Chapter 155
The twelve thrones were vast, but in that moment only three were occupied. Their weight alone bent the chamber of stars into silence.
The God of Light sat first. His form was carved of interlocking geometries, endlessly shifting yet never collapsing, a living cathedral of luminous lines and golden arcs. His face was no face at all, only a mask of mirrored perfection that reflected the cosmos itself. Every gesture he made was precise and deliberate, as though he moved along a script etched since the dawn. Inside, though, his thoughts churned with cold unease.
"This mortal bends patterns but does not break them, he reflected. Yet each deviation brings him closer to touching what should remain inviolate. I must not act. I cannot act… but if the Tower's laws yield to him, perhaps the laws themselves require him. And if they require him, then what purpose am I left to serve?"
The God of War was next, a giant draped in iron and fire. His skin glowed like molten bronze, crisscrossed with scars that bled embers. From his back rose spears and banners that fluttered with no wind. He laughed low, a sound like thunder grinding stone.
"The boy kills well. Too well. He fights like one born to war, but he does not fight as we taught. There is no hymn in his blade, no prayer in his strike. He fights for himself, for comrades, for the taste of triumph. Mortal, through and through. It offends me… yet it stirs something I cannot name. Is this pride? Or hunger?"
The God of Death reclined upon her throne of shadow and ivory. Her presence was stillness itself. A veil of black silk hid her features, yet within the folds of that veil one could glimpse countless eyes that had seen every ending, every last breath since time began. Her fingers traced the arm of her throne like a mourner brushing a coffin's edge.
"He does not belong to me, not yet, she mused, her voice softer than a graveyard breeze. And yet… he cheats me, without breaking law. I should resent him, for denying me what is mine in time. But instead, I watch. I watch because he threads the silence differently. Perhaps he will walk into my arms by choice, not fate. That would be… new."
Among the three, one felt delight, an emotion so foreign it should have shattered the hall. But none spoke it aloud. Even gods can keep secrets from one another.
The mirrors below shimmered with the progress of Daniel and his three hundred companions, their illusions, their silence, and their march toward the first city of Grisval. A mortal defiance moving like a spark across a wasteland.
And then, without herald, more thrones stirred. Three more gods returned, their vast steps echoing like mountains dragged across the void. Word had spread interest had been roused.
They had heard of what unfolded in the Tower.
And though gods were bound by their essence, they still chose to gather. To watch. To weigh. To wonder.
The chamber of thrones trembled as the first ripple of their coming stirred the cosmos. Stars bent, the constellations shivered, and the silence between the three seated gods thickened until it was heavy as iron. One by one, three vast presences descended into the hall, their thrones long empty, now awakening.
The first to arrive was the God of Knowledge. He did not walk but unfolded, like a library given breath. His body was parchment and ink, his veins rivers of shifting script. Thousands of eyes opened and closed across his robe, each one belonging to a different creature, bird, beast, or man, that had ever lived and learned. His voice, when it broke the silence, was not a voice at all but a chorus of whispers, a thousand tongues reciting truths and lies alike.
"So, the mortal weaves a path unthread, he thought, every whisper within him echoing the same phrase differently. An anomaly, yes, but anomalies are the doorways to new patterns. He is not forbidden. He is not permitted. He is… necessary. I will not name him yet. Let him write further upon the pages of fate."
Beside him, the God of Dreams appeared, a being draped in layers of silken mist that bled endlessly into the void. Her face was never still, shifting between child and elder, man and woman, beast and star like a thousand dreams glimpsed and forgotten. When she spoke, her words drifted in and out of meaning, leaving behind an aftertaste of prophecy.
"He carries the scent of both ruin and wonder, he murmured, his tone lilting like a lullaby. His footsteps disturb not only the Tower but the law itself. I have seen mortals climb, but never to such dissonant heights. Do we watch because we are bound? Or because, deep within, we hope he breaks us?"
Last came the God of Time, slowest and yet most terrible of all. His throne did not move toward him time itself bent to place it beneath his vast and ancient form. He was both withered and newborn, his body a clockwork of bones and stars that shifted forward and backward with each breath. His eyes were the color of endings, his presence a reminder that even gods had limits.
"He is out of sequence, Time judged coldly, each word stretching into eternity. A thread woven where no hand moved the loom. I should cut him, for he is error. Yet if I cut him, the tapestry frays, for he is knotted into too much already. Thus I wait. Thus I watch. Perhaps the loom itself wishes to change."
With their arrival, the balance within the chamber shifted. No longer was it a quiet circle of three; it was now six, half the council gathered, their attentions fastened upon a single mortal walking the plains of Karion. Their manifestations filled the chamber with tension: knowledge restless with curiosity, dreams languid and enigmatic, and time relentless in judgment.
The God of War's embers flared brighter, agitated by Time's words. The God of Death tilted her veiled head, listening to Dreams with an interest she rarely allowed herself. And the God of Order's golden mask flickered, a brief sign of strain as Knowledge's whispers teased at his certainty.
Daniel Lazarus had not yet reached the first cursed city. And yet, already, the heavens stirred with more attention than had been given to mortals in an age.
Six thrones now burned with presence. Six divine voices turned upon the mortal's path. And somewhere among them, hidden even from their brethren, delight curled like a secret flame.
For one god, unspoken, unnamed, was not merely watching.
They were hoping.
The six thrones glowed like suns, their gathered radiance pressing down upon the cosmos as if the very air within the chamber might shatter. For the first time in centuries, a council stirred—not over nations, not over plagues, not over the rise and fall of kings, but over a mortal striding through the Tower's shadowed halls.
Order was the first to speak, his mirrored mask catching every reflected star. His voice was crystalline, a blade of inevitability:
"He bends the pattern. That alone is proof enough. He is a flaw, a fracture in the code written before time itself. Left unchecked, he will unmake the symmetry that keeps the Tower whole."
War slammed his molten fist against his throne, sparks scattering like dying suns.
"A flaw?" he roared, laughter cutting through the silence like steel. "No, brother, he is vigor. He kills, he conquers, he survives—not by chance, but by choice. Mortals have grown soft, clinging to systems, rules, and chains we gifted them. This one breaks them and still stands. He is worthy!"
Death tilted her veiled head, her thousand hidden eyes gleaming faintly from within the dark fabric. Her tone was soft yet final, like earth falling upon a coffin.
"Worthy or not, his fate is still mine in the end. Do not mistake his defiance for escape. Every path returns to silence. Yet…" She paused, and for a moment, the veil stilled. "…he intrigues me. He courts my touch without fear. That alone earns him time."
Knowledge's parchment skin rustled as rivers of script crawled across his body, quills sprouting from his form like living feathers. His voice was a cacophony of overlapping whispers.
"Time is precisely the point. He is an irregularity, but irregularities are not always errors. They are data. Exceptions reveal the true nature of law. If the Tower's framework tolerates him, then perhaps the Tower desires evolution. To strike him down is to destroy evidence. I will not permit it."
Dreams chuckled softly, her ever-shifting form casting silhouettes of children, beasts, and phantoms upon the walls. Her words spilled like mist, half-meaning, half-prophecy.
"He walks as though asleep, yet awake; a dream that does not dissolve upon the dawn. Do you not feel it? He is both ruin and seed. Break him, and you will never know what flower might have bloomed. Let him tread the labyrinth, and perhaps he will wake even us."
At last, Time's voice rolled forth, heavy as collapsing stars. His body flickered between youth and decay, his every breath turning centuries to ash.
"Your indulgence blinds you. He is out of sequence, a thread woven without a weaver's hand. Such things are not tolerated. I should cut him out and let the weave heal clean."
The hall fell silent. The echoes of his judgment lingered like the toll of an endless bell.
Yet no hand moved. No star fell. The six thrones held their places, bound not only by law but by uncertainty.
For even Time, who proclaimed to cut, had not acted. His hesitation was not weakness but recognition, recognition that the weave itself resisted his scythe.
And in that hesitation, something darker stirred.
Among the countless empty thrones in the chamber, unseen and unmarked, another Old God roused from slumber. This one did not descend or announce itself but simply was. A shadow folded within the council, silent and smiling.
This god, unnamed, uncalled, felt something in Daniel's rebellion that mirrored its own buried essence. A mortal daring to move as if unchained. A will that refused to bow, even when the world demanded it.
Where the others debated anomaly, champion, or herald, this hidden god whispered only one truth:
"He is mine. He does not yet know it, but he is mine."
And so the council burned with debate, but in the unseen places between words and laws, a seed was planted. One more god had chosen Dane Lazarus,or Daniel , not as anomaly, not as pawn, but as kin.
The chamber of thrones pulsed with unresolved judgment. Six gods stood in opposition, their philosophies colliding like storms at sea. Yet beneath the voices of Order's stern decree, War's fiery praise, Death's quiet intrigue, Knowledge's whispers, Dream's riddles, and Time's condemnation, another note lingered, low, unseen, unheard by even the divine.
It was not a word, but a presence. A smile behind a curtain.
The hidden god did not speak, nor take a throne, nor declare its philosophy. It did not need to. Its silence was a choice, and in that silence it marked Daniel Lazarus. Not as a mistake. Not as an intruder. But as something far rarer, an echo of itself.
Meanwhile, the six debated on, their attention never wavering from the mortal who strode toward Grisval, with three hundred players running toward its domain .
Order, inflexible, warned of corruption in the laws if exceptions were allowed. War laughed, sparks crackling from his molten wounds, calling Daniel the only true warrior in an age of cowards. Death, quiet as ash, confessed a fascination she had never voiced before. Knowledge rattled with script and prophecy, insisting the mortal was a message yet to be read. Dreams shifted endlessly, her voice weaving futures both bright and broken. And Time, relentless as ever, condemned the boy as error, even as his own hand faltered on the scythe.
Yet none of them knew the truth that coiled at their feet.
That among the empty thrones, where the cosmos bled into shadow, another Old God leaned forward, watching not with judgment, but with recognition. Its essence swirled like a secret too ancient to name.
Daniel Lazarus walked the Tower not only under scrutiny, but under claim.
And though no god dared admit it, the chamber itself seemed to bend as though listening, not to the six in debate, but to the one who remained silent.
The council did not end. The voices continued, law against instinct, prophecy against inevitability. But already, the balance was shifting. Already, the course of gods and mortals alike leaned toward one man.
And Daniel, unaware of the heavens turning above him, pressed onward, step by step, into the shadow of Grisval the City of Echoes.
The clash of steel and sorcery echoed across the broken earth as the main force pressed deeper into the cursed plains. Daniel moved at the front, his blade a streak of cold precision. Each strike was not wasted movement, but a calculated dismantling of the enemy.
Where others hacked wildly at the rotting masses, Daniel's eyes tracked the faint flickers of life-force buried within the decayed flesh, cores of necrotic energy that bound the undead to motion. His strikes pierced them cleanly, severing their animating centers. Explosions of ash and ichor followed in his wake, leaving the path behind him littered with motionless husks.
Charlotte Lazarus kept tight to his left flank, her blades igniting in arcs of fire that burned through the clotted flesh of the charging undead. Sparks danced with each cut, the flames not only tearing through sinew but sealing her strikes in purifying heat. She wove around Daniel like a living flame, the two moving with an unspoken rhythm as if they had fought beside one another for years.
On Daniel's right, Natasha Sokolov advanced with grim determination. Her crossbow sang as bolts tipped with elemental frost sank into the chest cavities of the undead. Each shot carried more than steel; water and ice magic swirled along the bolt's shaft, bursting outward on impact to freeze and shatter decayed organs.
Natasha's sharp Russian features were locked in calm focus, her slender frame deceptively steady under the weapon's recoil. Her precision mirrored Daniel's measured, exact, merciless.
Further behind, Cody Lazarus raised his staff and unleashed waves of raw force. The air trembled each time a shockwave rolled forward, blasting apart entire ranks of approaching undead.
Flesh tore from bone under the concussive blasts, and the way ahead widened, ensuring no ambush could break into the main column. His role was clear, disperse, disorient, and clear the swarm so Daniel and the vanguard could strike with surgical accuracy.
Emma Lazarus stood a short distance behind, her hands glowing with the soft shimmer of her scanning skill. Her eyes burned with light as threads of arcane perception spread outward, weaving through the horde like invisible nets. She whispered the weaknesses she uncovered: fractured spines, decayed ligaments, and unstable cores. Her voice was calm and steady, the tone of someone who had done this countless times.
By her side, Brie closed her eyes and touched her temple. Her telepathic gift stretched across the battlefield like a web of thought. Each hunter within range received Emma's findings directly into their minds, clear and sharp as spoken words. "Target the left side of the ribcage. Aim for the hollow in the shoulder.
Strike low, the leg joint is unstable." Command after command flowed seamlessly, sharpening the hunters' strikes, turning what might have been a desperate clash into something resembling orchestration.
Yet even as Brie's mind brushed across every ally, she met a wall when she reached for Daniel. His mental defenses were impenetrable, a bastion stronger than she had ever encountered. It wasn't a resistance born of magic but something older, heavier, a fortress of will that rejected intrusion.
She withdrew with a shiver, realizing she could only watch as Daniel carved his own warpath, beyond guidance, beyond coordination. And still, his movements fit perfectly into the rhythm of the group, as though instinct alone aligned him with their flow.
The undead pressed harder, their guttural cries filling the air, but with every strike, bolt, wave, and blade, the hunters surged forward. And in the heart of that storm, Daniel remained unshaken, his strikes the sharpest, his presence the most unyielding.
The sudden hiss of a flare cutting through the air broke the steady rhythm of advance. A streak of pale-blue light burst above the treetops and blossomed into a glittering flower before fading into smoke. All movement halted at once. Natasha Sokolov lowered her crossbow, the faint steam of frost still rising from its enchanted limbs. The signal was unmistakable: stop, hold, form the barrier.
The guild members reacted instantly. Orders rippled across the vanguard, down into the bulk of the 294 who followed behind. Enchanted wagons groaned to a halt, runes etched into their iron sides flaring to life as protective wards expanded outward in layers of light and steel. Shields locked. Spells hummed. The force contracted into a defensive crescent, their backs toward the wagons, their eyes forward.
From beyond the small forested rise, no more than one hundred and sixty meters ahead, came the sound of earth cracking, of claws dragging against stone. The treeline split, and six hulking forms emerged. Death Knights, their armor blackened and pitted, their eyes hollow furnaces of hate, each rode upon a grotesque beast, a salamander of rot and sinew, five feet tall at the shoulder, twenty feet long from maw to tail.
Their tongues flickered with necrotic flame, and every step they took left the earth blistered and poisoned.
The Death Knights spread like a fan, splitting into two groups of three. Their intent was clear—divide and crush.
Daniel stepped forward without hesitation, his gaze narrowing on the trio to the left. His fingers tightened on his blade, but his expression was unreadable, as though this was neither threat nor challenge, but inevitability.
To the right, Charlotte, Natasha, Cody, and Emma braced for the remaining three. Brie's voice carried through their minds, urgent yet steady. "Shields high. Emma says the salamanders' underbellies are weak. Strike for the joints. Natasha, frost their legs, slow them." The telepathic net wrapped them together, a lifeline in the chaos to come.
Then the battle broke.
The Death Knights surged forward, salamanders bounding with earth-shaking momentum. Daniel's enemies descended upon him first, three jagged blades sweeping in unison. Yet his body moved with neither panic nor flourish, just precision.
A single pivot turned the first downward strike into a missed arc, and with one clean motion, he severed the knight's gauntleted hand at the wrist. The counterstroke flowed into the knight's throat, steel sliding through corroded armor like silk. One fell before the others could even adjust.
The second Death Knight roared, its salamander snapping with flaming jaws. Daniel did not retreat. He stepped into the strike, his blade angling upward. The salamander's skull split from jaw to crown in a single, efficient motion. As the beast collapsed, Daniel twisted with fluid grace, driving his heel into the knight's chest. The armored figure toppled backward, exposed for the killing thrust that pinned him to the earth.
The third tried to flank him, its blade raised for a decapitating blow. Daniel turned his head slightly, as if anticipating the strike before it came. He ducked beneath the swing, rotated once, and in three unbroken cuts, arm, knee, and neck, the knight was undone. No wasted strength. No hesitation. Brutality wrapped in elegance. When the last body hit the ground, Daniel exhaled once, calm and unshaken, his boots untouched by the gore he had created.
But on the other flank, the battle was chaos. Charlotte danced in fire, her twin blades clashing against the heavy strikes of a Death Knight. Her flames seared into the salamander's flesh, forcing it to reel, but the knight pressed relentlessly, driving her back with brute strength. Each clash sent sparks flying, her movements fierce and determined but lacking the effortless precision Daniel displayed.
Natasha loosed a volley of frost-tipped bolts, each striking the legs of the second salamander. Ice spread like veins across its rotting hide, slowing its charge. Yet the Death Knight upon its back raised a corrupted lance that hurled shards of necrotic energy into her defensive wards, shattering them one by one. Natasha's lips curled in focus, reloading with icy calm, but sweat beaded on her brow as she struggled to keep the monster at bay.
Cody raised his staff high, unleashing another thunderous shockwave. The ground quaked, knocking the third salamander off balance. Its rider, however, endured, driving his blade into the earth to anchor himself before countering with a slash that sent a ripple of dark energy ripping toward Cody. He staggered under the assault, blood running from his nose, but held his ground, summoning another burst of force to protect Natasha.
Emma's eyes burned as she scanned through the haze of battle, her voice quick in Brie's mind.
"The helm is hollow; strike at the jawline! The salamander heart is exposed near the left rib!" Brie echoed her words instantly into the minds of Charlotte, Natasha, and Cody, each instruction like a lifeline thrown into stormy waters.
Together, with grit and coordination, they pressed forward. Charlotte's blades carved into exposed weak points, Emma revealed. Natasha's frost shattered armor joints already weakened by Cody's shockwaves. Each move cost them sweat, blood, and breath, but slowly, inch by inch, the Death Knights faltered. Their salamanders shrieked, their armor cracked, and with one final coordinated push, the three hunters brought their enemies down.
When the last fell, silence washed briefly over the field. Charlotte collapsed to one knee, her chest heaving. Natasha steadied herself against her crossbow, trembling but refusing to drop it. Cody wiped the blood from his nose, eyes still locked on the fallen foes.
And when they looked across the battlefield, they saw Daniel calm, collected, his blade clean, his breathing even. Three Death Knights had fallen to him as though they were nothing more than practice targets. No wasted strikes. No missteps.
The contrast was undeniable. For the others, victory had been wrung from blood, sweat, and teamwork. For Daniel, it had been inevitable.