Chapter 547: Abyssal X
The stair cracked beneath the weight of the descending presence.
The first Throne revealed itself—not as a figure of flesh, but as a geometry made living. A being sculpted of decrees and absolutes, its body a lattice of commandments, its eyes endless scrolls of unbroken law. Every step it took rewrote the stair, bending stone and marrow into perfect symmetry.
Its voice was not spoken but inscribed across reality:
"I am the Inviolate. I am the First Law. I am That Which Does Not Break."
The erased shuddered. Some flickered as if erased again, their embers gasping under the suffocating weight of permanence. Even Milim’s violet fire recoiled for a heartbeat, her laughter choked into a growl.
But Leon stood unshaken. His flame flared, not brighter, but deeper—rooted in marrow, in memory, in defiance that no decree could silence.
He whispered, barely audible:
"...Then you will be the first to break."
The Inviolate raised its hand. A decree fell.
Not a spear. Not a shield. A word.
"Silence."
The stair buckled. Voices died in throats. Flames guttered. Liliana’s threads snapped like cut silk, Roselia’s emberblade dimmed, Naval’s roar strangled in his chest. Even the chorus—the endless hymn of the erased—shuddered into quiet. The Tower itself groaned under the command.
For the first time, the battlefield hushed.
And in that silence, the Throne strode forward, decree after decree stitching reality tighter with every step.
"There will be no song. No flame. No memory. Only law."
But silence is not absence.
In the marrow, resonance trembled still—too deep for decree to reach. Too old for command to erase.
Leon closed his eyes. His lips curved into the faintest smile.
And then—he breathed.
The breath itself was flame.
A spark at first, fragile, smaller than silence. But sparks catch. Sparks spread.
The erased stirred. Their flames relit, faint but defiant. Roman coughed blood and laughed hoarsely, his voice returning. "Hah! Can’t silence me that easy!"
Roselia’s blade rekindled, its ember glow faint but steady. Liliana’s threads rewove, trembling but whole. Naval’s scales smoldered, his chest shaking with a reborn roar. Milim’s laughter burst back, ragged but furious, violet fire clawing its way through silence.
And then—one by one—the chorus began again. Quiet. Low. But rising.
Leon opened his eyes, flame reflected in every ember. His voice was not loud, but it carried where decree could not:
"You are the First Law. Then hear the First Song."
The marrow boomed in answer. The stair blazed. The silence cracked.
And the Inviolate, the First Throne, faltered.
The falter was slight—an infinitesimal hesitation in the lattice of decree that made the Inviolate’s form.
But hesitation in law is fracture.
The crack rang out like thunder. The stair shuddered. The marrow pulsed. The chorus surged.
The erased roared louder, their voices woven into Leon’s spark. The hymn rose—not a song of rebellion, but of origin. Every step climbed, every death endured, every victory stolen—all remembered.
The First Song.
The Inviolate staggered back a pace, decree-flames spilling from its joints like shards of broken scripture. Its scroll-eyes flared, pages tearing themselves into ribbons of blinding command.
"I do not falter! I cannot falter! I AM THE FIRST LAW!"
The Tower screamed under its cry. Laws bent jaggedly, reasserting, trying to lock reality back into place. The stair stretched, warped, folding into perfect, suffocating symmetry. The erased began to freeze mid-step, their memories caught like flies in amber.
But Leon lifted his hand.
The spark in him swelled, flaring into resonance that no symmetry could bind. He struck the air like a conductor’s baton.
The hymn shifted.
Where decree froze memory, flame thawed it. Where symmetry caged rhythm, resonance shattered the cage. The chorus surged again, not weaker but freer, voices climbing out of silence’s coffin.
Liliana’s threads blazed silver, no longer trembling but taut as steel, weaving sparks into unbreakable harmony. Roselia’s emberblade split into constellations of flame, each star a duel reborn. Naval’s molten roar broke symmetry apart, dragons carving chaotic arcs through geometry. Roman’s specters multiplied until a legion of duelists stormed the stair. Milim tore silence into ribbons, devouring decree with shrieks of joy.
And Leon—Leon sang.
Not with words, but with flame, each note threading through marrow, into stair, into abyss. A song older than law. A song the Tower itself remembered.
The Inviolate reeled as cracks spiderwebbed across its lattice. Its decree-arm trembled, glyphs sputtering.
"Blasphemy! You would unmake what cannot break?"
Leon’s flame surged, his eyes alight with the marrow’s resonance. His reply was soft, but it burned louder than the Throne’s bellow:
"Everything breaks. Even silence. Even law."
He struck forward. The chorus struck with him.
Flame and memory collided with decree and permanence, and the stair itself detonated in resonance.
The First Throne’s lattice shattered into a storm of broken commandments.
And from the marrow’s depths, the chains rattled again—louder than ever.
The Tower was waking.
The shards of broken commandments rained down like glass forged from scripture. Each fragment burned with dying decree, hissing as it sank into the marrow-fire below. The stair trembled, no longer flawless symmetry but a living battlefield—raw, imperfect, alive.
The Inviolate’s voice lingered, faint, dissonant, echoing like a law no longer obeyed:
"Impossible... law does not yield... law does not—"
Its form dissolved, lattice unweaving, scroll-eyes tearing into ribbons that fluttered like ash. For the first time since eternity began, the First Law was no longer inviolate.
The silence broke—not into stillness, but into uproar. The erased howled, their flames roaring higher, no longer faint embers but bonfires relit by memory. Their hymn shook the marrow, their chorus climbing in waves, no longer hushed but defiant.
Liliana collapsed to her knees, her threads still shimmering, her voice trembling with awe. "He... he broke it. He broke a Throne."
Roman barked a ragged laugh, coughing blood into his palm. "Not broke—rewrote. The bastard turned the First Law into a footnote."
Naval slammed his fist into the stair, scales blazing molten red. "Then we’ll carve the rest into ash!"
Milim licked violet flame from her lips, her grin wild, eyes burning like twin abysses. "ONE DOWN. MORE TO BITE. LET THEM ALL COME!"