"Not all gods are silent.Some never stopped singing."_
Somewhere far from the Graven Shore, beyond ruined stars and broken constellations, a cathedral of light and memory floated in the dark.
It was not built—it was sung into being.
Each wall hummed with divine resonance. Stained-glass timelines flickered along its halls. The floor was woven from consecrated gravity and the bones of extinct suns.
And at its center…
...a choir gathered.
Not of mortals.Not of angels.But of Sovereigns.
Each voice had shaped worlds. Each silence had ended them.
The Sovereign Choir had not convened in over 8,000 years.
Until now.
At the throne of echoes, a being of red threads and feathered void leaned forward.
"He has awakened the second fragment," said Vaskharel, the Red Hymn."Serath's Vein is sealed. The Graven Shore is lost."
Across the chamber, a woman wrapped in veils of starlight and razor-thin discs hissed.
"We told you the Hollow Core was incomplete," whispered Iskhelien, the Choir's Silence-Maiden."The copy should have decayed by now."
A third Sovereign, clad in a robe of endless equations, adjusted his crown of orbits.
"He remembers too much," murmured Loratheos, the Prime Calculant."He is no longer a fragment. He is convergence."
The room darkened.
At the highest arch, a vast chime resonated.
A voice spoke—not heard, but felt—behind every thought.
"You speak of him as if he is our equal," said the True Chanter, the one who had no name, no shape, no limit."He is not yet whole. But he seeks to be."
Silence.
Then the voice continued:
"If Lucien Vaelthorn dares chase the Crown of the Hollow Realms… then let him know the cost."
Back in the mortal realms, Lucien stood at a floating pier of memoryglass, above a sea that reflected stars that didn't exist.
The world was shifting again.
The system flickered.
[Global Event Triggered: Sovereign Attention Acquired][Anomaly Instability: 94%][System Lock Disabled Temporarily – Free State Protocol Engaged]
"They know," Lucien whispered.
He could feel it.
The Choir's attention was not light.It pressed like a cathedral resting on his bones.
Suddenly, the space around him shattered.
Not broken—sung apart.
From the shards of nothing stepped a woman.
No footsteps.
No shadow.
Her dress was made of tuning forks and veiled blades. Her smile was built from old songs.
"Lucien Vaelthorn," she said."The Choir sends its love."
Lucien raised Veyrion.
"You're a Chanter."
"No," she said, bowing. "I'm the Overture."
[WARNING: Encounter – Sovereign Overture: Lyrenna of the Thirteenth Verse][Tier: Cataclysm-Class Manipulator][Win Condition: Survive]
She stepped closer.
"I have not come to kill you," she said. "Not yet.""I've come to sing you your birthright."
Lucien's system blinked erratically as Lyrenna's voice filled the space between atoms.
Reality wobbled.
He dropped to a knee—blood running from his ears, his mouth, his eyes.
She's rewriting the area… through tone alone.
Veyrion howled in his hand, trying to stabilize the Null Domain, but it fractured like stained glass.
Lucien looked up.
"You think this breaks me?" he hissed."You're not the first Sovereign I've bled for."
Lyrenna smiled.
"But I'll be the last one you forgive."
Suddenly—silence.
The melody broke.
A ripple shot through the realm.
And Lyrenna stumbled.
Lucien's HUD reactivated.
[Authority Override: Null Codex Fragment – Online][Unknown Support Detected – Origin: Crown Memory Layer]
Lucien rose to his feet.
Behind him, a faint shimmering form appeared—a cloaked figure with no face and a broken crown of glass.
A phantom of himself.
It raised its hand.
And for a heartbeat, Lucien saw all the futures where he died—and all the ones where he didn't.
"Leave," he said.
Lyrenna hesitated.
Then bowed.
"We will sing again, King of Ash and Hollow.""Soon."
She vanished in a trail of notes.
Lucien exhaled.
The phantom turned to him, then whispered only one thing:
"Finish the crown."
Then it faded.
[System Stabilized][New Objective: Infiltrate the Sovereign Choir's Sanctum][Location Locked: Realm of the Final Verse]
[Crown Completion: 2/3]
Lucien stared into the void where Lyrenna had stood.
The stars pulsed with tension.
The final piece was out there.
Behind the Choir's walls.Guarded by god-voices and golden lies.
He clenched his fist.
"Then let's end the song."