Ezmelral stood within the veil of time, the chaotic spectacle below still echoing in her mind. The destruction of the Void beings had left a bewildering haze in its wake. As always, she turned to her master, her voice a blend of curiosity and frayed patience. "What exactly is going on here?"
Raiking's lips twitched into a teasing smile, his crimson eyes glinting. "Are you certain you wish to know? It may spoil the grand reveal."
"Yes," she insisted, crossing her arms with a determined nod. "I want to know. Now."
He knew her well—that insatiable thirst for knowledge was as much a part of her as her Essence Core, marking her as both a scholar and a warrior. Yielding to her persistence, he leaned closer, his tone shifting to one of quiet revelation. "Thornborne's mother is famously protective of her dying son. Yet she sent him to a tournament where life and death are decided by the blade. Does that not strike you as odd?"
Ezmelral's brow furrowed. She hadn't known of the mother's reputation, but the logic stirred her own instincts. If I were dying, my father would never have sent me here. He would have moved the cosmos itself to find another way.
This realization fueled her next question, voiced with growing suspicion. "Even with the Flameonic Bloodline, is he the strongest youth in the Northern Cosmos?"
Raiking shook his head, his expression grave. "No. He is only at Level 3 of the Cosmic Realm—the lowest tier present."
Suspicion coiled tighter in her mind. "That's... inexplicable," she murmured, then pressed further. "So why did his mother approve?"
"Your lookalike made a deal with her."
Ezmelral's eyes widened. "When? We've been watching their lives unfold! When did she have the time?"
Raiking's expression softened with patience. "We are merely guests in the passage of time," he reminded her, his tone gentle yet firm. "Borrowing the Keeper's eyes to see what she has seen—nothing more."
Ezmelral's mind raced back, recalling how Raiking had always emphasized the immense power gap between the GodKing and the Keepers—entities who dwarfed the cosmos itself. She remembered the first words exchanged when their presence was noticed: a dismissive command to "ignore us," as if their observation were a minor irritation.
The phrase lingered in her thoughts. Does that mean they can intervene? To confirm her theory, she asked aloud, her voice steady despite her unease: "Even though we aren't truly here, can the GodKing challenge our presence? Block what we see?"
Raiking nodded, his expression grave. "As the disciple of the Keeper of Time and Fate, he possesses methods to evade her gaze—to shroud his actions even from her all-seeing eyes."
The implication settled in her chest like a stone. She was struck by the sheer power they were circumspectly observing, the delicate balance of their vigil. Pushing past the feeling, she asked, her voice firm: "What was the deal?"
He tilted his head, a faint smile on his lips. "Did we not already witness the result?"
Her mind flashed to the Orb of Reincarnation—Thornborne's collapse, the holy light, the GodKing's promise of a new beginning. But Thornborne had fought for survival, not for death. "Did Thornborne know?" she asked, confusion knitting her brow.
"He did not."
"So his mother sent him to his death unknowingly?" Ezmelral's voice rose with disbelief and horror.
"Would a mother who loves her child do such a thing?" Raiking countered quietly.
Her breath hitched. The final piece clicked into place—the GodKing's promise of a cure. "The reincarnation... it was to break the bloodline's curse! That was the deal!"
One mystery solved, another beckoned. Her gaze dropped to Solomon, still pinned under the crushing gravitational field. "What role does the Void Realm play in this?"
Raiking met her eyes, his crimson gaze narrowing. "Do you remember the Flameonic Entity?"
"The one slain by a Void General in the Northern Cosmos?"
"Can such a coincidence exist?" he pressed, his tone inviting her to connect the threads.
Her mind raced. Entities rarely left Eden, their presence in the mortal cosmos a profound rarity. The odds of a Void General appearing exactly where the Flameonic Entity had ventured felt too precise, too orchestrated to be chance.
"You think it was orchestrated?" she voiced aloud, her words cautious.
"The GodKing believes it was the work of the Cosmic Will itself."
The revelation struck her like lightning, the puzzle assembling into a terrifying whole as she stared into the void portal's depths. "So Solomon is the key? The linchpin that makes the GodKing's plan work?"
He nodded. "Are you familiar with the theory of heightened near-death awareness?"
Ezmelral shook her head, her curiosity piqued.
"It's a state of extreme sensory sharpening," he explained, his voice low and measured. "When the body is on the brink, the mind can become hyper-aware, every instinct amplified."
"Is that why some people freeze in danger?" she asked, piecing it together.
"Precisely. Solomon's mind is tethered to the major void portal, but his body is being crushed. His connection to our world is severed, yet his subconscious is trapped in a perpetual near-death state—his senses heightened beyond their limits."
"Ah," she breathed, understanding dawning. "So if his brain is surging, it will fixate on the greatest threat to his life..."
"Which is the severing of his link to the Void Realm," Raiking finished.
"The greatest peril of entering the Void lies in exiting," she concluded, her voice firm. "As long as Solomon remains pinned..."
"The door stays open."
Ezmelral's thoughts churned. If this was all part of a plan, then her lookalike's earlier act—saving Aserenity by cleaving Solomon's void beam—was also a calculated move. "What is my lookalike's role in this?" she asked, turning back to Raiking.
"When she unveiled her power earlier," he said, his tone deliberate, "she forced Solomon's hand. She provoked him into summoning a stronger void presence from the very start, one capable of matching her displayed strength."
Ezmelral's mind returned to their earlier conversation about perspective—how every noble act concealed deeper truths. Her gaze swept over the crowd below, their faces alight with awe or confusion, content to see only the spectacle, blissfully unaware of the intricate web of strategy being woven right before their eyes.
---
Then the Void answered.
From four rifts, one after another, the Generals stepped through—each settling upon a rune dais, their lower halves trailing like smoke poured upward, crescent blades orbiting them in slow, predatory arcs.
Karthix, the Crown-Maw.
A violet nimbus ringed its head like a ruinous halo. Three slit eyes burned down the center of its face, and beneath them a cathedral of teeth opened on a soundless howl that drank the light around it. With every wingbeat, the air thinned—as if hunger itself were a wind.
Veskyr of the Verdant Choir.
Tall and jagged as a broken obelisk, it wept a thin, green luminance from a vertical maw that ran from crown to chest. A cluster of yellow eyes studded its torso, blinking out of sequence, each blink stealing a heartbeat of sound. Where its shadow touched stone, patterns curled like oxidized veins.
Morgral, Scale-Wing of the Abyss.
Armored in black, river-pebble scales slick with void sheen, it bore a crown of hooked spines and a triad of eyes stacked like a totem. Hooked hands clicked together with patient malice while its orbiting sickles mapped careful, tidal ellipses—as if measuring where the next piece of the world should be carved away.
Thamriel, the Tower of Gaze.
A spear of eyes climbed from its skull—one atop another—until sight itself felt vertical. Lesser eyes crowded its breastplate; thin violet currents crawled through its limbs. When all of them fixed on a point, reality seemed to hold its breath, threads of motion tugged taut and ready to sever.
---
Veskyr moved first. Its vertical maw yawned—an abyss unspooling. From that chasm, voidlings poured by the hundred, scything across the ebon expanse like chaff flung from a reaper, arrowing straight for the GodKing and his disciple in the heart of the Void.