The Death-Chosen Daughter Chapter 07
My consciousness plummeted into boundless darkness.
When the agony that flayed the flesh from my bones finally receded, I thought I would descend into nothingness.
But I did not.
I landed in an impossibly soft sea of spectral flowers. The sickening stench of blood and rot from the Lower District was gone, replaced by a rich, dark fragrance woven from cold stardust and frost.
I slowly opened my eyes.
The blossoms unfurled from my feet, blooming into a path that stretched into the distance. Their petals were bone-white, yet
their hearts burned with netherfire.
As the wind blew, they dissolved into blue luminescence that whispered against my ears.
And at the end of the endless sea of flowers stood a massive throne.
A figure sat upon it.
He wore a robe of pure abyss. His face was obscured, leaving only his eyes visible. They were deeper than the River Styx and quieter than the eternal night.
The moment I approached, he rose.
He stepped down from that lofty throne of bone, treading across the swaying spectral flowers until he finally stopped in front of
Then, under the silent gaze of countless souls in the Underworld, this god of mortal life and death swept aside the hem of his luxurious black robe and sank to one knee before me.
This was the Lord of the Underworld, a being whom even the gods dared not look upon. Yet now he bowed his head willingly,
like the most devout of believers.
“You are finally home.”
His voice resonated like all the bells of the Underworld striking at once, yet it was so gentle that it fell only upon my ears.
He reached out with elegant hands to brush over my wounds. “My queen, you have suffered.”
For eighteen years, I had been a blood bag to my parents, a discarded object to my fiancé, and the dirt beneath my sister’s feet.
No one had ever done this for me. Especially not from someone who valued my wounds over his own pride.
For a moment, I could only stare at him in a daze.
The Lord of the Underworld, Death himself, slowly rose to his feet and opened his arms to pull me into his embrace.
“It is good that you are back.”
“The suffering those insects inflicted upon you ends now.”
Netherfire erupted beneath my feet.
The fragments of cold iron that had once been crushed into my magical pathways were forced out, inch by inch, by the flames.
They hovered above my palm, reshaping into twin pitch-black daggers etched with the ancient runes of the Underworld.
From the two hideous, festering wounds at my collarbones, the remaining shards of cold iron were expelled by the netherfire.
Forged in the flames, they melted and reformed, ultimately becoming a black-gold crown that radiated terrifying pressure, resting securely upon my head.
Infused with divine power, the shriveled elven core within my body shattered. In its place, a new divine core pulsed with the supreme power of Death.
I looked down at myself. My gown, scorched by the potion, transformed into a magnificent dress flowing with starlight and shadow. My pale, withered skin became as flawless as porcelain.
Even my dark hair, which had always been deemed ominous, now shimmered with divine radiance.
“Lords of the Underworld and all souls beneath the River Styx…” Thanatos’s voice echoed throughout the abyss. “Bow before your one and only queen.”
Countless unseen entities bowed in the darkness. The waves of the River Styx crashed against the bone-white shores, letting
out a roar like a tsunami.
Amidst this thundering sound, I slowly opened my eyes.
At that exact moment, high above on the surface, in the grand ceremonial hall of the elven royal court, a dazzling spectacle was
taking place.
The entire court was illuminated by tens of thousands of glowing fluorites, and melodious elven hymns echoed beneath the lush canopy of the World Tree. Lord and Lady Vaelen sat in the seats of honor, beaming as they accepted the congratulations of the
various nobles.
At last, the ceremony reached its climax.
Caelum stood in the center of the altar.
In his hand, he held the royal soul-ring that Elowen had just supposedly “returned.” The starlight patterns shifted under the hall’s moonlight, warm and perfect.
Nyssa stood opposite him, wearing a snow-white soul-binding gown. Her cheeks flushed with a faint pink from excitement, and tears welled in her eyes as she looked up at him.
“Your Highness,” she said softly. “Please, put it on.”
Caelum took her fingers, but suddenly he remembered something.
He remembered the icy touch when he first slipped this ring onto someone else’s hand. Those fingers had been slender and cool, with thin calluses on the tips from drawing a bow.
His heart inexplicably skipped a beat, and he forced down the sudden, strange emptiness and ache in his chest.
“Nyssa, in the name of the World Tree, I forge an eternity with you…”
The moment the ring slid onto her finger, the entire World Tree let out a mournful wail.
It was a dying shriek that echoed from the deepest roots, originating from the very bloodline of the elven continent.
Above the canopy, the crown of the World Tree, which had once shined with sacred silver light, withered and turned yellow in an instant before everyone’s terrified eyes.
Hundreds of millions of silver leaves seemed drained of their vitality, turning into a sky full of ash-gray powder that poured down like a rainstorm onto the elegantly dressed nobles.
A dead leaf landed on Caelum’s shoulder and crumbled to ash.
The high priest’s face turned white as paper. The soul-binding scroll in his hands spontaneously combusted, the ancient words of blessing twisting and disintegrating one by one in the flames.
“The rite has failed!” the high priest cried out in terror. “The ring is tainted with netherfire! The ancient pact has forged a connection to the abyss!”
Before Nyssa could react.
The starlight ring on her ring finger hissed and ignited with a cluster of black fire.
This was no ordinary magical flame, and it could not be extinguished.
“It hurts! Caelum, save me! Save me!” Nyssa rolled on the ground in agony.
The black fire spread up her ring finger, gnawing at her flesh inch by inch. She tried to tear the ring off, but it had already fused with her finger bone.
“Nyssa!” Caelum turned pale with fright. He attempted to douse the flames with high-tier water magic, but the moment his power touched the black fire, it was completely devoured.
“What is happening? The World Tree is withering!”
“The gods are angry!”
The guests erupted into panic.
The high priest scrambled up the altar, stumbling and crawling. He dropped to his knees on the ground littered with dead leaves. Digging his nails into the floor tiles, tears streaming down his aged face, he let out a frantic howl of despair.
“The prophecy… The prophecy has been fulfilled!”
“There is no curse at all! The one chosen by Death… The true emissary… has fallen in the abyss!”
The high priest pointed a trembling finger toward the lower levels of the hall, his voice a bone-chilling shriek. “The true emissary is dead. The World Tree’s lifeblood has been severed!”
His words struck like a thunderclap, shattering everyone’s eardrums.
Caelum froze in place, a loud ringing exploding in his mind.
The true emissary. Fallen in the abyss.
He snapped his head down to look at Nyssa’s finger, which was burning down to the bone, and then touched his own chest, which throbbed with excruciating pain from the forcefully severed soul-bond.
He remembered the blackened silver blood Elowen had coughed into her hands last night.
He remembered how she leaned against the headboard, looking at him with hollow eyes, asking him what he would give her
after she died.
A chilling terror seized his throat. It felt as though an invisible hand had crushed his vitals in a single, brutal squeeze.
Nyssa was still screaming at his feet. Lady Seraphine Vaelen charged into the hall in her grand gown, shrieking uncontrollably. The guests scattered in flight, and the high priest knelt on the ground, bowing frantically to beg for the Tree God’s forgiveness
But he could hear nothing at all.
“Elowen…”
In the next instant, the prince renowned for his calm elegance became a madman, shoving aside everyone in his path and bolting from the ceremonial hall.
He did not even spare a backward glance for Nyssa, who was clutching at him and wailing for him to save her.
Along the way, he knocked over braziers, overturned altars, and barreled through the guards in his way.
He sprinted madly down the corridor of withered vines, the very paflı Elowen had been escorted down the night before. He dashed frantically toward the very bottom, heading straight for the Abyssal Shrine at the lowest root of the World Tree.
