The last of the golden characters vanished completely. The throne room fell into a silence so heavy it felt like the air itself had weight. No more words appeared.
Veneri exhaled slowly. For a moment, he didn't say anything. Then he turned and began walking toward the throne at the far end of the room. His footsteps echoed in the vast chamber.
"I think this is where it ended."
Veneri stopped in front of the throne and raised his hand. For the first time in a very long time, the air around him began to distort with a strange, unfamiliar pressure.
He activated his Justice Divinity. The temperature dropped and the space in front of the throne shimmered like a heat mirage.
"I'm using Memory Extraction. It doesn't just work on living beings. Objects, places, anything that has witnessed events long enough can retain echoes."
His hand pressed lightly against the armrest of the throne.
"And this room has seen everything."
Images began to form in front of us like a projection made of smoke and gold. The throne room remained but it was overlaid with a ghostly version of itself from decades ago. The walls were pristine, banners hung unburnt and the torches burned bright and steady.
On the throne, a man sat there.
He looked younger than any of us expected. He was in his mid-twenties at most. His black hair was tied neatly behind his head. He wore imperial robes lined with silver embroidery, but his shoulders looked tired beneath them.
He was the Emperor of Vienshternhein.
"Liang Zhenyu," Veneri whispered, reading the name off a faint memory imprint etched into the throne itself. "That's his name."
Zhenyu leaned back slightly with his hand resting weakly on the armrest. He smiled faintly at the empty hall in front of him.
"My army… should be arriving soon."
When he coughed, golden blood splattered against his sleeve. Zhenyu looked down at his hand as more of that metallic, shimmering blood dripped from his lips. His sleeve slid back slightly, revealing his wrist. Black veins crawled beneath his pale skin like cracks in glass.
"So, it has reached this stage. Only ten minutes left."
He let out a long, tired sigh and leaned back against the throne.
"My work is done. They made it. None of them were infected. The Passageway… should be destroyed by now."
He chuckled weakly, wiping his mouth.
"That's good. That means… I can finally rest."
From within his robes, he slowly pulled out a dagger. Even in this memory, it shimmered with an unnatural brilliance. It was clear, flawless, and refracting light like a prism. Nari's breath hitched.
"That's a Letian Diamond dagger! If he stabs himself with that, it'll crystallize his entire body and erase his existence permanently!"
None of us could look away. Zhenyu turned the dagger in his hand, watching the reflections dance along its edge. For a brief moment, his grip trembled.
Then the massive doors of the throne room creaked open behind him. But instead of turning, he smiled faintly.
"So… you made it back."
Without hesitation, he drove the dagger straight into his own chest. A sharp, crystalline crack echoed through the hall. His body jerked once, then went still.
The transformation began instantly.
Starting from the wound, his flesh turned translucent, then solid. His skin, his robes, even his hair began to harden into clear, shimmering glass. The black veins froze mid-spread, suspended inside the crystal like dark lightning trapped in ice.
He chuckled weakly, with blood—now turning to glittering shards—spilling from his lips.
"I was worried that you wouldn't make it back in time."
Behind him, the doors slammed fully open. A woman rushed in.
The Empress was breathtaking with long silver hair flowing behind her. Her was armor stained with dried black blood and her presence radiated a power that made even the memory feel suffocating. Her eyes, however, were wide with pure, unfiltered horror.
"Zhenyu!"
She reached him just as the glass spread across his neck. Her hands grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.
"What did you do?! Why would you—why would you do this?!"
Her fingers trembled as they brushed against his already hardening skin. He smiled at her, his lips now half-crystal.
"My time… is up. You destroyed the Passageway, didn't you?"
She shook her head violently. Her tears were already streaming down her face.
"Don't talk like that! We did it, yes—but you're coming with us! We can still save you! I'll find a way!"
He slowly lifted one stiffening hand and rested it against her cheek.
"I'm glad that I got to see you… one last time."
Her composure shattered completely.
"Don't say that! Liang Zhenyu, you idiot, don't you dare leave me like this! Why did you stab yourself?!"
He let out a soft, glass-tinged laugh.
"Because… I didn't want you to see me turn into one of them..I wanted you to remember me… like this."
She began channeling her Divinity. It poured into him, wrapping around his crystallizing form, trying desperately to reverse the process. The air shook with the force of it.
"Come back! I command you—come back!"
But the Letian Diamond didn't care about Divinity. It was absolute. The glass spread across his face, freezing his gentle smile in place.
"I love you, my dear. Keep the empress safe for me, will you, my soldiers?"
And with that, his entire body cracked. The glass particles began to fade. She collapsed against him, sobbing uncontrollably.
"No… no, no, no… please don't do this to me… please…"
The soldiers began flooding into the hall behind her. They stopped dead when they saw the Emperor's fading glass body. Some of them dropped their weapons. Others fell to their knees.bMore cracks began to spread across Zhenyu's crystallized body. Tiny shards fell off, drifting into the air like glittering snow. The Empress clutched him tighter, as if she could hold him together through sheer will.
"Stay just… stay a little longer…"
But the cracks only widened.
With a soft, delicate sound, his body broke apart into thousands of tiny, shimmering fragments. They floated upward and dissolved into nothing. The Empress was left kneeling on the floor with her arms wrapped around empty air. For a few seconds, she didn't move.
Then a sound tore out of her throat. It was filled with a grief so deep it made my chest physically hurt to hear it. Behind her, every soldier in the hall dropped to their knees as many of them began to cry openly.
The memory froze there. An empress was sobbing on the throne room floor, surrounded by an army that had won the war only to lose the one person they had been fighting for.
The projection flickered and shattered.