The voice in the Abyssal Spire—ancient, vast, and dripping with contempt—reverberated not in the air, but in the very foundation of Lucian's soul. The Pretender arrives.
A lesser man would have been cowed, his spirit crushed by the sheer weight of that cosmic disdain. A lesser man might have raged at the insult. Lucian Veythar did neither. He simply tilted his head, a flicker of cold, analytical light in his eyes. A challenge to his sovereignty. An obstacle to be dismantled.
"If I am the Pretender," Lucian's voice was a low murmur, absorbed by the non-material of the spire, "then this world has never known a true king."
He placed his palm flat against the glowing violet rune. The moment his skin made contact, reality dissolved. The crimson sky, the jagged obsidian, the very concept of the Rift—it all vanished, replaced by a chamber of absolute, featureless black. It was a perfect void, a domain he understood intimately.
From the darkness opposite him, a figure coalesced. It was tall, silent, with dark hair and eyes that held the cold depth of a starless cosmos. It was him. A perfect reflection, an Echo of his newly forged self, down to the last iota of chilling power that radiated from its form.
The Abyssal Throne tests its claimant with a reflection of his own nature, the voice intoned, now a dispassionate observer. The Echo holds all that you are. It knows all that you know. Survive. Ascend.
The Echo moved, not a fraction of a second after the voice had faded, but in perfect concert with Lucian's own decision to act. Both lunged. Both used Veil of Silence to erase the sound of their approach. Both manipulated the non-existent shadows with Shadow Stitch to create faint distortions, feints within feints. Their hands, poised to unleash Sovereign's Devouring, met in the center of the void with a silent, jarring impact that was felt not as force, but as two competing hungers canceling one another out.
They were perfectly matched. A stalemate.
Lucian retreated, his mind processing the encounter with chilling speed. To fight this Echo with strength was to fight a mirror with a fist. It was an exercise in utter futility. Raw power would not grant victory here. This was not a test of force. It was a test of supremacy. He had to prove he was the original, not by being stronger, but by being more himself.
What, then, was the core of his being? Not the power. The power was a tool. Not the body. The body was a vessel. It was the will. The sovereign, unshakable will.
He met the Echo's blank, obsidian gaze and activated his newest weapon. [Mind Scour Activated.] He didn't project a thought or an image, but a pure, conceptual sliver of his intent: Submit.
The Echo, in the same instant, did the exact same thing. A wave of abyssal dread met his own, a head-on collision in a war of wills. The void chamber vibrated with the silent, mental shrieking of their psychic battle. Still, a stalemate.
But a perfect copy is still just a copy. An echo lacks the original, resonant source of the sound. Lucian had a source. An obsession that fueled the cold fire of his ambition.
He shifted his mental attack. He allowed the Echo access to a single, crystal-clear image. Elara Wintersong. He projected the memory of her face, not as a weakness to be exploited, but as an object of absolute possession. He imbued the image with the full, predatory weight of his obsession. Mine.This is the reason for my ascent. She is the prize that awaits the victor.You are merely a reflection, an obstacle to my claiming of her.
For the first time, the Echo faltered. Its psychic assault wavered for less than a pico-second. It had the memory of Elara, but it did not have the hunger. The obsession was a flaw, a crack in his supposedly perfect soul, and the Echo, being a perfect copy, could not replicate the beautiful imperfection of a broken thing.
That was the opening.
Lucian didn't press the mental attack. That would be too obvious. Instead, in that instant of hesitation, he feigned a retreat, allowing a flicker of what looked like psychic exhaustion to show. Simultaneously, he used Veil of Silence on himself and Shadow Stitch on his own shadow, sending the dark shape lunging forward as a decoy.
The Echo, its logic momentarily disrupted by the alien concept of his obsession, reacted predictably. It fell for the feint, lunging toward the shadow-decoy, its hand glowing with the power of the void.
And Lucian, the true Lucian, emerged from the silence at its flank, his own palm already glowing. He placed his hand on the back of his double's head.
"A reflection cannot possess a will," he stated, his voice the only sound in the cosmos. "And you have no claim on my property."
He triggered Sovereign's Devouring. This time, there was no resistance. He consumed himself, his own echo, his own limitations. It was an agony and an ecstasy beyond description as the Echo's power and essence flooded back into the source. He wasn't just regaining energy; he was integrating a paradox, absorbing his own potential.
[Echo of the Void devoured. The Sovereign has consumed his own reflection.]
[System Notice: The Host's will has been acknowledged as supreme. The Throne recognizes its master.]
[Innate Talent Upgraded: Sovereign's Devouring now has a low probability of stealing a core attribute or ability from exceptionally powerful targets.]
The black chamber dissolved around him, and he was standing before the spire once more. The voice spoke, and the contempt was gone, replaced by a cold, resonant acknowledgement.
The Pretender sheds his skin. The path to the Abyssal Throne is open. Ascend.
As the words faded, the seamless black wall before him rippled like liquid shadow and melted away, revealing a spiral staircase leading up into a darkness so absolute it seemed to have physical weight. His path was clear.
----
At the base of the spire in Aetherion, the heroes were faced with their own impassable entrance. The grand doors were made of a silver-white metal, etched with intricate runes that glowed faintly. At the center was a single, large, unlit crystal.
"Pushing is out," Draven grunted, stepping back after having pitted his Titan's Will against the doors to no effect. They hadn't budged an inch.
"And it appears my charms don't work on inanimate objects. A shame," Kael sighed dramatically.
"The inscription… 'The Calamity was born of a Sovereign Soul'… 'His sin was Pride'," Elara recited, her gaze sweeping over the runes. "The key must be the opposite of that."
"The opposite of pride? Teamwork?" Mira suggested, ever the optimist.
Selvara, tapping a finger on her chin, added, "Or perhaps it refers to the inscription we saw earlier. 'When the five stars align'. That's us. We're the five stars."
Elara's eyes lit up with cold understanding. She pointed to five smaller, barely visible runic circles set into the floor before the grand entrance. "There. Five circles. Five of us. We stand on them. I think we need to channel the energy from our systems, together."
It was their best and only lead. They each took a position. As they stood on the circles, the runes beneath their feet began to glow, each a different color corresponding to their nature—ice-blue for Elara, vibrant green for Mira, smoky purple for Selvara, shimmering gold for Kael, and solid bronze for Draven.
"Now what?" Draven asked, sounding uneasy with the esoteric magic.
"Unity!" Mira declared. [Voice of Unity Activated!] "Everyone, focus on the crystal in the door. Don't think about yourselves, think about us, as one! Pour everything into that thought!"
Her voice was the conductor. A current of energy flowed from each of them, a stream of colored light that shot from their glowing circles and converged on the large, dark crystal. Blue, green, purple, gold, and bronze light swirled together. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, with a low hum that grew into a resonant chime, the crystal ignited, bathing the plaza in a pure, white brilliance. The massive silver doors groaned, shuddered, and began to slide apart with the weight of ages.
"It worked!" Kael cheered, breaking the formation to peer inside.
The air that wafted out was cool and ancient, carrying the scent of dust and forgotten time. There was no grand hall or treasure room. Just a spiral staircase, identical in form to the one in Lucian's spire, but crafted from white marble, leading down into the palpable, subterranean darkness.
"The Sunken Heart," Elara breathed, a sense of foreboding chilling her more than her own power ever could. Their path to saving this world, it seemed, began with a descent into its darkest depths.
As the heroes stood at the precipice, looking down into the unknown, miles away and in a different reality, Lucian Veythar placed his foot on the first step of his own staircase, looking up into the waiting darkness of his throne. One path led down into a tomb. The other, up toward a throne. The collision was inevitable.