Chapter 373: Call of the Fallen Angel

The wind howled hard enough to make the walls tremble. Each gust sliced through the air like a blade, carrying snow, dust, and the distant cries of battle. The storm had devoured the sky, a churning vortex of gray and white that erased the horizon completely. Inside the fortress, chaos ruled. Torches flickered wildly in trembling hands, barely keeping their flames alive as people fought their way toward the breach in the wall. Every step was a struggle against the wind.

Outside, far from the noise and motion, Luke stood still. Snow piled on his shoulders, the cold digging deep into his bones. He didn’t move. Beside him, Charlie watched in silence. Both stared at the mask of the Fallen Stone Angel resting in Luke’s hands. The stone surface pulsed faintly, alive, even beneath its crust of ice.

Then a voice echoed, not through the air, but inside the mask itself.

“Time for what? What are you talking about?” Luke asked, confused.

The mask’s eyes glowed gold, a warm, impossible light amid the blizzard.

“The time for you to activate the Warhorn,” the mask replied. Luke knew that voice. The angel’s.

“Activate the Warhorn? What does that even mean?” He tightened his grip, but the golden light was already fading, dimming like a candle’s last breath.

“Now that the Midnight Lord is gone, they answer only to me… quickly… my Lord…”

The voice dissolved, carried away by the wind. Luke turned toward the fortress. Civilians still stumbled through the storm, guided by torches, by shouts, by sheer desperation. Every second stretched unbearably long. Then his gaze fell back to the mask.

He and Charlie exchanged a look, a brief flicker of understanding. Things were worse than desperate.

Before them loomed the Warhorn, a giant stone structure half-buried in snow. An artifact from an age so old it might as well have been myth.

[Warhorn of Battle]: An enchanted relic from an ancient war, usable only by the Fallen Stone Angel. Once sounded, the horn’s echo will awaken the slumbering statue army across the city. Upon activation, all stone sentinels rise and march to war, bound by oath and stone to protect their master or crush all who oppose them. It only sounds in times of war… and when it does, the stone walks.

Luke stared at it, the meaning of the inscription hitting him like a blow. Beneath the snow-covered ruins slept a city of statues, an army frozen in time. Stone warriors, silent guardians of a forgotten age.

“This thing was part of the challenge,” he muttered, voice raw. “There’s no way to activate it. Only you could, in your stone body.”

“The mask…” the voice whispered faintly. “I told you… remember?”

He frowned.

[Mask of the Fallen Stone Angel (Unique)

Description: In the final moments of its forsaken life, the angel, abandoned by its own kind, was offered something it never expected: mercy. And that mercy came from a demon. In her final breaths, moved by unimaginable compassion, she sealed all the power she had left into this relic. Not for redemption, but for hope.

“May my Lord realize, when the moment is right, the value hidden in something as simple and frail as this.”

Enchantments:

[Statue Form (Ancient)]: While wearing the mask, you take on the form of the Fallen Stone Angel, becoming indistinguishable from a statue.
[Angel Soul Fragment (Unique)]: A slumbering fragment of an angel’s soul resides within this mask.
Requirement: Soulbound.]

“This is my gift to you…” whispered the voice, each word fainter than the last. “But it could only awaken… after the death of the Midnight Lord…”

Luke’s eyes were fixed on something, the item’s enchantment description: “While wearing the mask, you take on the form of the Fallen Stone Angel, becoming indistinguishable from a statue.”

His gaze lifted to the Warhorn ahead of him, and for the first time, he understood what had to be done.

Luke repeated the words engraved on the mask: “May my Lord realize, when the moment is right, the value hidden in something as simple and frail as this.”

“The moment has come,” the mask whispered back.

He looked toward Charlie. It was madness—he knew that. But with the fortress collapsing around them, the civilians fleeing, and the world crumbling into chaos, madness was the only option left.

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“If this goes wrong, I’ll summon an extra army of enemies that’ll kill everyone here,” he warned.

“I would never betray my Lord,” the mask murmured, barely audible.

Artemis remained silent; she wouldn’t say anything at that moment. It was too personal, too heavy a decision. Franky stayed quiet, hidden beneath Luke’s clothes. The snake had stopped talking the moment it realized he was leaving behind the chance to go to the castle and save the other humans. Still, its head poked out from Luke’s shirt, watching the scene with curious eyes.

Luke drew in a breath—or tried to. “Charlie, if this goes south, it’s just you and me against those damn statues.”

If he was going to do that crazy thing, he would accept the consequences. Charlie raised her sword; she was ready for whatever happened.

With a single motion, he placed the mask over his face. The stone’s icy touch spread across his skin, and the enchantment of [Statue Form] came to life. The mask melted like liquid marble, seeping into his flesh, coloring every feature in shades of gray and stone. The transformation spread down his neck, over his shoulders, across his arms and chest—his clothes hardening, fusing into him. In moments, there was no distinction between man and statue.