Chapter 48 Mara’s Rage
Serac’s eyes gleamed with cold calculation as he watched Darius convulse on the ground. Black veins pulsed violently across his skin. Blood ran freely from his nose and mouth. The three powers inside him were spiraling out of control.
“He is breaking,” Serac said, raising the artifact higher. “This is my best chance. One more pulse and the host dies with the bonds.”
He triggered the weapon again.
The pulse slammed into Darius like a hammer made of lightning. His body arched violently off the ground. A choked, agonized sound escaped his throat as the powers tore at each other with renewed savagery.
That was when Mara broke.
Not with cold calculation. Not with restrained precision.
With raw, personal fury.
“No!” she screamed, her voice cracking with something no one had heard from her in three thousand years, genuine terror and rage for someone she cared about.
The Plague Incarnate stopped holding back completely.
The change was immediate and catastrophic.
The ground beneath Serac rotted violently, turning into black, bubbling sludge that ate through his boots and began climbing his legs. Trees exploded into decaying pulp mid-swing of Veth’s axe. The air itself thickened with lethal spores and poisonous mist. Entire sections of the battlefield collapsed into biological horror, grass withered and turned to black slime, insects died mid-flight, even the soil itself turned toxic and corrosive.
Mara stood over Darius like a vengeful goddess, golden eyes blazing with unchecked power. Tears of fury and fear ran down her face. “You will not take him from me!”
Serac staggered as the rot climbed higher, but he kept the artifact active. “There it is. The monster beneath the mask. Good. Now you finally look like weapons again.”
Veth stood stunned for a moment, axe frozen mid-swing. “Plague… you’re actually losing it.”
Solis looked heartbroken, tears in her own eyes as she watched the devastation spreading. “Mara… this is not you. This is not what he would want.”
Pell, who had taken cover behind a rapidly rotting tree, stared in wide-eyed horror. “Gods below… this is what they really are. This is what he’s been carrying inside him every single day.”
Mara did not hear them. She dropped to her knees beside Darius, one hand pressed to his chest, pouring every ounce of her power into stabilizing him while the other hand unleashed pure, unrestrained plague in every direction. The battlefield around them continued to rot at terrifying speed. Serac’s artifact began to corrode and crack in his grip.
“You hurt him,” Mara hissed, her voice trembling with raw emotion. “He is not a tool. He is not a weapon. He is not yours to break. He is mine. He is ours. He offered me tea. He asked me how my day was. He saw me as a person when the entire world saw me as death. And you dare try to take that from me?”
The distinction mattered more than anything.
She was not angry because Darius was useful to her. She was angry because he was hurt. Because someone had made the man who had shown her kindness and respect scream in pain.
Serac smiled through the agony of his own rotting armor. “Perfect. Break for me. Show the Pantheon what you truly are when provoked.”
Darius coughed weakly beneath her, black veins crawling higher up his neck. “Mara… enough. You’ll kill everyone here… including yourself.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered fiercely, tears falling onto his face. “Not if they take you from me. Not if they hurt you like this.”
Veth finally moved, charging Serac with everything she had. “Plague! Pull it back! You’re going to kill him too at this rate!”
Mara kept her hand on Darius’s chest, desperately trying to contain the chaos inside him while her power continued to ravage everything around them. The battlefield was dying in layers, plants, insects, soil, even the air itself felt heavy and poisonous.
Serac laughed through the pain, his artifact still pulsing despite the corrosion. “Yes. This is what I came for. Break, Calamities. Show me your true faces.”
Darius reached up weakly and grabbed Mara’s wrist with surprising strength. “Mara. Stop. For me. Please.”
The words cut through her rage like a blade. She looked down at him, tears streaming down her face, and slowly, painfully, began to pull her power back. The rampant rotting slowed, but the damage was already catastrophic. The battlefield around them was a blackened, rotting wasteland of decay and death.
Serac stood amid the devastation, his armor heavily corroded but his eyes still sharp and triumphant. “Good. Now you finally look like weapons again.”
He raised the artifact for one final, devastating pulse.