Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 673: Sound of Rain

Defeat. Anger. Sadness. Pain. Shame. Betrayal. Mourning. Disbelief.

All of them surged through Arnold’s mind, not in turns, but all at once—clashing, grinding, devouring one another in the chaos of his heart. He stood motionless, numb, as if the blood in his veins had turned to ice.

We have been cursed, he thought—no longer in desperation, but with solemn conviction.

It was the only explanation that could make sense of the ruin unfolding around them. What else could make the world unravel so thoroughly, so precisely, so cruelly?

He lifted his eyes from the mud at his feet to the man standing before him. The messenger looked as though he had aged decades delivering the report, soaked in rain and burdened by the knowledge he carried along with the sign of a siege that lasted two months . Yet he spoke, clearly and without faltering, relaying every word like a blade to Arnold’s chest.

The city had not held. His father had retreated before the city fell, in his turn leading it to its demise.

He had misjudged, retreated not from fire, but from smoke. And worse still: Cretio, Arnold’s father-in-law, the last man whose honor shone like steel in the dark, had died—fighting not for his kin, but for the very same prince who had spat on him.

The very men who had forced Arnold to set aside his wife, to deny her love, to sever the bond carved by loyalty and sacrifice.

And for what?

He clenched his fists. His nails dug into his palms, but the pain was dull—swallowed by the storm inside.

This is how kingdoms fall, he realized, even as the report droned on, spilling details like dirt onto a fresh grave. Not by sword or siege, but by rot from within.

The kind that crept slowly, silently, until one day the weight of it made the proudest towers collapse without a blow.

Outside, the sky wept.

Rain lashed the earth in wild, rhythmic bursts, and the wind howled like a mother mourning her child. Even the world, it seemed, grieved the death of Cretio—the last true man among them. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Yet the messenger spoke still, unaware or unwilling to spare them the truth. Arnold’s father stood beside him, jaw locked, biting his lip to hold in the storm behind his eyes.

Rage flickered across his features, but no words came. Just silence, coiled like a viper, ready to bite.

And then there was Caedric, the one who fancied himself heir to a future now buried with Cretio. His face had turned pale, drained of all color, as if the ghost of their fate had passed through him. He swayed slightly, his eyes blank, mouth parted but speechless.

Does he understand now? Arnold wondered. Does he realize how meaningless his ambitions are—how fragile they were all along?

But of all the men in that tent, only Arnold mourned openly. Only he stood shattered in the storm of truth. He looked at them and felt no kinship. No brotherhood. Only distance.

Was I the only one who truly loved him?Was I the only one who understood what we have lost?

He waited for someone to speak about it. But none did.

And that was when it struck him—not like a blade, but like a truth too heavy to deny:

We deserve this fall.

The messenger’s voice wavered as he reached the end of his grim litany. He spoke of Thalien—how the youngest son had surrendered Herculia, how he had walked out with hands raised and head unbowed, how he had been taken alive into Alpheo’s camp.

He spoke the venomous insults the Peasant Prince threw at him, and about the challenge he hurled.

For a long moment, silence ruled the tent.

Then Prince Lechlian—once ruler, once feared, now only a man in the shadow of ruin—broke it with a vicious curse.

"Damn that accursed child!" he snarled, his fist slamming against the table. "I knew I should never have trusted him with anything!"

The outburst fell like a hammer in the stillness, but Arnold—his eldest, his heir—felt no heat from it. No fire. Only cold disgust. A lifetime of restraint cracked like old marble.

He stared at his father as if seeing him for the first time. And then he laughed.

Not the sharp laugh of scorn, nor the bitter chuckle of one humored by irony. No—this was a raw, broken sound. The laugh of a man watching his home burn, laughing not at the fire but at the fools who lit it.

It froze the air.

All turned to him—Caedric wide-eyed, the messenger startled mid-breath, even Lechlian pausing, uncertain.

And Arnold laughed harder. Then he spoke.

"Ahead of the fall of your own princedom," he said, voice cracking but rising with every word, "the first thing you find breath for is to curse your own son? Not to mourn the capital we lost. Not to regret the sacrifice of the only man who still believed in you. But to spit on Thalien?"

He stepped forward, one measured pace after another, until the distance between them was filled not with fear, but fury.

"You bloody fool," he hissed, "you haven’t even the spine to face your own failure. No—better to blame the son who held the walls for two months while you staggered in the rear with your army intact!"

His father opened his mouth—but Arnold silenced him with a glare, voice rising into a storm.

"You let Herculia fall. Not Thalien. You! You abandoned her to rot while he bled for her! I begged you—begged you—to march. And what did you do? Drink? Dream? Dither? Or were you waiting for the wind to carry the city to you without lifting your precious sword?"

His fists trembled now—not with fear, but with the sheer force of rage finally set free.

"Cretio died for you. For your banner. The only good and honest man still loyal to your name. And how did you repay him? You disgraced him. You dishonored his house. You made me cast aside his daughter as if she were a slave concubine, not a wife!"

He took another step. His voice dropped, trembling with contempt.

"What did you think Thalien would do? Die for a father who abandons his sons and shames his allies? You’re not a prince—you’re a curse with a crown."

The words struck like thunder—and still, he did not stop.

"There is no man left who would sacrifice even a coin for you, let alone his life. The nobles have turned from you. Even your own blood sees what you’ve become. And while you gnaw on your pride in this wet, dying camp—Alpheo dines in your palace, sleeps in your bed, and bear the loyalty that should have been yours."

The silence that followed was unnatural. Heavy. Awful.

Even the wind outside seemed to hush.

These were words that could kill a man. Words that, spoken by any other, would have been punished with steel. And yet Arnold stood, breath heaving, unflinching.

He did not care that the messenger still stood in the tent.He did not care that his brother Caedric looked ready to faint.

He did not care.

What was there left to protect?What throne? What legacy? What father?To what end was he to lie?

He had spoken the truth—and that, in this dying storm of a dynasty, was the only thing that remained worth speaking.

Still he had not finished , his voice was low but no less sharp as he continued

"And good riddance if the lords go now and bend the knee to Alpheo. Gods know I would.

Because even as an enemy, I know—he is a better ruler than you could ever dream to be. And more than that—he’s a better man. The men who follow him would die for him, gladly, proudly. They believe in him."

He turned, sweeping his gaze across the tent—his father, dumbfounded; his brother Caedric still pale and hollow-eyed; the stunned messenger standing still as a statue, afraid to even breathe.

"Can you say the same?" Arnold asked, his voice like frost. "Is there a single man in this camp who would die for you? Not out of duty. Not out of coin. But because they believed in your cause? Because they loved you as a man?"

Silence.

"I thought not."

Only now did Lechlian find the voice that shame had choked, and yet all that he could muster was to question on how he dared to utter such words to his father, to his prince.

The title fell flat in the air. Hollow. Ashen. Useless.

Arnold looked back over his shoulder, one foot already outside the tent flap, his silhouette framed by the storm outside.

There was no rage left in his voice. No heat. Just bitter, bone-deep certainty—the kind that settles in a man after the last illusion dies.

He laughed.

Soft, humorless. A sound without joy. Without cruelty. Just the final breath of something once living.

"Prince?" he repeated, turning his head just enough for his father to see his eyes. They were not angry anymore. Only tired. "Prince of what , Father?"

And with that, he stepped into the rain.

The flap of the tent blew shut behind him, cutting the last thread of what once tied them—father to son, ruler to heir, blood to Blood

Inside, the wind howled.

And outside the world changed