintly beneath the relentless echoes.

The lead figure slowed, her cloak whipping violently in the icy wind as she fixed her gaze upon the distant phenomenon. For several long moments, she said nothing, simply watching the storm of furious light unfold against the darkened horizon.

Then, slowly, her lips curled into a faint smile.

"It seems we’re almost there." She murmured.

The figure beside her nodded in agreement,t fixing his eyes on the unnatural phenomenon unfolding in the distance.

"If it wasn’t for these pests," he said, i

gesturing at the broken corpses behind them," then we’d have made it sooner."

He paused his gaze, lingering on the sporadic bolts of silver lightning dancing in the sky in the distance.

After what seemed like a moment of quiet contemplation, he turned to the petite figure next to him.

"Are you sure it’s wise to seek him out like this? For years, Merlin Halecrest has lived out here on his own, and not even the Praesgius seek him out without his invitation."

A long silence followed before the petite figure murmured.

"I understand your concerns, but I must meet this girl for myself. We wish him no harm. We only need the girl."