The room of ascension was silent.
Not the peaceful kind, but the sort that hummed with judgment.
The stone walls pulsed faintly, carrying whispers of every oath broken within it.
Tonight, it waited to witness another.
Roy crawled.
His fingers, raw and trembling, scraped the obsidian floor. His breath came in broken gasps.
Once radiant, once feared now dulled, slipping away.
The last son of a forgotten god.
No temples carried his father's name.
No songs.
No prayers.
Only dust and ruins and silence.
And so Roy faded too.
Still, he crawled.
At the heart of the room, the Chalice of Purity floated.
Its molten light stretched out like a hand he could never grasp.
A promise, rebirth, betrayal, oblivion.
He didn't care which.
"Father," he rasped.
Not a prayer. Not a plea. A curse.
His hand touched the base of the pedestal. Warmth bled into his skin.
The chalice stirred.
And then a voice.
Smooth. Cold. Endless.
"Oh, Roy. You still believe your choices are your own?"
Roy froze.
The chamber dimmed.
The chalice's glow withered.
A shadow moved, not from the corners, but from between the seconds themselves.
Time rippled.
Memory buckled.