Chapter 165: The Fate of the Darkin

The legion is stationed outside the ruins, and the camera continues to move forward and enters the ruins buried by yellow sand.

In front of the camera are two figures. One of them is as strong as a wild beast. Even from a distance, the audience can seem to smell the blood emanating from him. This is the mark left by the war, and it also left him with scars.

And another figure, much smaller than him, followed the former god-warrior into the ruins.

Just when the audience was guessing who this mortal who could follow the ascender was, her back flashed like a star in the camera and then returned to normal.

The audience blinked, and the camera still showed two people, and the starlight just now seemed like an illusion.

……

The deep river of time flows indifferently, stealing the luster of the golden scroll.

"Just like us," Ta'anari thought.

He ran a clawed finger across the rows of names and numbers on the scroll, which recorded in detail the tithes collected from the newly built trading port in the north.

Newly built... ?
But Hajuen had been a city of humans for hundreds of years, and their rough accents had long since given the name an ugly sound.

The Grand Maester might find the contents of this scroll worthy of study, but in Tayanari's eyes, its only value is its symbolic value for that era, symbolizing a world that is not crazy.

This room had been a hall of records, with bookshelves jutting out from the marble walls and stacked with scrolls recording tributes to the emperor, his wars, and his exploits.

The space here was once very spacious, but the roof collapsed hundreds of years ago, so yellow sand has filled most of the place.

He sensed the change in the air, put the scroll down and looked up.

Maisha stood at the door, her figure looking incredibly small compared to the size of the room, and the short black hair on Tayanali's head should just be able to brush the crossbar of the door - if he could stand straight.

Her figure was slender, even frail, but Tayanali still sensed that she possessed a depth that was beyond his comprehension.

Her hair was long and golden, flowing around her shoulders, the color of hair found in the cold north. She looked young, but her eyes, one a rich blue and the other a dusky purple, showed wisdom beyond her years. She wore a thin silk gown, a bright color that didn't fit in with the desert, and a golden key hung from a thin cord tied around her waist. A bright purple scarf was wrapped around her neck, the tassels at the end twisting between her fingers.

“They’re here,” she said.

"how many?"

"Nine armies. Nearly ten thousand soldiers."

Tayanali nodded and licked his yellowed teeth. "More than I expected."

She shrugged, "They all need to come."

"There has been too much bloodshed over the centuries," he said. "Too much hatred raging. The idea that we could live in peace is anathema to them." Maisha shook her head at the folly. "This endless war has claimed too many lives. You have killed each other more than the horrors of the Abyss have killed."

The hint of blame in her flippant tone dissipated under Tayanali's thick tongue. After all, she was right.

Wasn't that why he had summoned his own people?

"From the moment Azir fell, war between the bloodlines of the sun became inevitable." Ta'anari said as he put away the scroll and stood up from his contemplation of ancient history.

"After he left, our ambitions were too big for any one of us to lead. There were too many visions of what the future could look like, but we were always scattered and defeated, unable to realize any of them."

"It seems that the difference between you and ordinary people is not that big after all."

In the past, if anyone dared to express such an idea, he would be killed, but for hundreds of years, they have brought endless wars and large-scale killings to the world, making this statement loud and clear.

Tayanali couldn't remember when Maisha started serving him. The life span of mortals was always fleeting, and one died when he wasn't paying attention, and was replaced by the next one.

But Maisa stood out to him more than any of them. Part of it was her rebelliousness, but there was more to it. She had an insight into the minds of mortals, something he and his race had always lacked, for they had long since abandoned their humanity for greater power.

It has been too long since Ta'anari last walked the earth as a human. He barely remembers what it feels like to be mortal, and has lost track of the passing of time. Ancient magics and the forge of the Sun Disc have reforged him, the crude materials of his mortal flesh being refined into the form of a god.

Although he is a flawed and broken god, his divinity is uncompromising.

He was dressed in bronze armor and looked like a cheetah. Although his waist had been bent by time and war, he was still strong and sturdy. The short hair on his upper body was once black and shiny, but the hair on the tip of his nose and his hands had turned white. This was the body shape he had tried his best to reshape.

Tayanali's gaze once struck fear into the hearts of an entire army, but now one of his eye sockets holds a cracked ruby, and a scar pierces his other amber eye, with a smear of despair oozing from the corner of his eye. His spine can no longer stand straight, from a huge axe blow in the Battle of the Kohali River, a severe injury that even his blazing healing ability could not fully repair.

He lifted a weapon from the table, a massive, four-bladed charikar. He felt the perfect balance of the deadly blade, but more than that, he felt the weight of expectation it carried. He sighed, hefted it over his shoulder armor, and staggered toward Maisa.

Even though the ravages of time and old injuries left him hunched over, Tayanali still stood before her like a mountain.

The war between the Sunblood—though others called it by a different, darker name—had taken a heavy toll on her kind, yet she did not fear him.

Sometimes, he could sense a hint of pity from her.

At other times, what is felt is a sense of extreme impatient contempt.

She placed a small, smooth hand on his huge paw. "You are still a god-warrior, Ta'anari," she said. "Remind them of the power that a god-warrior represents, and you will win them over."

“What if they don’t listen?”

She smiled and said, "It's simple. You just kill them all."

(End of this chapter)