Dark Parasyte
Chapter 45: Perfectly Shaped ...Envoy

Chapter 45: Perfectly Shaped ...Envoy

Corvin stood atop a sloped ridge just beyond the sightline of Verranus’ outer walls. Beneath him, a valley bristled with the quiet movements of an army. Four thousand undead, all covenant bound. Clad in the tattered but unmistakable regalia of Holy Verrenate. Purifiers, battle clerics, sanctified soldiers, and flame marked priests. All once sworn to divine light, now repurposed under his banner.

Each step they took was measured and unnervingly precise, a mockery of the sacred drills they once followed in life. Shields bore visible scripture, holy symbols hung from necks with reverence twisted into irony. Their discipline was intact, from a past life stubbornly etched into new purpose.

"We camp here," Corvin ordered aloud.

He watched them move with perfect rhythm, tents being staked more for theater than shelter, supply wagons unloaded to simulate logistics they no longer required. The dead did not eat. They did not sleep. But the show was a message to the sanctified council.

Bob tilted his head toward him, ears flicking. The huge undead Bearkin’s war scarred snout wrinkled with anticipation.

This entire operation was theater now. A performance for the Sanctified Council who still clung to the illusion that this was rebellion. A discontented uprising. Let them believe it. Let them imagine battle lines and demands. The truth would be colder.

Behind him, the mock camp rose in chilling precision. Banners of white and crimson flame fluttered from broken masts, the very standards once used by the Verrenate. Shields were stacked with care, pikes embedded into earth. Hollow hymns murmured from the throats of dead priests, like the fading echo of a prayer half remembered.

One purifier captain adjusted his collar out of reflex. Another polished a blade stained by its owner’s last breath. Each motion told a story of life and the grotesque mimicry now moving their limbs to their master’s orders.

To Corvin’s left, a pair of undead warhorses were tethered with iron chains they could easily shatter. They didn’t try. Nearby, rows of undead priests stood in motionless reverence, their eyes aglow with perfect loyality beneath golden helms. Their mouths never moved, but the aura they radiated screamed conviction, unnatural, precise, merciless.

And in his private reservoir. His invisible war chest waited, another two thousand soldiers. Dark Elves from the Umbral Synod, savage Feralis berserkers, magically augmented corpses and prototypes. Each one covenant bound, enhanced by his virutic strains. Weapons waiting to be unsheathed.

This moment required illusion. The next might demand truth.

Corvin turned his gaze northward. Dust rose in the distance, riders.

"Mate?" Bob asked, voice gravel, curiosity, and amusement all wrapped in one word.

Corvin smiled faintly. "No, mate."

They came in perfect formation, twenty strong, with purpose in every gallop. Crimson flame standards rose high, outlined against an overcast sky. The gold trimmed flags gleamed despite the filtered sunlight, their message as clear as it was arrogant.

"High ranking," Corvin muttered.

At the center rode a standard bearer next to him a high priest, wielding a staff of authority. Surrounding him were armored advisors, several mounted battle clerics, and one whose aura clawed at the senses a high ranked purifier, cloaked in wards and contempt.

Bob tilted his head again, a claw flexing idly.

"Mate?"

Corvin chuckled. "Still, no mate. Stay hidden in one of tents please." He ordered Bob.

The Bearkin growled softly in disappointment but didn’t move. He stood beside Corvin with silent reverence, his presence more comfort than command. Of all his creations, Bob remained his favorite anomaly. A creature more loyal than most men, and twice as entertaining. After a while he moved towards a tent and disappeared from sight.

Corvin shifted. His form blurred briefly, morphing into one of the absorbed bodies. An old Verrenate field captain, nondescript but commanding. Enough to blend. Enough to bait. He donned a verrenate armor and moved towards the entrance of the camp.

He descended the ridge with measured steps, flanked only by two purifier captains and a pair of high ranking priests, their visages hollow, yet alert. Their armor clinked softly in the wind, polished just enough to shine, dull enough to feel familiar.

He stopped just shy of the forming camp. Behind him, the lines stretched out. Rows upon rows of the dead reenacting a life they no longer held. From above, it looked like ceremony. From within, it was a theatrical requiem.

The riders neared. The staff swayed. Prayers murmured on the wind.

Corvin crossed his arms.

"Let’s see," he said, voice low and sharp, "what flavor of delusion you’re bringing me today."

--

The Synod trader ship thankfully, mercifully had finally docked in Goldhaven.

Valyne stood at the threshold of her cabin, staring at her packed luggage with the same look one might give an ex lover’s goodbye letter: contempt, relief, and a vague urge to set something on fire. She had stopped murmuring on her second day. Or rather, she had been trained into silence by a series of shimmered shadows every time she insulted either this cursed mission or Corvin Blackmoor.

The pattern was unmistakable: one sarcastic jab about her assignment and the shadows twitched. A fresh insult about Corvin’s "charmingly sociopathic smile" and three shadows rippled like waves giggling in a dark pond.

She scowled. "They’re laughing at me," she had whispered the first time.

Then tried it again, just to be sure.

"Mercenary.. my perfectly shaped ass. What kind of mercenary is ’invited’ by an instructor ."

Three shadows shimmered.

She closed her notebook slowly.

Lesson learned. She still wrote the the insults she invented. A girl had to vent somehow.

Valyne was tall and built like she was crafted from elegance. Her skin held the soft sheen of twilight silk, smooth and light. Her long silver hair flowed down her back in gentle, artful waves, not a strand out of place. Her cheekbones prominent and high, her lips were a soft, rosy pink, heart shaped, and her large, deep set turquoise eyes gleamed like glacial fire layered with curiosity, calculation, and the permanent exhaustion of dealing with idiots. Her waist was narrow, posture graceful, hands long fingered, and her stride gave the impression of someone used to commanding a classroom.

She was beautiful, in that unfair, ethereal way that made even other elves uncomfortable. Unfortunately, none of that protected her from the universal truth of shadow agents being creeps.

She stacked her luggage by the door with the dramatic poise of a stage performer, then froze as the familiar shimmer rippled in the corner.

Out stepped the same Shadow who’d first briefed her. Still unreadable. Still cold as iron in midnight.

"We will escort you to Goldhaven’s perimeter," he intoned. "Your target, Corvin Blackmoor, will not appreciate the presence of Shadows. Therefore, we will remain near the ship for the next seven days."

Valyne blinked. "And... my safety?"

The shadow tilted his head. "Is the Magistra not capable of defending herself from mere humans?"

She opened her mouth.

He vanished.

She snapped her mouth shut.

Her primary affinity was, Aether and secondary, water. she was not a damsel in need of help. Still she would have liked knowing when someone has her back. She muttered under her breath, arms crossed. Her primary element gave her great control over raw aether flow. Water added finesse and versatility, especially in healing and binding magic. her weak affinities, Fire and wind? Let’s just say she once tried to conjure a gust and sneezed herself off a set of stairs. It had not been her finest moment.

Now dressed in tailored travel robes, dark violet with silver trim that hugged her waist and flared just enough to make a dramatic entrance. She descended to the dock with all the regality of someone pretending she wasn’t thinking of a thousand new ways to strangle Corvin Blackmoor.

Goldhaven’s harbor bustled with dignified energy. Merchant vessels offloaded spices, textiles, arcane crystals, and secrets disguised as contracts. Docks shimmered with enchantments to keep the salt air at bay. The capital was too clean, too proud, too well guarded for her taste. But at least it didn’t smell like old ropes and smug elven sailors.

She made her way to one of the luxury inns within the trader quarter of Goldhaven, a polished establishment known for housing Synod merchants both official and otherwise. The doorman gave her a respectful nod. She returned it with all the warmth of a frozen dagger and glided inside.

As soon as she was in her room, she flopped onto the silk draped bed, reached for her notebook, and began writing:

"1. Assigned as my assistant in basic theory classes. His every mistake will be announced aloud."

"2. Enchanted boots that squeak slightly louder with every smug comment."

"3. Strategic mirror enchantments that mildly distort his reflection, just enough to irritate."

"4. One week of surprise telekinetic nudges every time he tries to make a dramatic entrance."

"5. A spell that faintly whispers ’arrogant’ when someone gets too close."

"6. Warding him with minor insomnia charms until he apologizes in writing! With footnotes."

She sighed deeply, rolled over, and stared at the ceiling with the dramatics of someone clearly wronged by fate and its overly dramatic casting director.

"All I did was teach him a few lessons," she muttered. "A couple of seminars. Now look at me city hopping, shadow surfing, and apparently doing reconnaissance on the continent’s only clearly ’not a mercenary’ mercenary."

She pressed the quill to her lips.

"No peace for him," she whispered with satisfaction. "Not while I’m still stuck on this cursed mission. Not while I breathe. Not even if he begs for mercy, which he won’t. Arrogant arse."

--

Solen Vaen’thal, the Elven Arbiter of the Circle, stood beneath the arched canopy of silverleaf boughs, the filtered light glinting off the mirrored surface. The reports the situation in Holy Verrenate hovering in front of him. The chamber rooted in Void Expanse’s Elven spires was quiet, save for the rustling of enchanted scrolls rearranging themselves, delivering news from across Verthalis through High, Dark and the dishonored elven channels the last one questioneble.. Soft murmurs of ancient enchantments rippled across the polished floor as new missives floated into the arbiter’s reach, each etched with increasing urgency.

He was both pleased and puzzled.

The damage to Holy Verrenate had been nothing short of staggering. Fortress cities reduced to silence, fortifications swallowed by ash and bone. Entire command structures had vanished in mere days. Clergy slaughtered in sacred spaces with no resistance. Sanctified shrines burned to blackened shells, holy archives left in ruin. Purifier chains shattered across multiple provinces. Slaves freed and causing chaos by destroying whatever they could find belonging to their former masters. Whispers of rebel armies moving with discipline and purpose. All pointed toward collapse. But it wasn’t the scale of the destruction that puzzled Solen. It was the cause.

Could the Obsidian Thalons truly be responsible? A precision unit of the Synod’s clandestine arm. Deadly, silent and effective. Assassins of near untraceable skill. Masters of infiltration. They were meant to sting, not shatter. Bleed the enemy, yes. But bring down the very bones of a human nation in a single campaign?

It seemed unlikely.

Solen summoned his Synod liaison. After a soft knock Archmagus Lorenthis Nightshade stepped forward, cloaked in muted indigo and shadows that curled around his heels like obedient cats. His presence was always quiet, always unwelcome, and always necessary.

"Lorenthis," Solen began, gesturing toward the suspended maps, "you were instructed to destabilize the verrenate. Agitate them. Clip a few wings. Did we truly decimate their entire order?"

Lorenthis bowed slightly. "We acted on the direct instructions, Arbiter. Our Thalons executed key eliminations. Starting with Purifier General Marius, several district commanders, and many other targets responsible for military, religious and political decision making, been eliminated. But nothing resembling this... eradication."

Solen tilted his head. "And the rest?"

Lorenthis allowed a thin smirk. "Not our doing. Our knives are precise, Arbiter. What you are seeing... this is something else entirely."

A silence settled between them, long and thick with the weight of unseen truths and clear mistrust the two sides of the elven race..

"Then we are either witnessing an uncontrolled collapse, or missing an important intelligence." Solen said quietly, the words tasting strange even as he spoke them.

Lorenthis offered no answer, only a nod.

"Very well. You are dismissed."

As the Archmagus left, Solen leaned back and laced his fingers together, eyes still on the flickering map. Markers that once bore the proud sigils of the Sanctified Council now smoldered with red and black warnings. A third of the country had gone dark. The rest stood trembling. If the collapse continued, there would be no need for war the clear the pest.

"The Mother Tree blesses her children," he murmured, "even the wayward ones. And sometimes... especially them."