Chapter 48: The Harbinger's Duty

The wind knocked Axel off his feet before he could react.

It wasn’t a blizzard’s cold that struck him, but rather a fiery summer breeze that warmed his bones and mended his frostbite.

Ymir’s magic. The Giant had pushed him out of the way right as the King’s greatsword stabbed for Axel’s heart again.

There would be no time for a third attempt on Axel’s life as the last Sky Titan descended with all the rage of a rampaging beast. 

One of Ymir’s arms was gone — his left stump bleeding profusely, as if the Giant had torn it off. 

Instead, Ymir held the mangled limb in his right hand, using the severed arm as a club. Axel saw hammered stakes and chains tied to the limb, no doubt used to tie the Giant down mere moments ago, before he chose to rip it off.

The Giant roared, bellowing gusts of mighty gales from his mouth. The wind blasts shattered rock and boulders, but the King’s steed was swift like shadows, turning incorporeal into a swirling mist of blackness to avoid the blows. 

The rest of the Wild Hunt was still stuck in paralysis. Reaper’s Tithe ‘Pale Terror’ debuff had terrified them into stasis.

The King was now left alone, fighting a wounded Ymir…

As well as Axel and Lune.

The Eldarin Princess did not waste the opportunity. She threw a cluster of sealed canisters towards the battlefield. Rather than detonating, they began spraying a strange, wafting gas.

No, not gas. Is that… a swarm?

A flood of chittering insects poured forth from the canisters, flying straight for the black cloud that was the phantom steed. Upon mixing with the shadow, the King and his monstrous horse flickered back into existence, forced into reality.

Ymir and Axel did not waste the chance. The Giant blasted a torrent of rainbow fire, while Axel dashed in, heedless of the King’s superior strength and speed. The soldier swung his halberd, hoping against all odds to land a killing blow.

It would not happen. Such a thing would not be permitted by the King of the Wild Hunt.

“FOOLISHNESS!” The Fae Tyrant roared as he swung his greatsword. 

The storm clouds above reacted.

There was no more hesitation in the Tyrant. Any notion of keeping Axel, Lune, or Ymir alive for his own ends was lost in his rage and insulted pride. The storm above flashed once.

Then the Heavens rained down a torrent of lightning bolts.

Ymir was hit first. Left with no magic or defences to protect him, the Giant could only roar against his brutal fate as his body was torn asunder. The electric storm stripped entire chunks of his flesh, bones, and organs from his body. One struck Ymir straight in the head, and the Giant’s skull exploded.

Smoking brain matter splattered all over Axel. The right half of Ymir’s head was gone.

But the giant was not dead. The left half of Ymir’s face was still twisted in a deranged snarl as he swung his weaponised limb at the Tyrant, futile as it might be.

Lune was blown away, avoiding a fatal hit only due to some strange device she summoned right before the storm fell. It wrapped her a few metres away, dodging a direct hit, but not the cascading waves of sparks that followed after.

As for Axel, he was struck head-on. A skybone spear of raw electrical fury lanced through his form from above. There was no time to scream, lament, or curse. Near one billion volts of supercharged hate tore his body apart. 

That single second of agony felt eternal as Axel felt himself come asunder. There would be no surviving this, he knew. The Reaper’s touch was already on him.

But then, she spoke.

[Not yet.]

A flash. Someone was pulling him out of the void of unending pain.

Axel heard the mechanical whirling and ticking of a clock, and suddenly, he was somewhere else.

The soldier heaved ashen blood. Somehow, the texture of it — frozen first, then boiled in lightning — made it taste worse. 

His skin was charred and sizzling. His limbs would not stop twitching as his nerves were fried all at once, before dying one by one.

Axel did not have to look at the notifications to know he was on the brink of death once more. Rather, he was surprised he had not passed already.

And the reason for that was the Eldarin beside him, who robbed him of death once more. 

“That… makes four times now,” she weakly wheezed. In her hands was a strange mechanical watch, clicking melodically. It bore eldritch runes on its golden metal surface, though the magic within them appeared to be fading.

Lune was not unharmed. The lightning storm had badly burned her flesh and seared off half her face and scalp. One of her arms hung limply at her side, unresponsive.

Axel was in a far worse state, but the point stood: they could no longer fight.

All they could do was watch Ymir.

The Giant fought despite missing half his head, roaring and snarling with all the fury of a God Beast as he struggled against the inevitable outcome. Hurricane winds battled against the eldritch storm overhead. The earth shook from thunderous blows and stray lightning strikes.

Framed against the electric darkness of the storm, Axel beheld a battle of titans.

A bone-chilling voice pervaded his ear, soft and affectionate.

[Do you see this, my Demon?]

[You are witnessing the culmination of a Path.]

Axel watched as Ymir’s wind hammered blow after blow onto the King of the Wild Hunt. The electrifying greatsword parried scything gales with rapid alacrity, raining sparks across the ice with each collision. Ymir roared a haunting howl, the wind screaming with him, as the giant lunged for the kill.

The King contemptuously raised his blade and met the last Sky Titan in a final pass.

A blur of movement, both creatures moving impossibly fast. 

And then, a spray of blood.

Ymir’s last remaining arm — clutching his other severed arm — was lopped off.

The titan did not despair. It did not even pause to roar in pain or fury. The fang maw of the Giant snapped after his severed arms, catching the mangled appendages between his teeth. The ancestral winds of the Sky Mountains gathered at the calling of the Great General, intent on fulfilling the command of the last Sky Titan, one final time.

Bleeding blue eyes mad beyond the realm of words or reason, magic blooming greater than ever before, Ymir swung — his own tortured limbs clutched in his teeth, his neck muscles straining with ungodly effort.

The swan song roar of the Titanomachy came down upon the Tyrant of the Fae.

The King was caught off guard. The giant’s severed arms — infused with a mountain’s weight — hammered hard into both steed and rider.

A thunderous crack echoed as the blow was struck. The side of the canyon exploded into an enormous shower of dirt and rock as the flung body of the King struck the walls like a meteor.

Ymir spat out his arms, breathing weakly. His exposed brain pulsed in feeble motion, already half-dead. 

The giant turned towards Axel, the blazing rage in his lone remaining eye finally guttering out. 

“No more words,” Ymir rasped. “Do your duty. For her sake. Only you can.”

Axel understood. The dread and sinking horror were already pushed aside. 

Their last gamble had failed. All that was left was to take on his namesake role once more.

Harbinger. Harbinger.

[Harbinger, bringer of my dead… How many of those in your care have you already killed before?]

[What is one more comrade’s corpse at your hands?]

The giant spat blood. His legs finally gave out, and he collapsed to his knees.

Ymir forced his gaze off the ground and beheld the King standing before him.

The eight-legged steed was gone. The King’s left arm was broken, twisted at an awkward angle.

“It should be mine,” the King hissed. “The winds of our skies. They should obey me; recognise me as their King! They are mine, by royal blood! How do you command them still?!”

The broken giant choked, then chuckled. “What King? All I see is a child… Still whining for things they do not deserve. You have not matured, Woden. Not a single bit.”

“I am Tyrant of the Wild Folk. The Fae are mine. The magics of our world are mine! By birthright!” The King named Woden roared in a thousand haunting voices. The space around him was peeling, revealing screaming alien faces with jaws of azure lightning. “Do you even understand what your selfishness has cost? Your refusal to pass on the arcane arts of the Titanomachy had doomed us! The power to protect our home, our people, from the savages invading from beyond our gardens — denied! All because of your worthless philosophy! And you dare call me childish?!”

Ymir laughed hollowly. “You think yourself worthy? You… are not one who can carry the wind. You do not understand its weight.”

“The weight of a mere mountain is nothing to a King,” Woden snarled. “I am the man who will save us. I am the only one who can! The extinction of our race… To be swallowed whole by aliens of another world, to be made slaves, and to have the worth of our entire history, our entire world, reduced to nothing! YOU CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE WEIGHT OF SUCH A THING!”

Ymir’s laughter was weak. The Giant did not have much strength left. 

“Look at yourself, fool. Talking about extinction. What nonsense, claiming you can save our race. That you believe your words sincere, when you have enacted such horrors upon our people… What hideous hypocrisy you chose to wear.”

“In the face of complete annihilation, any alternative is preferable.” The King’s words carried no shame. “I did what was necessary so that we could survive!” 

“If your ambition is so pure, so grand…” Ymir coughed, his eyes dimming. “Why do you lead your people to disaster still? One war after another… To turn the innocent into bricks with which you build your bloody kingdom. You sacrificed all for the sake of one, gathering power upon yourself alone. A foundation as selfish as that… can never carry my burdens.”

The Great General stared unflinchingly into the King’s eyes one last time. “I spit on you, Woden the Fool, the Selfish, the Weak! Because that weight you carry upon your shoulder is that of a single man! You are a coward who dares not brave the weight of the world before you! You cannot lead your people!”

The King stilled. The greatsword in his hand stopped trembling.

The storm held its breath. The winds witnessed.

All saw Ymir, the last Giant. The Great General.

When the King spoke again, his voice was the Herald of Damnation, screaming from a hundred tortured mouths.

“I have no need to suffer your lectures. Not anymore. The days when you were my mentor are long buried. If you choose to selfishly cling to your power instead of giving it to its rightful heir, then I have no more use for you.”

The King’s greatsword was raised to the Heavens. Lune tried to move, to run towards Ymir. Axel held her down.

The last thing the Giant saw was Axel, his lone eyes fixing meaningfully at the Demon.

“Do not betray yourself,” the winds whispered.

Then the storm came down once more.

One strike. Then two. A dozen lightning bolts fell upon the Giant. Tearing, maiming, burning.

When the flashes were finished, when the thunder in Axel’s ears finally ceased…

There was nothing left of the last Sky Titan, only a pyre of burning flesh.

Lune choked out a sob. At the sound, the King turned.

Axel saw nothing but hate within them.

Do your duty.

With lightning swiftness, Axel summoned his halberd…

… and swung for Lune’s neck.