Dark Parasyte
Chapter 64: Planarch

Chapter 64: Planarch

Fyrgax’s remains dissappeared as corvin absorbed him the devestation, result of their brief clash still smoked in the crater of his shattered throne chamber. Corvin stood above the crumbling ruin, the heart of the Dark Sovereign turned to ash in his grip. But something gnawed at him, not dissatisfaction, but stillness. That kill had felt... inert. It was as if the energy he’d consumed had simply filled a cup already brimming.

Fyrgax was powerful no doubt. Archmagus level by magical standards, steeped in centuries of infernal fury. His memories were seared with blood and conquest, his power forged in unending fire. And yet, when Corvin absorbed his essence, his core did not stir. No new height. No fresh surge. No flicker of transformation.

Corvin narrowed his eyes, reaching inward to assess. His mana flow was smooth, refined, stable like a perfectly tuned chord. His reserves were vast, but their density no longer swelled with new conquest. It was as if the world had quietly admitted he had grown beyond it.

He had reached the limits of what Dark Sovereigns could offer.

As he stood in contemplation, the residual memories of Fyrgax began to settle deeper, like ink sinking in undisturbed water. Corvin closed his eyes and let the Sovereign’s memories surface, allowing the echoes of an ancient will to thread into his own.

Scenes from a bygone invasion flickered to life.

Fyrgax, younger and unscarred, marching alongside vast legions through yawning planar rifts. Firestorms curled in the skies above distant worlds. Crystalline towers erupted like jagged teeth from ruined civilizations. Demi planes crumbled under siege. A ritual circle, the largest Corvin had ever seen came to view. Archmagus and Planarch level individuals from all the races were working together to complete it. Corvin memorized the details. etched them millimeter by millimeter. When the circle was complete the Arbiters arrived, they checked the drawings and started to feed the circle with their mana. The foreign earth trembled under Fyrgax’ feet. Crystals began to form, one by one at the beginning, by dozens as the ritual continued. The aether in this foreign worlds atmosphere began the get thinner, the more crystals formed the less aether in the air. After a while life itself began to crumble. Trees began to dry out, grass turned yellow, earth itself parched. thousands of crystals were at the center of the ritual chamber. Arbiters took the lion’s share, Planarch’s took the second larger. Remaining crystals shared between the Arch magi depending their contribution. Fyrgax got twenty of them. The rest he got after attacking the ohter Dark soverigns. It seems there was no honor between Demons.

Then came a vault. A chamber of scorched stone, runes warped from age and power, sealed by black flame. And there, hovering above a plinth carved from stone: a basin of relics, each one pulsating with unnatural brilliance.

Aether Crystals.

Dozens of them. Stolen from shattered planes. Torn from hands of other dark soverigns, remnants of battles waged at the edges of reality. The memory eyes showed their form, long, jagged shards like frozen lightning, translucent yet impossibly heavy. Within each, aether swirled in mesmerizing blue green spirals, a slow cosmic dance trapped in glass. Some curled like storm tide eddies, others flickered with starlight. They hummed even in memory.

Fyrgax had hoarded them. Guarded them. Hidden them beneath layers of death and silence.

Corvin followed the thread, tracing the remembered path with his own footsteps. Through the crumbled fortress. Down the cracked obsidian steps and past the still smoking halls. A hidden chamber lay untouched, sealed in shadow beneath the throne.

It opened for him without resistance.

Thirty crystals hovered in the air like drifting stars.

He reached toward the first.

The moment his intent sharpened, the shard responded. It shimmered, pulsed once, and began to dissolve, swirling into threads of light that rushed toward him like water seeking a well. The essence slid into his body like starlight through veins. It was different. Alien, refined, impossibly pure.

Not tainted by memory or ego. Not reclaimed from corpses.

This was raw aether, unshaped, unclaimed. A primordial resource, raw creation.

As it reached his mana pool, it didn’t just add. It transformed. His core deepened, expanded in concentric layers like a spiral galaxy. His magical density thickened, his connection to surrounding elements tightened as if the world itself leaned in to listen.

One crystal.

He exhaled. His breath frosted the air. Eyes gleaming with refracted light, his gaze moved to the rest.

He sat.

And consumed.

By the time the tenth crystal dissolved into his being, the chamber trembled. Ancient wards flickered and collapsed. Corvin’s vision began to shimmer. The weave of aether around him, once an elusive thing sensed only threads, was now a tapestry, clear, vibrant, immediate.

He saw lines of energy pulsing beneath his feet. He saw arcs of condensed magic weaving through the ceiling stone. He saw eddies of arcane pressure floating in the air like pollen.

He could grasp it. Shape it. Command it.

Not as a mage.

But as a being whose will imposed new rules.

The aether no longer responded. It obeyed.

The lines of power bent at his presence like reeds in wind.

The world felt thinner, like a veil drawn aside.

Corvin stood. His silhouette shimmered slightly against the stone. Power radiated from him in waves. The last twenty crystals hovered at his side, then flowed like droplets into his storage field, waiting.

He smirked, lips curling with slow certainty.

The hunt would not wait. NovelFire)

And now he would hunt as a Planarch.

--

Corvin moved like shadow incarnate across the scorched plains of Tharn Karog, relentless and unshaken. Where his presence passed, silence followed. His cloak whispered through sulfur laced winds, each teleportation flash another vanishing mark upon Nurrak’s domain. He cut down any who crossed his path, Demons by the dozens, patrols turned to dust, commanders flayed by elemental surges. His steps were untraceable. His pace, inhuman. His movements now bent the laws of space not through effort, but as second nature. He had transcended the need for caution.

The fall of yet another Dark Sovereign brought clarity. This one had been particularly brutal, tusked and clad in molten black armor, a towering infernal monstrosity known as Mar’ghor the Smoldering. He roared challenge and death with each breath. But in the end, his defenses were little more than formality.

Corvin’s spatial rend shattered its sigils. His hand pierced its volcanic chestplate, silencing the beat of his infernal heart. The corpse fell like a toppled statue, smoke curling from its eyes.

The aether it carried rushed to meet him.

And nothing changed.

No expansion. No resonance. No shift in power.

He stood motionless, eyes closed, letting the emptiness speak.

He had passed the threshold.

The memory of Fyrgax, of the Aether Crystals hidden beneath the Bastion’s throne, returned like a whisper in his mind. That moment, when the tenth crystal melted into his veins and the weave of the world shimmered open before him, had been the true turning point. The aether had stopped resisting him. Instead, it now waited for his command.

He was no longer shaping energy. He was rewriting laws.

He was a Planarch now.

And these Sovereigns? They were echoes, shadows of a lesson long since learned.

He raised his hand and watched aether spiral lazily around his fingers, like water orbiting a stone dropped in stillness. Blue, green, and violet threads coiled into each other. He didn’t have to channel them. They flocked to him, drawn by gravity he now embodied.

"I’m done with this tier," he said, softly but with finality. "No more crumbs. Only thrones."

His new quarry was clear.

The Demon Lords, their essence would sing a different melody. It wasn’t just power. It was structure. Legacy. Identity. Devouring them would not just elevate him, it would reshape him.

Their deaths would be loud. Their resistance would be pure.

He blurred forward in a sequence of chained teleportations. Ten in a row now, folding leagues of hellish terrain like creased parchment. Lava plumes burst beneath his feet, ash spiraled in torn vortices, and the air behind him crackled with ruptured space.

The Hunt had evolved.

Far beneath the Iron Maw, deep in the molten heart of Wrath’s infernal domain, an explosion of rage cracked the blackened vaults.

Archdemon Nurrak the Severed Crown stood amid a circle of flame bound pillars, his clawed hand clenched around the haft of his scepter. The crucible of blood and steel at his feet boiled furiously. The air was molten, glyphs burning hot on every wall, as if the entire mountain had turned into a single smoldering forge.

Before him knelt one of his fiercest warlords, Raghor Bloodbrand. His obsidian armor steamed and pulsed, glowing with internal magma veins. Even in stillness, the weight of command oozed from him. Yet he bowed low, unmoving, as Nurrak’s fury thundered through the magma veined stone.

"Three of my Dark Sovereigns," Nurrak roared. His voice struck like boulders. "Gone. Erased from this world as though they were cattle. They have been silenced by some butcher."

The flames flared high behind his throne, curling into monstrous shapes.

Raghor did not respond. He knew his role. The last fool who had spoken during one of Nurrak’s rages was now part of the throne’s obsidian base.

"I want the usurper found," Nurrak growled, voice like tectonic plates grinding. "Track the echoes of the fallen. Burn every inch of Tharn Karog if you must. If he breathes, I want to know it. If he dares step, I want his shadow swallowed."

Raghor slowly raised his head, his molten red eyes unwavering.

"Three legions," Nurrak commanded. "The Dreadlords. The Hellhorn Riders. The Ashhounds. Let the ground scream with our wrath. Bring me his corpse or bring me the scorched bones of whatever fortress he thinks will shield him."

Raghor pounded his chest once and rose.

"It will be done," he said.

The vault gates split open.

War flooded into the world.

Infernal Warriors stepped through smoke and flame, shields bearing burning runes. Dreadlords marched, their chains alive with infernal flame. The Ashhounds howled from their pens, eyes glowing with unending hunger. Towering Hellhorns, half beast, half firestorm, snorted embers as their riders mounted, blades drawn.

Horn blasts echoed across Wrath’s domain.

Banners unfurled, bearing Nurrak’s broken crown sigil.

The drums of war began.

The Wrath of Nefrath was no longer sleeping.

Corvin had stepped beyond myth.

Now, the legions marched to unmake him.