Ficool

Chapter 137 - The Vow of Destruction

Ishmael has no clear sense of the hour.

The neon moon hangs high, casting its cold light over a world gone still.

Tonight is quieter than most—no whisper of wind stirs the forest, only the distant, muffled cries of orthopteras thread the silence.

He sits on the edge of the bed, hands clasped—elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed blankly on the stone wall across from him.

He neither sees nor blinks—only stares, the abyss of his dark eyes boring a hole through the wall, lost in a thoughtless fog.

A sudden croon of an owl snaps his gaze toward the window—a transparent pane sealed shut, the white lace curtains drawn back and gathered on either side.

It's unbearably black outside.

But he's grown immune now—to every unbreathable turn life takes.

His mind drifts back to the first time he met Leviathan.

He had been taken—kidnapped during the ambush that followed their return from a business trip in Nagoya.

For three days, he vanished without a trace.

When his men finally found him, he was lying unconscious at the very spot where their car had crashed.

He couldn't recall the incident—or the kidnapping—until months later.

But finally one day he remembered waking in a warm bed, in a lavish room inside one of Leviathan's castles, sometime after the ambush.

Leviathan—the king of Miraeth, who ruled the world in his own ruthless way—had orchestrated the abduction to offer him a deal.

At first, he thought he'd been captured to be condemned for his escape from Miraeth as a teenager.

That his past had finally caught up to him.

But he offered him a deal.

He vowed to make Neva his—in exchange for her freedom.

He didn't understand what he stood to gain by punishing her in return for his reward.

Back then, he was unaware that Neva was the child of prophecy—the one destined to mark the beginning of Miraeth's liberation.

Not until Apphia told them.

It was forbidden for commoners to leave Miraeth. Migration was unthinkable.

To break even one of Leviathan's laws was to be sentenced to death.

There was something eerily sinister in Leviathan's kind smiles and soft-spoken words.

Ishmael had always resented him—for cloaking Miraeth in an illusion of peace and brotherhood, when in truth, to the few who still clung to their moral compass, Leviathan was a curse upon existence.

So he refused to sign the contract.

He believed he could find his way back to her on his own. That he could still win her heart—without stripping her of the freedom she so fiercely longed for.

To his surprise, Leviathan yielded.

He told him he would forget this encounter once he was sent back home.

But—

"One day," Leviathan had said, "when you're worn thin from failing to find her…

when your heart is starved and desperate for a miracle…

your mind will return to me.

To this moment.

To the covenant you refused."

He traveled to Miraeth the moment his memories returned.

The loss of her freedom didn't matter—so long as she would be his again.

As long as they were together, something as fickle as freedom felt meaningless.

It took Leviathan a month to locate her. But when he finally did, she was already married—to Agent Czar—and a mother to his son.

Still, Ishmael did exactly as Leviathan had commanded:

"When you see her for the first time, it must be her will to return to you.

But if she doesn't… wait.

Wait exactly six months.

When the time is right, go with your men—

and all of her will be yours to own."

But she ruined everything.

After all he had done—after everything he gave up—she still refused him. Still clung to Agent Czar and theirchild, hopelessly gripping the memories, even when she knew they were dead.

When her fierce stubbornness finally sank in—her hatred for him, and for their unborn children she would rather die than bear—

when she tried to take her life again and again, he knew he had no choice.

He turned to Leviathan.

With the king's help, he erased her memories.

But Leviathan never gave without taking.

This time, in exchange for the erasure, he demanded Ruhd—the second wave of the virus, deadlier than ever after decades of dormancy, a plague unleashed once more upon the world.

Ishmael's breathing grows heavy, jaw trembling.

He had gone to the ends of the earth for her.

Everything had been perfect.

They were blissfully married, so in love—

raising their beautiful children in warmth and peace.

Nothing should have gone wrong.

But one tiny mistake—

just one—

and it all caught up to him,

shattering everything he had fought so hard to build.

Agent Czar should have died in that fire.

Now he's trapped in this nightmare—

this bleak, suffocating room.

A surveillance camera blinks red from the corner.

He's being watched.

Every second. Every breath.

Twenty-four hours a day, someone is always watching.

What stands between him and freedom—between him and revenge—is a locked door, iron bars jammed across the window,

mocking him with slivers of light he cannot reach.

And still—

what gnaws at his chest with every breath…

is that:

She chose him again.

Neva chose him again.

Always him.

What does she see in him?

What does he have that he doesn't?

He loves her more than that man ever could.

He could give her more—more luxury, more protection, more devotion than he could ever dream of.

He has more power and wealth than he'll ever touch in his lifetime.

He swallows the lump rising in his throat.

She's just confused.

She's been manipulated—twisted by fear and lies.

He knows she still loves him. She cooks the food they give him.

He's memorized everything about her—

every gesture, every silence, every breath.

Neva's presence is the beating of his heart,

an instinct to stay alive.

She doesn't love that man.

She only fears him—pleases him out of survival, not affection.

Yes.

She had only ever truly loved him.

And she still does.

His thoughts are cut short by the faint rustling of sheets.

He stills.

Silence.

Perhaps it's wind. Or just the children in the other room.

It's quieter than usual tonight.

The only sound that remains is his own shallow breathing, lingering in the faint, silver hush of the moonlit room.

Then—he hears it again.

A creak.

Followed by the faintest gasp—soft, muffled.

His brows draw tight.

His breath catches in his throat.

No.

It can't be.

A low murmur follows, deep and hushed.

He grits his teeth, a numbness spreading through his chest.

The sounds return—

the hush of flesh brushing against sheets,

a whispered sigh.

Her voice.

Then—

a low, deep chuckle.

A man's.

His vision blurs.

His pulse pounds like a war drum. He waits for silence to rescue him. It doesn't.

His heart recoils, twisting in his ribs.

His skin crawls.

No, no—

It can't be.

She wouldn't.

She couldn't.

Then—

her soft whimper.

He grips the cold steel rims of the bed, knuckles whitening.

The room tilts.

The air thickens.

Something ugly, something ancient and primal coils in his gut.

He stares at the wall—

willing it to split open and show him the truth.

To confirm what he fears.

Or deny it.

Lie to him.

But it stares back.

Blank.

Unmoved.

Silent.

His fists clench at his sides, trembling.

A scream builds in his throat but doesn't escape—

it just settles there, raw and burning.

She is his.

His wife.

She loves him.

How could she do this to him?

No—

she's being forced.

Manipulated.

Coerced into this madness.

But even that—

even that can't excuse this betrayal.

After everything they've been through...

after all he sacrificed... for her.

And now—to him.

To the man whose name tastes like ash in his mouth.

The sounds don't stop.

His hands fly to his ears.

Breath heaving.

The room tightens around him.

And still, somewhere in the shadows of his breaking mind—

he whispers to himself: she loves me.

She has to.

He doesn't feel the warm tears, slipping down a face that no longer feels like his own.

How dare she.

How dare she.

The sharp whoosh of wind through the forest hushes the sounds, but the storm inside him only echoes louder. Piercing.

He trembles—

blood boiling,

pulse thundering,

limbs numb with rage.

He can't feel his body anymore.

Only fire.

Only fury.

Only pain.

She will pay for this.

They will all pay.

He'll take her back.

He'll erase it all—again.

Wipe her clean of him.

Of everything.

He'll burn the world if he has to.

Because if he can't have her—

no one can.

The pounding in his ears drowns out everything else.

But the noises—

the images in his head—

they don't stop.

They never stop.

And with a trembling heart,

with the fire devouring his soul,

he vows:

Soon, every one of them will beg for death—

and still he won't grant it.

They will pray for silence.

For mercy.

For the end.

Nothing can stop him.

Not iron bars.

Not locked doors.

Not time.

Not even God.

Nothing will stand between him and the reckoning he's promised.

He will give them hell.

Not in fire alone,

but in silence,

in fear,

in the slow unraveling of everything they hold dear.

More Chapters