The throne did not welcome him.
It judged him.
The moment Caelum sat, pain erupted through every fiber of his being—not the sharp agony of broken bones, but something older, deeper.
Recognition.
The black stone beneath him pulsed like a living heart. Veins of gold flared along its surface, crawling outward across the chamber floor in intricate patterns. The crystalline veins in the ceiling brightened, shedding pale radiance over ancient walls carved with forgotten history.
Energy surged upward through his spine.
His fractured core reacted violently.
The suppression seal left by the Celestial Empire cracked again—splinters of celestial script breaking apart under the pressure of something far more ancient.
Caelum clenched his jaw.
If he lost control now, the power would tear him apart.
Images flooded his mind once more.
Not chaotic flashes this time.
Clearer.
A battlefield beneath a unified sky—half gold, half crimson. Celestial soldiers fighting alongside beings shaped from Nether essence. Not enemies.
Allies.
At the center stood a figure cloaked in flame that shimmered both radiant and dark. Neither holy nor corrupted. Balanced.
A Sovereign.
The First Sovereign.
The throne beneath him vibrated.
And suddenly, Caelum understood.
The Origin Flame was never meant to be pure.
It was meant to be whole.
The Celestial Empire had only preserved one half.
The Nether Realm carried the other.
When the realms split, so did the flame.
And someone—long ago—had erased that truth from history.
The energy surge intensified.
Caelum felt his meridians expanding under strain. Tiny fissures in his spiritual channels widened as foreign energy poured through.
He forced his breathing steady.
Inhale.
Hold.
Circulate.
The golden-black flame inside him stopped lashing wildly and began rotating in a controlled spiral.
Not celestial rotation.
Not nether rotation.
A new pattern.
Pain sharpened into clarity.
The broken bones in his hand snapped back into alignment with a sickening crack. Flesh sealed slowly under flickers of flame. His ribs reformed imperfectly but sturdier than before.
Reconstruction.
Not restoration.
Improvement.
The suppression seal shattered completely.
For the first time since exile, his core opened fully.
But it was no longer the same core.
Where once a radiant sun-like orb of golden energy had floated—
Now there was a twin spiral.
Gold and black orbiting each other.
The twin spiral did not clash.
It synchronized.
Gold rotated clockwise. Black counterclockwise. Between them, a thin line of silver light formed—a boundary, a balance point, a law.
Caelum stared inward at his transformed core.
"This… is not corruption," he whispered.
It was integration.
The throne responded.
A low resonance filled the chamber, deep and ancient, vibrating not in the air but in bone and soul. Lines of script rose from the floor and circled him like constellations. They were not written in modern Celestial glyphs nor in chaotic Nether runes.
They were older.
Primal.
A presence gathered behind him.
Not a physical body.
A silhouette of flame.
Tall. Armored. Crowned in something that resembled neither halo nor horn, but both.
The First Sovereign.
Or what remained of him.
The presence did not speak in words.
It pressed meaning directly into Caelum's consciousness.
Power divided invites tyranny.
Power unified demands sacrifice.
Caelum's jaw tightened.
"You failed," he said quietly. "Didn't you?"
The silhouette flickered.
Images surged again.
A council of celestial elders.
Fear in their eyes.
The Sovereign standing alone.
A vote.
A decree.
The Nether half sealed away.
History rewritten.
The Sovereign erased.
Betrayal.
The same pattern.
Caelum exhaled slowly.
"So nothing changes," he murmured. "Even eight thousand years later."
The presence did not deny it.
Instead, the throne pulsed again.
A new vision unfolded.
A fracture spreading through the Upper Realm.
The Heavenly Veil weakening.
Something vast moving in the Void beyond the Three Realms.
Lucerius.
Standing before a sealed chamber beneath the Imperial Sanctum.
Smiling.
Caelum's blood ran cold.
The Origin Flame had not been stolen.
It had been triggered.
Used.
Lucerius needed imbalance.
Needed the veil weakened.
Needed Caelum removed.
Not just for political control.
For something larger.
The vision ended abruptly.
The chamber dimmed.
The presence behind him began to dissolve.
"Wait," Caelum demanded.
One final surge of understanding pressed into him before it faded completely.
Inheritance is not given.
It is claimed.
Silence fell.
The throne no longer vibrated.
The chamber returned to stillness.
But Caelum was not the same.
He rose slowly.
Energy moved through him differently now—heavier, denser, but stable.
He stepped down from the throne platform and extended his hand.
Golden-black flame formed instantly.
Not explosive.
Controlled.
He compressed it deliberately.
The fire condensed into a sphere the size of a coin, rotating smoothly between his fingers.
Refined output.
Efficient.
He smiled faintly.
Then—
The chamber trembled.
Not from him.
From above.
A shockwave rippled through the ceiling. Dust cascaded downward.
Caelum's expression hardened.
The earlier surge of awakening had not gone unnoticed.
But this tremor was different.
Organized.
Rhythmic.
A pulse.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Like a heartbeat echoing across the Nether Realm.
The air grew colder.
Not natural cold.
Predatory cold.
A presence far stronger than the Warden he had slain began descending toward the ruin.
Caelum extinguished the flame in his hand.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Measured his reserves.
He was stronger than before.
But not invincible.
Not yet.
The pulse intensified.
The crystalline veins in the ceiling flickered erratically.
The throne behind him dimmed further—as if conserving strength.
The staircase leading upward groaned under pressure.
Then—
A crack split across the chamber entrance.
Stone exploded inward.
A figure stepped through the dust.
Tall.
Humanoid.
But composed of layered shadow reinforced with jagged bone armor.
Its face was concealed beneath a helm resembling a skull split down the center. From within the cracks, red light burned steadily.
Unlike the Warden, this entity radiated control.
Awareness.
It spoke.
"Unauthorized ignition detected."
Its voice sounded like metal grinding against stone.
Caelum did not answer immediately.
He studied it.
The energy signature was vastly denser than the previous creature.
Structured.
Command-level.
"A Sovereign Fragment bearer," the entity continued. "Probability of survival: anomaly."
Caelum's eyes narrowed.
"You recognize it," he said.
The entity tilted its head slightly.
"Designation: Guardian Executor."
It stepped fully into the chamber.
Each step left fractures in the stone.
"You are not permitted to ascend."
Caelum almost laughed.
"I've been hearing that a lot lately."
The Executor moved without warning.
Faster than the Warden.
Faster than anything he had faced so far.
Caelum barely formed a defensive spiral before a blade of condensed shadow struck him across the torso.
The impact launched him through a pillar.
Pain exploded again—but he rolled midair, twisting, landing hard but upright.
The Executor did not pursue recklessly.
It observed.
Calculating.
Caelum wiped blood from his mouth.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's see what you're protecting."
He drew energy from the twin spiral core.
Not explosively.
Layer by layer.
Gold flowed first, forming a structured framework.
Black followed, weaving through it like veins.
The flame he produced now was no longer chaotic.
It was deliberate.
He dashed forward.
The Executor met him halfway.
Shadow blade clashed with golden-black fire.
The collision sent shockwaves rippling across the chamber.
Caelum redirected the force downward, channeling impact into the ancient formation beneath the floor.
The formation flared, reinforcing the chamber walls.
The Executor paused.
"Environmental synchronization detected," it stated.
"Adaptive threat level increasing."
Caelum pivoted and launched a compressed sphere of flame directly at its helm.
The Executor sliced through it—
But the sphere detonated inward instead of outward.
A implosion.
The shadow armor cracked.
For the first time, the red light within flickered.
It retaliated instantly.
A barrage of shadow spears materialized midair and shot toward Caelum from every angle.
He inhaled sharply and spun, expanding his flame outward into a rotating barrier.
The spears collided, exploding in bursts of miasma.
The chamber shook violently.
Cracks spread along the walls.
The throne behind him dimmed further.
He couldn't let the battle destroy this place.
Not yet.
The Executor extended both arms.
The air compressed.
Gravity intensified.
Caelum's knees buckled under sudden weight.
The twin spiral inside his core strained.
"Submission recommended," the Executor said flatly.
Caelum's vision blurred.
His bones creaked under pressure.
But he did not kneel.
Instead—
He reversed the flow.
Instead of resisting gravity—
He absorbed it.
Black energy surged outward from his core, wrapping around the gravitational force like chains.
Gold reinforced structure.
He stepped forward under crushing weight.
The Executor hesitated.
"Impossible."
Caelum reached it in three strides.
He drove his burning hand straight into the fracture in its helm.
This time he did not explode outward.
He poured inward.
The golden-black flame invaded the shadow armor.
Not to destroy.
To rewrite.
The Executor convulsed violently.
Red light flared erratically.
Systems failing.
Corruption destabilizing.
For several seconds, they remained locked together—power surging back and forth.
Then—
Silence.
The shadow armor disintegrated into drifting particles.
The skeletal helm cracked and fell away.
What remained was not a monster.
It was a humanoid construct.
Ancient.
Carved from obsidian and etched with the same primal script as the throne.
Its red eyes dimmed to amber.
It lowered one knee.
"Recognition confirmed," it said.
"Sovereign Candidate acknowledged."
Caelum staggered back slightly.
"You were testing me."
"Assessment protocol required," the construct replied.
"Fragment integration verified."
Caelum exhaled slowly.
"You serve the throne."
"I serve the Sovereign."
A pause.
"Authority pending."
Caelum let out a short breath that might have been a laugh.
"Of course it is."
He looked toward the staircase above.
The pulses in the Nether Realm had not stopped.
If anything, they were growing stronger.
"What's coming?" he asked.
The construct turned its gaze upward.
"Containment failure."
A chill ran through Caelum.
"Define containment."
Before the construct could answer—
The chamber ceiling cracked violently.
Not from impact.
From pressure.
A roar unlike anything before tore through the ruin.
Ancient.
Titanic.
Hungry.
The crystalline veins overhead shattered completely.
Red lightning speared downward through the cracks.
The throne flared once more—reactive, defensive.
The construct's amber eyes brightened.
"Seal breach confirmed," it said.
"Primary Entity awakening."
The ground split open beyond the chamber walls.
A colossal shadow shifted beneath the earth itself.
Caelum felt it instantly.
Not just power—
Authority.
Something older than the Sovereign.
Older than the split of realms.
Something that should never have awakened.
The construct turned toward him.
"Decision required," it said.
"Retreat and consolidate power."
"Or confront and accelerate succession."
Caelum looked at his trembling hands.
At the twin spiral burning within him.
At the throne that remembered.
Then upward—toward the cracking world above.
Lucerius believed exile was a death sentence.
Instead—
It had opened a door.
And whatever was breaking free now—
Would not remain contained to the Nether Realm.
If it crossed into the Upper Realm—
The Empire would fall.
His father would fall.
Even Lucerius would fall.
Caelum's expression hardened.
"No more running," he said quietly.
The golden-black flame ignited around him once more—steady, controlled, sovereign.
"Show me the way."
The construct rose fully.
The chamber behind them began collapsing as something massive forced its way upward from beneath the ruins.
The Nether Realm roared in answer.
And for the first time since his exile—
Caelum stepped forward not as a prince.
Not as a victim.
But as a rising Sovereign preparing to face the first true terror of a forgotten war.
The earth exploded.