Others Summon Dragons, I Summon Legendary Knights novel Chapter 509

Chapter 509: I Shall Rebuild It

The earth beneath his feet kept rumbling. It felt like a cavalry of thousands charged nearby. As the massive capital reformed, the Unknown King maintained his pace.

Neither too hurried nor slow, he marched. Towering walls that separated districts rose, casting shadows over him.

A broad staircase formed, leading him to the top. By the time he got there, enormous round pillars rose up, stone upon stone lifted into place, raising the palace wall behind the pillars.

The Unknown King walked through the door as it was being formed. Right after he went through, a door settled into place. Double rows of torches formed on the right side of the wide hallway. One above and another three feet below.

Their light brought life and warmth to the hallway. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Flames flickered along the walls. Stone ground against stone as the palace continued rebuilding itself. A sign that other parts of the palace were forming with incredible speed.

Walls rose ahead. The walls came alive with elaborate reliefs. Drawings of men. Men of Gold.

He didn’t pause, but from the corner of his eyes, he saw their glory. Swords, spears, hammers, raised toward the sun. General after general, war after war, victory after victory... incredible.

The echo of his footsteps drowned under the might of the palace’s distant rebirth.

Incredible. These were indeed a race built of strength. Of honour and order.

The Unknown King’s eyes flickered. There was so much he knew, so much about the Pathani traditions, the creation of this order. He knew they gathered for him and him alone.

But there were emotions he bore. A yearning for a part of him that seemed gone. He longed to know; it beckoned to him almost irresistibly, like a siren’s song.

As a man could not shut his ears from the siren’s call, the Unknown King couldn’t take his mind off this faint yet persistent call buried deep within him.

And yet, there arose a resistance within him. One upon which its foundation was fear. An unsettling emotion that made him frown.

He wanted to know and, at the same time, feared knowing because knowing might take something. What?

The king pondered, passing through the antechamber into the throne room. It was large. Made for Goliaths, not men. Well, his generals were not mere men.

Chandeliers lit with candles brought light to the vast hall. The dais was quite high. There was the first platform, slightly elevated above the ground floor, and then there were ten more steps to the throne. A throne of carved marble stone. Ornate golden fittings adorned the armrests and crowned the backrest.

On the right side of the throne, a stone shaped like an inverse triangle floated. It had a heart of pure golden light and veins snaking around its surface.

The Rune of Light.

He knew it.

The Unknown King climbed the dais, ascending to the top. There, he paused, staring at his throne. A throne that had been waited through unending centuries.

Lifting his head, adorned with Imperial’s helm, he gazed at the petroglyphs of ten figures hidden behind their hooded robes, their heads lowered. Behind them were gallant Apostles, their red manes cascading proudly.

The Unknown King spun and sat. His legs were wide as he leaned back, staring at his throne room. It felt hollow. Imposing, yet plagued with silence and faint dancing shadows.

He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. His eyes opened, but not to the throne room. A vast space unveiled, a cruel place with dark soil and souls.

The Afterlife. It was clamouring with souls. Thousands, millions, he couldn’t truly ascertain. It was hell. These beings were intelligent, or at least should be, but they did not act like it. Like the damnation that they’ve become, they gathered in one spot, bodies pressed against bodies, screams and yells of hunger.

Vile hunger, like the kind the Wolf King had toward him.

In the center of it all was a flicker of light. It was nearly buried beneath all these dark beings. No. It was buried, yet struggled to reach out.

A gauntleted hand, fingers splayed, reached out, as if begging him to come to his aid. That was grabbed by several souls and eventually ripped off at the elbow.

His fury climbed into the sky. Clouds gathered as two golden eyes opened behind them. They blazed for a split second.

"My general. What is this you do to him?!"

His voice echoed. But the souls couldn’t hear. All they cared about was splitting his knight and wrestling over his parts.

His bloodied helmet, fastened with wings to the sides, went from one hand to another. His head was still within it as souls fought fiercely, pulling it as if it were a ball.

His lance had become the weapon of an orc wielding it with wide, unrefined sweeps to force others away.

One soul gained golden light. With a twinkle, he vanished, and all the parts of the white knight gathered back together, reforming into a knight on horseback.

He wasn’t given a moment to breathe. They pounced on him again. A mighty general, The Blesser! Chief amongst generals, glorious in battle, radiant in honour, was about to face the same fate.

’He knows not of me. He’s lost.’

The White Knight raced across a line, cutting down souls with ease. He was a streak of power and light. The Unknown King couldn’t judge how long this had been happening, but he understood soon enough how it would end.

Those killed resurrected. This was the world of the dead. A realm of souls that never knew second death. Once exhausted, the knight would face his cruel fate once more.

"Another who can peek," a floating voice said. High above and beneath at the same time. The entire realm spoke.

"Why torture my general so?"

"And who are you to ask?"

"His king."

There was a moment of silence, as if the being he conversed with reeled from his revelation. He wished it did. But it did not.

"Then you have the power to do what I desire. A soul descended into my realm. Her transition made her my property, but she was stolen from me. So I took my rage to the other. Whoever gets the first kill shall live as an Exalted. I’ve never seen them so active," the voice replied calmly. It wanted something.

The Unknown King sensed the path this conversation was taking. His eyes drifted to the bright golden tear in the eastern part of the clouds.

The Exalted realm of the Afterlife.

"Return the woman that left. Return her and I will retrieve my word. Do not, and I await the day you take your final breath. I shall welcome you... with a warm embrace."

The Unknown King watched. The White Knight struggled to return to the realm of the Exalted, where he belonged, but it rejected him. Dooming him to his fate. And it came.

Hungry souls poured over him, breaking his defence, restricting his movement, and pulling him down.

None thought: what if they were in his position? Their thoughts were filled with their gains at another’s curse.

They swarmed him, each soul hitting harder than the last, seeking the first kill. Harrowing Omens of varying sizes attacked, cutting off his legs.

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