Jareth’s heart was in turmoil. He could not accept what had happened before his eyes.
"No... no..." he whispered, his voice trembling.
"This... this is impossible..." he mumbled under his breath.
His gaze was vacant as he stared at the massive, lifeless fra of the abominable creature they had created.
The colossal body lay sprawled across the chamber floor. The air felt heavy, saturated with the tallic scent of blood.
Thud. Thud.
While he struggled to comprehend the creature’s fall, a series of heavy footsteps jolted him from his trance.
The sound reverberated through the chamber, deliberate and unhurried, yet crushing in its weight.
He raised his head slowly and saw two undead servants marching toward him. Their montum was overwhelming, their presence suffocating.
The deep, hollow sockets of their eyes burned with eerie soul fire that sent a chill down his spine.
The flas flickered with cold indifference, devoid of rcy or hesitation.
Jareth forced himself to sober up, clenching his fists as he steadied his breathing.
He glanced at the Undead Storm Tyrant and the Undead Royal Stonewall, their towering forms radiating oppressive power.
Then his eyes shifted to the silver-haired boy walking between them.
"Do you know what you’ve done?" Jareth demanded, his voice thick with anger and bitterness.
"You’ve destroyed everything the Federation has worked for. You’ve dood us all," he continued, his voice rising sharply.
"This was our only chance for the human race to control the abyssal floor, and you ruined everything because of your wickedness!" He pointed an accusing finger at him, his arm trembling with rage.
In his mind, he was fighting for the greater good.
Everything he had done, every compromise, every sacrifice had been for humanity’s survival.
To him, Thoren was the villain who had shattered their one hope.
Thoren stared at him as though he were a fool.
No, worse, a madman.
Without uttering a word, he began walking toward Jareth at an unhurried pace, maintaining unwavering eye contact.
Beside him, the undead servants moved in silent coordination. The chamber trembled beneath their heavy boots.
Yet Jareth did not retreat.
To him, everything was already over. He had placed all his hopes on the creature, and that hope now lay broken before him.
"You can kill now," Jareth shouted, his voice cracking with fury, "but your sin will be known to everyone!"
Hatred burned deep within his heart. He wished he possessed the strength to tear the boy before him into pieces, but he knew it was futile.
I shouldn’t have focused so much on the experint, he thought bitterly. I should have pushed myself to reach Level 19 at least...
To accelerate the experint’s progress, he had neglected his own training, stagnating at Level 18.
Among the three known leaders of the human awakeners, he had always been the weakest.
People feared the Federation not because of him, but because of the Level 18 Vanguard—Ernest.
Ernest had been a formidable awakener, capable of holding his ground against a Level 19 beast. But now he had fallen.
Even if Ernest had survived, Jareth knew they would not have stood a chance against Thoren’s army of undead.
Now that everything had been slaughtered and destroyed, nothing remained except the hatred burning fiercely within his chest.
Thoren and his undead servants stopped a few feet away. Their imposing presence pressed down on Jareth like an invisible weight.
"...You call evil," Thoren began at last, his voice calm and unhurried.
"Yes," Jareth replied, eting his gaze without flinching. "How many innocent humans have you turned into undead servants to satisfy your twisted heart?"
"And now you’ve destroyed what was the Federation’s last hope. You are nothing but a sinner, and I promise you this...." He gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling. "You will pay for this."
Thoren remained silent for a long mont. The only sound was the faint crackle of soul fire from his undead guardians.
"You colluded with the Slave Trade Guild to target innocent awakeners," Thoren said finally, his voice colder than before. "You harvested their bodies for your demonic experints."
"And yet you dare to call evil?" His tone dropped to a chilling whisper.
Bang!
Before Jareth could react, the Undead Storm Tyrant’s massive fist shot forward like a jackhamr and slamd into his chest.
"Ahhh!"
Jareth was sent hurtling backward. His ribs shattered as he crashed violently into the wall.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and a mouthful of blood mixed with fragnts of bone spilled from his lips.
His vision blurred.
Agony wracked his nerves.
He gasped desperately for air but found it nearly impossible to breathe.
"How dare you stand before and deliver that self-righteous speech?" Thoren barked, his composure finally cracking.
The hypocrisy sickened him.
It disgusted him to his core.
They labeled others as evil while embodying true depravity themselves.
To create such a monstrosity, he could not imagine how many inhumane experints they had conducted.
How many screams had echoed through these chambers?
How many pleas for rcy had been ignored?
"Hundreds of innocent awakeners with bright futures died at your hands for your twisted ambitions," Thoren said coldly.
"You were ant to protect the weak, yet you turned them into lab rats."
"If I am a sinner, then what does that make you? At least I have never turned innocent people into undead servants against their will."
Jareth coughed violently, blood pooling beneath him. He glared upward, but there was no longer any strength behind his hatred only desperation.
Too disgusted to continue arguing with such a deluded man, Thoren turned away and walked toward the shattered tal door leading deeper into the chamber.
Inside, the sight that greeted him made his blood boil.
Creak.
Creak.
An undead servant dragged the broken and terrified Jareth into the experintal chamber.
Fresh human tissue and organs were scattered everywhere. Severed limbs lay carelessly discarded in corners.
The chamber reeked of decay and depravity beyond imagination.
In one corner, a small group huddled together, their expressions pale and horrified.
From their robes and trembling hands, Thoren could easily guess their roles in this atrocity.
They were the scholars, the architects of the nightmare.
At the center of the chamber stood a skeleton, positioned within an intricate array of strange symbols and patterns.
The runes pulsed faintly, as though retaining a trace of residual energy.
"What is this?" Thoren asked, his voice dangerously quiet as he stared at the terrified scholars.
For a mont, no one spoke. They glanced nervously at the undead servant stepping toward them, its burning gaze fixed upon their shaking forms.
One of the scholars finally broke down.
"He... he was the engine that powered the creature," the man stamred.
"We used forbidden spells and runes to bind his soul and transfer it into the creature’s body."
Listening to the explanation, Thoren’s eyes darkened further. He could only imagine the tornt the victim must have endured, his soul torn from his body, shackled, and forced into an abomination against his will.
The temperature inside the chamber dropped to a dangerously low.
"Since you enjoy torturing others and using them for experints," Thoren said slowly, a dark smile forming on his lips, "I hope you won’t mind if I test your own thods on you."
The scholars’ faces drained of color.
Jareth’s broken body trembled where he lay. For the first ti, genuine fear flickered in his eyes.
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