Dark Parasyte
Chapter 49: Jaws of Death

Chapter 49: Jaws of Death

Night had descended over Verranus, but it was anything but calm.

Since the Pontiff’s decree to purge the heretics and bring righteous judgment upon the so called rebel army, the entire northern quarter of the capital had ignited with holy urgency. What should have been silence under the moon had instead become a symphony of preparation. Steel clashing, horses stamping, commands shouted and echoed with unwavering fervor.

Torches lined the inner walls in rigid precision, casting flickering halos of orange light over polished helms, raised banners, and armored rows of the faithful. The scent of oil, sweat, iron, and incense permeated the air. Divine warfare soaked in ritual.

The north gate district had transformed into a living war machine.

Legions, twelve out of the fifteen, stood in full formation. Rows upon rows of Purifiers, halberdiers, spearmen, mounted knights, robed battle priests, and hymn chanting clerics filled the vast staging grounds like tiles on a divine mosaic. Drummers pounded out slow martial rhythms, their beats vibrating through stone and spirit alike. Officers rode up and down the lines, issuing commands, adjusting spacing, inspecting gear with eagle eyed scrutiny.

Their armor gleamed under torchlight, every shield emblazoned with the crimson sigil of the Holy Flame, every blade anointed in blessed oils and etched with verses. Chanting priests passed between formations. Enchanters murmured final rites to empower divine wards stitched into tabards and surcoats.

Smoke from censers hung low in the air, sweet and thick with herbs, swirling into the lungs of soldiers like a last reminder of purity before the slaughter. Choirs stationed along the balconies above the staging grounds sang deep harmonics, war hymns layered with psalmic recitations. The sound didn’t just inspire, it resonated through the bones.

Overseeing this awe inspiring spectacle was the Cardinal of War, Tyrannus Holric.

He stood atop a platform of white stone, towering over his legions like a statue wrought in fury and discipline. His red and gold war robes fluttered with authority, each stitch symbolizing a martyr’s death or a crusader’s oath. His back was straight, his jaw tight, his eyes scanning every movement with predatory precision. He radiated purpose like a burning brazier.

"Third Legion, tighten your inner flank! Sixth, ready the carts! Standard bearers, raise your crests high, let the rebel scum witness who comes to drag them to the flame!"

His voice carried like a warhorn. Orders fell like hailstones on the organized chaos below. Scribes scrambled behind him, etching tactical updates into scrolls. Messengers sprinted across the field. None paused, none questioned. Discipline reigned.

Behind him, atop the inner wall, the remaining three legions stood at reserve. These were the hammers waiting to fall, the final judgment. Archers had taken their positions, bows strung and eyes fixed on the northern ridges. Reserve mages ran checks on their elemental foci. Each squadron commander held orders sealed by church’s wax, unopened unless disaster struck.

And yet, Tyrannus felt a pressure behind his ribs.

Something wasn’t right.

He had dispatched three scout teams, experienced, light riding veterans of the Savaryn campaigns. Their orders were clear: confirm rebel positions, document fortification lines, report enemy readiness.

They should have returned by now.

His fingers tightened on the hilt of Flamecarver, the ceremonial greatblade said to have been cooled in holy blood. He tapped it once against the stone edge of his platform. A habit. A warning to himself to remain vigilant.

He hated waiting.

Then he heard the hoofbeats.

A single scout rider galloped through the outer barricade, mud streaked and pale, armor scraped from low hanging branches and travel haste. He dismounted before his ride even fully stopped, stumbling forward before catching himself, saluting with a clenched fist, then kneeling.

Tyrannus stepped down, every inch of him iron and suspicion.

"Report," he demanded.

The scout looked up, brow beaded with sweat despite the chill.

"My Lord Cardinal... the enemy is gone."

Murmurs rippled along the command line. Tyrannus narrowed his eyes.

"Gone?"

"Gone, my Lord. Cleared. There were no fires, no supplies, no discarded gear, not even disrupted grass. No sign of movement. It was as if they vanished into the very air."

Tyrannus stared, his silence louder than any outcry.

He turned slowly, gazing toward the dark ridgelines beyond the gate, beyond the low hills where his enemy should have been.

Banners still fluttered. Soldiers still prayed. The Flame still burned.

But the night... the night had become very, very quiet.

He muttered beneath his breath, barely audible even to himself:

"Where are the heretics...?"

--

Far from the high walls of Verranus, where the banners of faith bristled and hymns turned sharp with tension, another kind of hunt had begun.

The agents of the Silent Aurora, Vaethryl Ilisennor, Tharien Vossiral, and Liraen of the Bloomwardens were tracing a name that no longer moved like a man, but like a ghost wearing flesh.

Corvin Blackmoor.

Their last verified sighting had been in Obsidian Gate. There, amidst the shattered canopy and ink stained skies of the lower Synod territories, their mission brushed dangerously close to collapse.

They were found within minutes by the Shadows.

The Synod’s infamous clandestine agents did not engage them directly. There was no need. It was not war, but a quiet warning. A brief, wordless moment where both sides measured the other’s presence and chose the tension of cohabitation. This was the unofficial understanding between two sides of the elven intelligence agencies.

Veiled eyes met veiled eyes.

The Silent Aurora agents were ’allowed’ to move.

But they were not left alone.

For every footstep they took in Umbraveyn, a dozen Shadows watched. From above cloaked in illusion, from darkened branches whispering with cursed leaves, and ground units, they were observed.

It took four days of silent maneuvering, broken only by coded whispers, to confirm their target’s trail had gone cold in the Synod lands and went towards across the Veilborn Expanse, in Gilded Dominion.

They departed Umbraveyn with the urgency of quiet thunder, blending into merchant caravans, diplomatic processions, and trade barges with the practiced precision of their station. They moved like drifting smoke through cracks in an empire.

The hunt resumed.

Beneath them, deeper than any mortal road dared dig, far under the Obsidian Gate, the Hexarchy of the Synod concluded their meeting.

The chamber’s darkness pulsed faintly with arcane dampening veils, ensuring nothing within could be heard, scryed, or unraveled. No voice echoed. When the final voice faded and the black lanterns guttered low, it was Selyndros who remained seated the longest.

The Obsidian Thalons had operated with perfect silence as was expected from them. Targets silenced, movements blurred. It was effective. Rest of the devestation however was not something expected. Something has buthchered the Verrenate cities, fortresses and temples. That troubled Selyndros more than any confirmed fact.

He read the report once more. It wasn’t just success, it was orchestration, and the conductor had face no one had yet seen.

Planarch Selyndros leaned forward and placed his seal upon a fresh dispatch. Multiple Shadow Cells would now be sent to Holy Verrenate. Not just to confirm the scope of the operation, but to investigate what the Hexarchy wasn’t being told. Information was power. The lack of information was threat.

On another place, North west of Synod and north of Dominion, within the frost scarred and iron clad halls of Iron March, General Kaelen Dros stood before a table marked with charcoal and oil. Map of Holy Verrenate was open. It was not the symbols that concerned him, but the shifting of silence in the wrong places.

He listened in silence as his aide read the compiled reports of Marshal Vos’ visit to Goldhaven.

"The Duchess states the instability within Holy Verrenate is due to internal strife. Unconfirmed. No names, no events, no troop movements shared. Her tone was... deflective."

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed. He spoke without turning.

"So she thinks it’s infighting."

The aide continued.

"New reports indicate Purifier and military legions mobilizing toward Verranus. Civil routes have been sealed. Pilgrimage routes redirected. Command structures reorganized. Religious propaganda suspended in three outer provinces. Agricultural convoys halted."

Kaelen grunted, low and bitter.

"Something’s bleeding in that city, and it’s not the kind of wound you heal with prayer."

He tapped two fingers on the northern border of Iron March and circled an area of terrain that intersected closest with Verrenate lines.

"Send two scout teams. Stealth priority. One along the eastern side of the border near Ashridge, the other through the Ravinehold corridor."

"I want eyes from both the low trails and the high cliffs. Assign only those with silent boots and sharp minds."

Vos gave a small nod.

"If it is merely disorder, they’ll find it."

"And if it’s something worse..." Kaelen muttered, the fingers of his gauntlet curling against the map’s edge.

"...we’ll know where the fire starts before the smoke blinds the continent."

--

The night had deepened into a velvet black, the only sounds were those of distant banners flapping and the distant march of sacred feet on sanctified stone. Above the city, clouds rolled like silent titans, concealing the stars and casting a suffocating stillness over the war readied plains.

Unseen beneath the ground, eight vast vaults lay in eerie silence.

Crafted with meticulous Earth magic and reinforced by the same master who created them, each subterranean chamber extended like a gullet below the surface. Each held space enough for a thousand troops, standing shoulder to shoulder in absolute stillness. Dug with surgical precision beneath open terrain east and west of the Holy Verrenate’s twelve legion formation, their entrances were expertly masked. Illusory soil and enchantments mimicked natural rock, foliage, and terrain debris.

Corvin had arranged them like the closing jaws of an ancient beast, each chamber a waiting fang.

Within each vault stood the undead, Purifiers, battle priests, halberdiers, cavalry dismounts, war mages. Covenant Bound and unwavering. Every last one bore the memory of their lives and the reflexes of battle drilled into marrow. They didn’t speak. They didn’t breathe. They didn’t pray. They waited.

And above, 800 meters to north of the extremists legions, their master watched. Cloaked and unseen in the chill of midnight, silent as the reaper with a raised blade.

Corvin observed the meticulous rows of the legions: heavy armored infantry and mounted paladins formed the vanguard. Their tower shields overlapped in geometric precision, helmets down, spears ready, banners fluttering. Behind them, lighter infantry knelt in formation. Archers further back prepped bundled shafts for launch. The air was thick with sanctity, discipline, and faith. It believed itself divine and therefore invincible.

He shed his cloak.

A shimmer of distortion bent and fell away like folded glass. Corvin emerged in conjured armor woven with black glyphs. He stood upon a slight, shadowed ridge. His outline framed by ambient starlight filtered through cloud.

Twelve war priests shimmered to life around him, summoned with swift, icy precision. They formed a half circle and raised their hands. In an instant, a dome of luminous Light magic enveloped him, radiating gentle warmth and searing holiness. An ironic mockery of what was to come.

Then the preparation began.

From his inventory, Corvin summoned 200 iron shards, thrity cantimeters long, needle tipped projectiles forged in silence and stored in darkness. They floated upward, hovering like a constellation of knives. With minute gestures, he aligned them into a loose spread. Each shard was sharp enough to carve clean through shield, flesh, and faith.

Then he laced them with lightning.

Arcs crackled and surged from one shard to another. Static charged the air, humming around his fingertips as the lightning danced into them. He held the storm like a maestro about to drop his baton.

He paused, just for a heartbeat then smiled kindly twards his new ’soldiers’.

And released the shards.

The sky didn’t screamed, It ripped.

The shards surged forward with sonic velocity, cutting a razor precise arc across the darkened field. Less than three seconds passed between release and ruin.

The first wave hit.

Steel met steel.. and lost. Shards plunged through breastplates, cracking ribcages and bisecting bodies with wet crunches. Helmets shattered, skulls ruptured, and limbs severed mid salute. Some died instantly. Others choked on their own blood, eyes wide with betrayal.

Men toppled in neat rows, like grain before a scythe. Bones snapped audibly. Spears dropped from lifeless fingers. A cascade of broken metal and mortal agony.

Blood sprayed in violent, synchronized arcs. Thick, hot, and bright under magical light.

The second row tried to scream.

Then the second wave hit.

This time, many had seen death coming. They lifted shields, shouted prayers, tightened lines. But the shards did not care. They embedded, and shattered. Shields splintered. Armor burst open like fruit.

Dozens fell mid turn, others twisted by impact, flung backward into those behind them. One soldier clutched his throat, red gurgling through armored fingers. Another stumbled with both legs severed below the knee.

A scream finally erupted. Then dozens. Then hundreds.

Archers panicked and loosed volleys in a frenzy.

Their arrows landed like brittle twigs in tall grass, hundreds of meters short. The ground welcomed them with silence.

Then came the third wave.

The back line’s formation collapsed as men trampled their comrades, falling over screams and bodies. Cries for healers turned into gurgled deathsongs. Officers tried to regroup. Orders drowned beneath the panic.

In ten seconds, five hundred lay dead. Over a hundred more writhed in agony, missing limbs, crying for mothers, for gods, for light.

Corvin did not move.

Lightning still coiled across his fingers like lazy serpents.

He watched the slaughter. His smile deepened. He prepared summoned the shards for the next wave.

The jaws of death had opened.

And Verranus would remember this midnight. Not as the hour of glory but the moment heaven itself had flinched.