Chapter 848: Rebirth Of A Corpse (Patreon)

A/N

Initially, I wasn't going to write a chap like this, but someone commented this would be pretty cool, and I agree. I remember loving chapters like this. Enjoy!

Chapter 848: Rebirth Of A Corpse

On a low hill, behind the village of Merameere, there was a graveyard where the wind came off the marshes and rarely stopped for anyone or anything. As expected of such a place, rows of headstones ran in every direction, with most of them being green with moss, and their names worn down to shallow scratches that not even their descendants would know who occupied which grave.

And then, in the far corner, past the law row, there sat a grave under a crooked yew tree. But unlike the others, this one had no headstone at all. In fact, it was simply a long rectangle section of earth where the grass was thinner than anywhere else on the hill. 

As for why that was, no one knew, and no one dared to ask, certainly not Old Kent. The people of Merameere were a superstitious, paranoid bunch, and he was no different. The old man had been digging graves here for the past fifty years, and no one had gone near it. Even the parish record simply listed it as “old,” and that was the end of it. Unlike the rest of the world, these villagers knew better than to let their suspicions get the best of them.

And this afternoon was no different. Old Kent had been leaning on his shovel, taking a short break after having dug a hole for the baker’s wife when the sun had developed black lines throughout its surface. Would you believe it? It was breaking away into pieces. Out of everything the old man had witnessed in his lifetime, this was not something he had ever thought possible. He hadn’t even decided if he should pray, and if so, which sun to pray to. Or should he run back home and hide under his bed. Or just jump straight into the fresh hole right now. Before he could pick, the sun returned to being whole and bright again.

“Curse these sun, all three of them,” he murmured, spitting into the dirt. “Whole one second, broke the next, nearly taking out me heart, and now fixed again. Make up yer mind, will ye? Some of us have work to do.”

Shaking his head, he was thinking of calling it a day and taking some personal time off after the scare he had just gone through when something hummed.

Holding his breath, Old Kent turned slowly, knowing that behind him was the headstone-less grave, and that whatever was making the sound was going to make a bad day a whole lot worse.

And he was right. Thin lines of gold light shone up through the soil, tracing the edges of the rectangle, making the entire thing glow. As the humming grew louder, the ground began to shake and the thin grass on top curled, turned brown, and crumbled into dust. 

“Oh, no,” he whispered, hastily taking multiple steps back with his shovel raised in front of him, though he didn’t think it would do much to protect him. “No, no, no. I ain't paid enough for this load of crap. I knew I should have let that old fart Nikel take this shift…”

His words were cut off by the grave, it exploded violently, causing earth to burst up and outwards. There were clods of soil and splinters of rotten coffin wood that rained down across the headstones, and a heavy clump hit Kent square in the shoulder, knocking him straight into the baker's wife's grave.

With a grunt, he landed on his back at the bottom of the hole. As dirt pattered down onto his face, he lay there, staring up, wondering if this was how he was going to die. After a few minutes of nothing happening, he carefully climbed up the side of the hole to peek over the edge, and what he saw caused his heart to stop.

Instead of an unmarked grave, there was a deep pit with smoke rising out of it, but what terrified Old Kent was the grey and thin hand that came up over the rim.

The fingers, with cracked fingernails caked black with soil, dug into the grass to gain stability. After that, a second hand, just as eerie as the first, came up beside it, and slowly the figure dragged itself out of the pit and onto the grass.

For a few long moments, it did nothing except lay there on its stomach. Then, as its limbs trembled, it pushed itself onto its knees and stood up, causing dirt to pour off it in streams.

Old Kent finally got a good look at it.

It was an old man, or what was left of one, which is why Old Kent refused to accept that it was human.

The figure was bald, except for the few white strands of hair that still clung to its skull. As for the skin, it was stretched tight over the bones and was the colour of old parchment. The cheeks had sunk into the skull, and the eyes sat deep in their sockets, milky and pale. The lips were cracked and grey. When the thing breathed, the sound rattled in the chest, and every breath sounded as if it might be the last one. Honestly, the pile of bones looked one strong gust from falling over and never getting back up. And what it was wearing couldn’t be called robes, they were more rags than anything else. But Kent could still make out the faded sun symbol stitched onto the chest, and even though the color had faded out long ago, he could still recognise what it was meant to represent - the Golden Sun.

“They all said I was mad,” the abomination whispered with a hoarse voice, tilting its head back to look up at the sky. Kent held his breath and pressed himself flat against the side of the grave, praying the thing wouldn't turn around. “And dared to laugh at me when I said it would come back.”

The Golden Sun blazed above it as the old thing let out a laugh that quickly turned into a coughing fit, forcing it to bend over with its hands on its bony knees until it passed.

“Alden and his little circle of elites,” it wheezed, returning to its full height. “Thinking they could stand on that mountain, tear the beauty into half, and then call it salvation.” It spread its thin arms wide toward the sky. “Where are they now? All thirteen of them are dust and bones. Names that nobody remembers.”

Its smile widened.

“Only I remain.”

Despite Kent not understanding half of what the old monster was saying, he understood enough. Thirteen elites could only refer to the Sundering. This was a story that every child in the village learned from their grandmother, but it had happened over a thousand years ago, if not more, so why was this thing talking about it like it had witnessed it?

Kent didn’t know, but his grip tightened on the edge of the grave, praying that the walking corpse was too lost in praising itself to pay attention to a nobody like him.

What the abomination did next was something unheard of in every village and city that Kent had visited.

All it did was close its eyes and take a deep breath, but streams of golden light descended from the sky and poured straight into its open mouth and nose, causing its form to change.

What was once parchment skin darkened and smoothed out so that the spots of old brown faded. The bony ribs were clothed with flesh, then muscle. The sunken cheeks rounded out. A series of loud cracks announced the straightening of the bent spine and widening of the shoulders. The few white strands of hair on the scalp darkened and thickened as they spread, until there was a full head of black hair that fell into a long mane down the back. And the cracked fingernails snapped off and dropped into the grass, making space for clean new ones to grow rapidly in their place.

What was left standing looked completely human, but having witnessed all of this, Old Kent was even more certain that this thing was worse than any Lightweaver or Skybound he had seen before.

And then the aura spiked faster than any being in history, forcing Old Kent’s body flat against the bottom of the grave. He couldn’t even lift his head up. In fact, it was a battle to even breathe.

Rank 1. Rank 3. Rank 5. Rank 7.

All headstones within hundred feet of the pit cracked down the middle and the trees split into two with a sound that echoed across the marshes.

Rank 8.

But it didn’t stop there. 

It continued until it touched something that no one on the continent had since prior to events of the Sundering - Rank 9

The god opened its eyes and they were no longer milky. Now, they flashed bright gold, making the face look to be in its thirties.

“Not perfect,” the thing murmured, channeling the energy through its body.” But with no Alden to stop me, this will be more than enough.”

It looked past the village, past the major cities, and past the two academies, until everything was within its sight.

“This…this is all mine for the taking.”

With a laugh, it shot into the air and disappeared behind the clouds.

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