𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.
It's the beginning of a new age when Jaylah Imperatrix seemingly returns from the dead to reclaim her throne. And in perfect timing.
In her absence, evil has be...
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Act 4 Chapter 140 JAYLAH
The walk into Empame was a somber one. Jaylah had visited not long before her father's massacre at the University. Only a year and a half. And in that time, it was almost completely wiped off the map.
Not a single building stood in its original form. It seemed the Kalingi had taken to firing on places they knew would hold the most civilians. The vineyards just outside were slashed to shreds and as unsalvageable as the rest of the city. No glass remained in any windows. Debris littered the once-busy streets. A temple had been smashed apart, breaking the massive front marble statues that had been constructed during ancient times. Sargon's decapitated head watched Jaylah and her men pass, his once-kingly horns smashed to dust. Not only had the Kalingi army desecrated Oceana, they had committed blasphemy to the Gods—the same thing they were convinced the Oceanics had done, which was the alleged reason for centuries of terror and subjugation.
Jaylah's steed trampled over flower offerings now lying discarded and wilting. They would never reach any deity now. Not that it mattered; even the Gods could not save them from this fate. Maybe they really were dead. Maybe her ancestors really had killed them all.
The bodies were everywhere, horrible in their contortions. Most of them had died trying to run. Their procession passed by a marketplace that was so littered with corpses the soldiers had to dismount and move a path through. Flies buzzed everywhere. Fruit lay smashed into the limestone street, juices mixing with blood that had not yet dried. Yanni's hooves were caked with it.
Some of the bodies were massacred past recognition, clearly having met agonizing ends. There was a little girl's body crushed under a slab of fallen marble, her chest and ribcage squashed to impossible flatness. But there were frantic claw marks in the dirt extending from her fingertips. In the middle of the market, two young men slumped against each other with their throats slashed in one jagged swipe. Their arms were clasped as if either wanted to protect the other when the moment came. Jaylah's horse trotted over an odd-looking body and she bent down to see it. A beautiful girl, her chestnut hair still neatly braided—and with her open eyes half pecked out by carrion birds. How could something beautiful be so lifeless?
Dead, dead, dead. All these lives of people she promised to protect were cut short like they were no more important than loose ends to be snipped. She was all they had. And now they were all wiped out by an army that did it as if it was nothing. They had not died with honor or glory or meaning. They were just a means to an end.
She could not manage to tear her eyes away. These were all someone, just like the people she cared for. A blonde woman in a light pink dress—a mother who had dreamed of moving to the countryside to raise a dairy farm. The old man with his head smashed in—a sweets shop owner that had a soft spot for children. A young man and woman crumpled and broken—lovers who met at the university and remained together despite their families' disapproval.
