Chapter 539: Abyssal II
The crowns burned away into nothingness. What once had been eternal mantles of dominion—halo, decree, voice—was now reduced to cinders scattering into a fire not their own. The Thrones faltered, their figures hollowed, no longer pillars of creation but husks stripped of their command.
The stair stretched onward, unbroken, pulsing with Leon’s heartbeat. Every step no longer obeyed the Thrones, nor did it bow to their weight. It was his stair now, a path of resonance forged by flame, echo, and law rewritten.
The abyss below writhed like a severed vein, spilling black fire that tried to climb, to reclaim, to drown. But each rise was devoured by his pulse, inverted and returned until the abyss itself began to collapse inward. Its endless hunger was no longer infinite. It was finite—bound, chained, and silenced.
The heavens above, stripped of their crowns, cracked like a canvas under too much strain. Their false constellations—woven decrees masquerading as stars—fell apart into streaks of falling ash. The sky was not broken by him. It was surrendered.
Leon stood at the center of it all, his breath thunder, his body flickering between human and something more. His allies clustered around him—bloodied, burned, but unbroken.
Roselia staggered, her emberblade digging into the stair for support. Her eyes never left him. "Leon... it’s done. They... they can’t rise again."
Naval, panting and scorched, barked out a laugh even as he fell to one knee. "Then let them sink. Thrones belong beneath the tide, not above it."
Milim’s grin was manic still, violet energy crackling off her body. She spun, arms wide, staring up into the shattering heavens. "No kings! No crowns! Just fire and fun! HAHAHA!"
Liliana trembled, her silver threads fraying as her body slumped. She barely stood, her voice no more than a whisper, yet it carried like scripture: "We’ve carried you this far... now... finish it."
Roman spat blood onto the stair, then leaned against the abyss’s edge as if daring it to rise again. His laughter was ragged but defiant. "They thought they were law... now they’re just ash in your fire, Leon."
The husks of the Thrones quivered, what remained of them desperately clawing toward form, toward the authority they no longer possessed. But their gestures were hollow. No decree carried. No command took root.
Leon raised his hand, and the stair blazed brighter, answering not as a tool but as an extension of himself. His voice carried, deeper now, reverberating with the weight of something final:
"Law ends here. Flame remains."
The stair surged upward, every step catching fire until the abyss screamed and the heavens tore. The Thrones, stripped of crown and decree, dissolved into nothing—dust carried on the pulse of his fire, scattered into silence.
What remained was not void, nor abyss, nor heaven.
It was the stair alone, endless and burning, and Leon upon it.
One step higher, and the Tower itself trembled.
The Tower shuddered like a living thing, its roots in the abyss groaning, its peak in the heavens cracking with a sound older than time. Every layer, every chamber, every echo of battle that had shaped its endless climb reverberated with the single truth now written into it: the Thrones were gone.
The stair no longer ascended into something ruled by crowns. It blazed into a horizon that no decree had ever touched.
Leon exhaled, and the flame surrounding him dimmed—not vanishing, but folding inward, compressing until it was not a storm but a core. His pulse steadied, no longer an upheaval but a foundation. The resonance sank deeper into the Tower itself, as though the stair was choosing to bind itself to him as much as he bound it.
His allies watched, half in awe, half in fear.
Roselia tightened her grip on her emberblade, its flame guttering low. "Leon... the Tower moves with you. That step—" Her voice trembled. "—it wasn’t just yours. It was its."
Naval’s hair still crackled with static as he slowly forced himself upright. He spat, wiped blood from his jaw, and scowled. "Damn thing’s bending... not to a throne, but to you. Hah. You’ve scared the Tower itself."
Milim bounced on her heels, wild laughter giving way to wide-eyed fascination. "He broke the crowns... now he’s wearing the fire instead. Not a throne. Not a king. Something worse. Something better!" She cackled, half in reverence, half in thrill.
Liliana, barely conscious, sagged against her silver threads that still stitched faintly across the stair. Her lips curved into a fragile smile. "This... was the true climb, wasn’t it? Not to bow, not to ascend as one of them... but to erase them."
Roman barked a cough, then chuckled, his shoulders shaking with pain. "Erase ’em, then step higher. Typical Leon. Always making the impossible sound like it’s just... the next damn step."
The husks of the Thrones, those hollowed remnants that had tried to clutch at power, flickered once more and vanished for good—consumed not by fire, but by silence. They were denied even the dignity of ashes.
The stair stretched onward, higher than any of them could see, blazing with a rhythm not of law, but of pulse. Of heart. Of flame.
Leon lifted his gaze, and for the first time since his climb began, there was nothing above him to command the path. Only a horizon of fire, infinite and unwritten.
His voice was quiet, almost too quiet for the stair that now carried every echo.
"...Then we’ll write it ourselves."
The Tower shook again, not in rebellion—
—but in acknowledgment.
The Throne War was over.
Something else had begun.
The fire-born stair did not end. It stretched, winding into distances that felt less like height and more like infinity, each step a beat in the rhythm that now belonged to Leon.
The Tower itself—its walls, its roots, its endless chambers—quivered as though caught between collapse and metamorphosis. The echoes of every duel, every recognition, every throne’s decree swam in the air like ghosts unanchored. Yet instead of fading, they bled into the pulse, subsumed into a new script.
For the first time in eternity, the Tower was ownerless.
And for the first time, it chose.