Chapter 22 Controlled Catastrophe
A larger group of desperate mercenaries blocked the narrow road ahead. Thirty hardened men, faces scarred and eyes full of rage. Their leader, a burly man with a broken nose, pointed his sword straight at Darius.
"You! The freak who destroyed the war! We lost everything because of you! Our contracts, our pay, our reason to exist! Die!"
Darius stopped walking. The two powers inside him churned uneasily. "Turn around. Go home. There is nothing left for you here."
The leader spat on the ground. "Home? We have no home left! Kill him! Kill them all!"
They charged with desperate fury.
Darius raised his hand, intending a small, controlled pulse of plague to disable their weapons. Instead, the two Calamity powers inside him surged at the same moment. Mara's plague sought precision and clean endings. Veth's war energy demanded escalation and violence. They collided violently.
A visible wave of dark energy rolled outward from him.
Armor began to rust and flake away instantly. Chainmail turned to red dust. Swords and axes decayed mid-swing, blades crumbling into useless powder. At the same time, the mercenaries' aggression spiked unnaturally high. Their eyes widened with sudden, overwhelming battle lust. They screamed and turned on each other as violently as they attacked Darius.
"What is happening?!" one man roared as he hacked at his own comrade.
"Kill everything!" another screamed, foam at the corners of his mouth.
Mara stepped back, her golden eyes disturbed. "Darius. Control it. Now."
Veth grinned wide, thrilled beyond measure. "Yes! This is beautiful! Show me more, husband! Let it all out!"
Darius clenched his jaw. The powers fought savagely inside him. For three long, dangerous seconds he could not pull them back. The wave continued. Men collapsed one by one. Some convulsed as plague ate through their bodies in precise, horrifying patterns. Others thrashed wildly, attacking friends and foes alike under war’s amplified fury. Armor fell apart. Weapons disintegrated. The entire group became a chaotic storm of rust, blood, and sudden violence.
"Enough," Darius growled through gritted teeth.
He forced the powers down with everything he had. The wave cut off abruptly. The surviving mercenaries dropped where they stood, gasping and twitching. Some cried openly. Others simply lay still, staring at the sky in shock as their ruined armor crumbled off them.
The entire road fell into heavy silence.
One surviving mercenary, an older man missing an eye and several teeth, crawled backward on his hands. He stared at Darius in pure, animal horror.
"What... what are you?" he whispered, voice shaking.
Darius breathed carefully, hiding the fresh blood he could taste rising in his throat. "A man trying to walk a road. Nothing more."
The mercenary shook his head slowly, terror filling his eyes. "The Calamities aren’t following him."
He paused, swallowing hard.
“He’s leading them.”
Veth threw her head back and laughed, loud and delighted. "Finally! Someone with eyes! Took long enough!"
Mara remained completely silent, but her golden eyes stayed fixed on Darius with clear disturbance. She had seen the delay. Those three seconds where he had not been fully in control. Where the powers had acted without his permission.
Darius wiped his hand discreetly on his cloak and stepped forward. The surviving mercenaries scrambled away in panic, no longer interested in fighting or revenge. They ran like men who had witnessed something far worse than death itself.
"You lost control for a moment," Mara said quietly once the road was clear again.
"Three seconds," Darius admitted. "The powers are fighting each other harder today. Plague wants precision and limits. War wants destruction and release. They do not share space easily."
Veth walked beside him, still grinning with excitement. "I liked it. Felt like real war inside you. Chaos and control tearing at each other. Makes you dangerous. Interesting."
"It makes me dangerous to everyone around me," Darius replied. "Including you two."
The road ahead felt different now. The air itself seemed heavier. Word of what had just happened would spread faster than any messenger. The man who ended the great war was no longer seen as weak, lucky, or simply manipulated by the Calamities.
Now he looked dangerous.
Mara moved closer to his side. "How long can you keep hiding the full cost?"
"As long as necessary," Darius said. He coughed once into his fist, turning his head away. More blood. He hid it quickly.
Veth noticed anyway. "You are not immune, husband. Only resistant. There is a very important difference."
"I know," Darius replied. "But we keep moving. We have four more Calamities to reach before this becomes a real problem."
The two powers continued to churn violently inside him. Plague desperately tried to maintain structure and control. War demanded chaos and release. He clenched his jaw and forced the discomfort down as deep as he could manage. The uncertainty bothered him the most. He had always relied on understanding his own limits. These new limits kept shifting in unpredictable ways.
Veth grinned again, though her eyes held a sharper edge. "You are carrying both War and Plague at the same time. Most men would have died screaming days ago. You are still walking and talking. That alone is impressive."
Darius kept his pace steady. The road stretched onward. Behind them, the paralyzed and broken mercenaries lay groaning on the ground, their weapons nothing but rust and their will to fight completely shattered.
For the first time, the stories about Darius Valeborn were changing.
He was no longer the weakest prince who got lucky with the Calamities.
He was becoming something far more terrifying.