Chapter 49: The Mercy of Death

At that distance, Axel could not miss.

None was close enough to stop him. Not even the King, for all his impossible speed, could have prevented Axel in time.

And so, with a grim determination holding back the spiral of madness, the Demon cleaved Lune from shoulder to stomach, halberd blade severing neck and spine.

Lune gave one final choke. 

Then, she fell over, dead.

It was quick, painless. Once again, a heavy quiet fell over the valley. Axel sighed, breathing in the scent of Lune’s blood and her warmth.

Do your duty. Those were the Giant’s last words. Somehow, Ymir had known.

Axel’s obligation to his cadre. Harbinger was not a name his enemy gave him.

It was the moniker gifted to him by his cadre. Harbinger Roukin. 

No matter what final fate befell you, no matter if it is the touch of madness or the imminent capture at the enemy’s hand, the Harbinger would always be there.

To deliver you to his Reaper.

Those of the 76th were not stable. Mental, biological, or physical failures were common. The end results were never pretty, and the journey to that end was often paved with horrible agony and insanity.

Axel delivered them their deaths when the time called for it. To prevent mental degradation, to halt cascading genetic failure, to avoid capture upon enemy hands.

He alone did so. The dreaded Leader of the 76th. 

He was no Guardian Angel, for that group of blood-maddened warriors did not want nor need one.

They merely needed an undertaker who would never fail them.

And so here he was again. Delivering Death to deny a worse fate.

Lune’s blood fell upon his charred body, soothing his wounds and giving him blessed warmth as his bones froze in the winds — as if she were comforting him, one final time.

Axel chuckled hollowly, then stood. 

All around him, the Wild Hunt closed in.

Axel raised his halberd on charred limbs. His grin split his cracked and blackened lips. He tasted burnt blood on his tongue. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill myself. Come at me, all of you.”

The Wild Hunt obliged.

Axel barely parried the first blow. He couldn’t dodge the second. A lance speared his stomach, then another through his flank, before a third upon the base of his spine.

The golden halberd fell from numb fingers. Axel no longer had the strength to move. Pain was non-existent. His nerves were so fried he had become numb to everything.

“Hold him up.”

The trio of lances within him pulled his body into the air in union. His body was torn apart under his weight, burnt flesh slogging off his frame as he was slowly lifted.

“Look at me.”

Axel chuckled. He raised his head.

“You know, I have been having… Just the worst day,” Axel began. “But seeing you like this? Makes it all worth it.”

The King said nothing. His rage had passed the point of fury, coming full circle back to a calmness that bordered on insanity.

“What a day, huh, Woddy?” Axel mocked, voice slow and weak. “Just thinking of how much you lost, how much I took from you… Warms my dead heart, it does.”

“Do you believe,” the King began, almost in disbelief. “That the fate waiting for you after this in any way worthy of jest?”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Clearly, you don’t know me that well. Don’t worry. I’m a big boy, unlike you. You will have plenty of time to know me.”

“... You do not fear.”

Axel smiled. “Fear is a luxury for men who didn’t already know they are going to die.”

“You do not fear now.” The King’s tone was neutral. “You will learn. And you will break.”

“I’m already broken.”

“No.” Even behind the skull mask, Axel could feel the King’s maddened grin. “Not yet. But you will. Starting now.”

The King summoned something from his inventory. Axel looked on with half-dead interest.

Was that… a watch? It was somewhat similar to the one Lune was using earlier, but this one was far more ornate, burning god runes and esoteric energies.

Its face was ticking counterclockwise, the hour hand twitching like a heartbeat. Intricate sigils lined the brass casing, pulsing faintly in time with the storm above.

“You care nothing for yourself. That much is evident. I still believe pain would break you in time, for my kin are proficient in the art of agony, if nothing else.” The King’s presence peeled away a layer of reality, revealing ghastly faces underneath. “But I have not the patience to wait even a moment longer. I can scarcely remember a time when I was insulted so. To rob my holdings… To so blatantly spit in the face of my generosity…”

The King stepped closer, not towards Axel…

But towards the corpse of Lune.

“I had planned to save this for myself, in the event of my unlikely demise,” the King hissed in a mad pitch. “But alas, it seems I shall have to use it to attain my satisfaction from your wretched existence.”

Axel watched, uncomprehending, as the King bent down and placed the watch hovering over Lune’s corpse.

He thumbed the latch. The watch clicked open with a hiss of escaping pressure. Magic poured from the King’s hands to the device, then from the device to Lune’s body. The silver second hand began to spin backwards.

The world shuddered. The mist around them reversed their flow. Light recoiled into a fractured lantern glass. The sound of thunder uncracked, reversing into silence. 

The watch in the King’s hand rusted, then shattered into dust — its sole purpose completed.

Axel watched, awed by horror, as the blood on the ground retracted, flowing back into Lune’s corpse. The bisected body became whole once more as her terrible, undeniably fatal wounds re-knit themselves. 

When her body was made whole, a shuddering breath entered lungs that should be dead. Her purple eyes opened.

Lune was forced back to life, denied the peaceful death that Axel had given her.

“NO!” The soldier roared. He fought against the lances impaling him, tearing his mutilated body further apart.

The knights held him still. When it became clear the man’s feral thrashing was going to get him killed before their King could enact their terrible judgment, they lowered their lances and pulled them free.

Axel fell to the ground, his body held together by mangled strands of flesh. Axel screamed in rage as a black winter’s frost seized him, fixing him in place while sealing his wounds.

The cold and blood loss should have killed him already, but the storm of the Wild Hunt prevented his death.

Axel would not die, not while the King did not allow it.

Lune looked over, her eyes lost to slow realisation and horror. She tried to pull a weapon from her inventory.

The greatsword of the King came down, slamming through her chest and pinning her to the ground.

The wet squelch of her flesh was a more painful sound than the thunderous pounding in his ears. Axel tried to move, to scream, to do anything but kneel there and watch.

He could not. The black ice around his body was a prison.

“I warned you.” The King’s words echoed as he walked over. “Every agony. Every defilement. Every last degradation imaginable. You will witness every waking moment of her violation, knowing that you alone were solely responsible for her suffering. And only after, in the long years that follow, when this insult you gave me is finally soothed, and when you are both reduced beyond even the last shred of dignity or salvation…”

The King gripped Axel’s head and lifted it up, such that the burning skull mask was an inch from his face. “Only then will I let you kill her. And from your broken mind, I shall craft a weapon. Make you a puppet of my will. You shall serve as an example to all who dare scorn my generosity. ONLY THEN! WILL MY WRATH BE SATED!”

Axel tried to spit in his face. He could not even manage that.

“You claim you cannot feel fear?” The King whispered. “Even the Gods of my home begged when they suffered my judgment upon them. All things fear. But my intent with you is not so narrow. We shall see what it will take to make you more than afraid. It shall be enjoyable.”

The King leaned further, until the freezing helm pressed against Axel’s forehead. “We shall learn of your limits, together.”

Axel was snarling, his eyes wide and bleeding in rage. The mask of madness had given way to something else. An utterly unfamiliar, uncontrollable fire was burning within him. A horrible hate had seized his entire being.

Axel had never wanted to kill a creature as much as he did then.

“We shall not waste a moment,” the King said, stepping away, holding Axel’s head forward so that he could not turn away. “We begin. Now.”

The horror of the Wild Hunt closed in, with Lune in the centre.

Axel howled, struggling against his restraints. He raged for his body to move, to tear itself out of the ice, even if he had to kill himself to do it.

Nothing worked. Lune was looking at him, her eyes resigned.

“It’s alright,” she whispered hollowly. “It’s not your fault.”

It can’t end like this. Not her, not like this!

Axel screamed to the skies, begging to any gods listening to set him free.

And then… Light.

A purple blaze erupted from Axel, burning the black frost and engulfing the King in searing flame. The Tyrant roared in surprised agony, stepping away.

The storm above seemed to flinch for a moment. The knights of the Wild Hunt fell off their steeds as the undead horse flew in uncontrollable panic.

A calming, soothing balm washed over Axel’s form. The pain abruptly ceased. 

His limbs were free. 

Axel’s eyes snapped open.

He was kneeling on the ground, the black ice holding him moments ago reduced to nothingness. The stone around him was blackened and scorched. His armour was destroyed.

But he was whole, with a warm purple glow enveloping his body like a blanket. The magic held him together despite his horrific wounds, giving him freedom of movement.

He sat up, astonished. A small movement on the ground to his right caught his attention. 

A weakly wiggling grub, its protective container shattered. It shone with fading power before the light disappeared entirely.

The purple larva of the Moonfly shivered in the ice, its luminescent body curled in on itself as it blew a small, trembling bubble.

The grub feebly wiggled its stumpy little legs at Axel in happiness, one last time, before a bone-armoured boot came down and crushed it whole.

The King sneered at his feet, half his helm missing. Axel could see the burnt flesh within. “NO MORE GAMES! YOU SUFFER, NOW!”

The King moved, but this time it was almost as if he were slower. Axel’s instinct kicked in and pulled him from his shock. The halberd came up in time to parry the blow, and the soldier thrusted the spike end directly into the King’s throat.

He’s… weakened?

Somehow, the attack went through. The tip sank into his neck. It did not go deep, for the King’s collar guard was of superb material, but the attack surprised the King enough that he backed off.

Axel tried to follow up, but just as suddenly as it came, his newfound strength gutted out completely. The purple energy holding him together flicked to nothingness. Axel’s knees became like jelly as his broken body collapsed to the ground.

He turned his head. The magic died together with the crushed corpse of the innocent Moonfly larva. 

You died for me. Why?

A foreign sensation came to his eyes. Moisture trailed down his cheeks.

When was the last time he cried?

Not for me. No one should die for me.

I’m so sorry.

A haunting roar. Axel saw the descent of spectral chains and stakes to seize his limbs.

The King would not kill him. Death was a mercy that would be forever denied to Axel if the Tyrant had his way.

At least Lune… At least let me kill her!

It was hopeless. He could not even move his arms.

The chains came down, but Axel heard the ticking of a watch, and he was suddenly someplace else.

The spectral stakes smashed into empty ground as Axel was teleported a few metres away, with Lune carrying him in her arms.

The magical watch relic in her hands shattered and broke.

“Only three uses, I’m afraid,” she chuckled. “No more running. No more time.”

The Eldarin Princess looked down at Axel, smiling sadly. Her purple eyes were wet with tears, but they were sincere. “Thank you for always fighting for me. I’ll be paying my debt now, for robbing you of all your deaths.”

Axel choked. “W-what—?”

Before he could understand her intent, Lune placed something on his chest and pulled.

The small explosive mine detonated, utterly destroying his heart and upper torso.

Lune tried to summon another one for herself, but it was too late. The enraged form of the Fae Tyrant slammed into her, severing her arms and pulling her away.

Axel could only watch in horror as his vision faded. He heard the berserk screams of the King as the Tyrant realised his satisfaction at Axel’s torture was denied to him forever by his daughter.

Axel fought to keep himself awake. Lune was still alive, still trapped with that monster. He was Harbinger. He needed to kill her. He needed to save her!

But there were no more words. No more time.

Axel Roukin died, his soul screaming in anguish and regret.