Chapter 542: Abyssal V
Naval’s laughter was ragged, torn through broken ribs, but it rang with pride. "Hah... Look at ’em. The Tower’s not theirs anymore. It’s every climber’s. Every damned step they tried to erase is back to spit in their crowns’ faces."
Roman leaned forward, sweat and blood pouring off him, but his grin was feral. "Good. Then Leon’s not alone at the top. He’s got an army of echoes—an army they can’t unwrite."
The heavens convulsed. The procession of crowns shivered as though struck by an unseen hand, their angles folding and unfolding in frantic rhythms. Their unified decree faltered. What had been ONLY THRONE now echoed with discordant undertones—cracks of defiance carried on the embers below.
Milim spread her arms wide, violet fire spilling from her skin like molten chaos. Her eyes shone with manic glee. "YES! Do you hear them?! A billion flames, a billion screams, and not one bends! HAHAHA! Burn it all, Leon—make the whole sky bleed fire!"
But the crowns were not broken. Not yet. Their hesitation hardened into wrath. Their fractured geometry twisted, birthing forms vaster than continents—wheels of eyes, spires of light, oceans of decree. They reached downward, not as edicts now, but as presence. The kind that unmade identity with a thought.
The stair itself groaned. Embers flickered. Echoes screamed. Entire spans of flame buckled as the Upper Thrones pressed harder, forcing silence back into the marrow.
Liliana fell to her knees, silver threads snapping uselessly against the weight. "They’re trying to overwrite again... they want to bury the flames beneath a single voice!"
Roselia thrust her emberblade into the stair, her own blood feeding the fire as she snarled. "Then we hold the line. Even if it burns us to ash—we’ll anchor him long enough for the next law."
Leon did not move. His flame pulsed in rhythm with every ember, every echo. He was not just a man standing on the stair anymore—he was the stair, the abyss, the sky.
His voice cut through the war of decrees, calm yet vast:
"The fourth law."
The crowns froze. Even their geometry bent inward, straining to listen.
Leon’s eyes blazed, reflecting billions of sparks.
"No flame shall be silenced. Every step shall burn eternal."
The Tower convulsed. The marrow of creation split like thunder.
The embers roared to life, not as scattered sparks, but as a rising inferno. Every echo, every climber, every forgotten duel burned together, no longer fragments but a chorus. Their flames rose like rivers, battering against the crowns.
The Upper Thrones screamed—not words, not decree, but something older: outrage. Their perfection faltered, their unity shattered as their geometry folded inward, consuming themselves in spirals of contradiction.
And in that instant, for the first time since the first script, the Upper Thrones were forced back.
The sky cracked.
Not like glass, but like a scripture ripped in half. The crowns reeled upward, their blinding geometries spasming in disarray. Their chorus of law, once flawless and singular, now shrieked with a thousand contradictions.
Above, the constellations collapsed. Not into darkness—but into flame. Stars burst into rivers of fire, folding into the Tower itself as if every forgotten step had been waiting for this moment.
Roman staggered, his ruined arm hanging useless, but his grin was wild. "Look at ’em run. Gods of law—scared of a man with fire in his chest."
Naval coughed blood, but his laughter thundered. "Not just a man. The damned Architect. The flame that writes back."
Liliana, trembling, raised her shredded hands and found her threads no longer broke. They burned, silver fire dancing along them, weaving into the rising inferno. Her voice cracked, but it carried: "They can’t bury us anymore. Every flame they erased—it’s singing!"
Roselia raised her emberblade high, her shadow swallowed in firelight. "Then we answer. Flame for flame, law for law!" She plunged the sword down, its tip splitting the stair, feeding it her very soul. The stair answered in chorus, rising in firestorm.
And Leon—Leon stood at the center, still, yet vast. His eyes reflected not one flame, but all flames. His chest rose as if inhaling the cosmos itself.
The crowns shrieked, folding back, twisting geometry against geometry, their wrath tearing heavens and abyss alike. But no matter how they bent, they could not silence the flames. Every step, every climber, every forgotten duel bled fire into the marrow of the Tower.
Leon lifted his hand. The fire trembled, then surged, harmonized.
"The Tower is no longer a prison," he declared. His voice was law, carried on every ember. "It is no longer theirs to bind. It is ours to burn."
The crowns cracked again, their perfect forms unraveling in spirals of contradiction. Their decree could not overwrite his. Their silence could not bury his chorus.
And the Tower roared.
Flame became foundation. Flame became marrow. Flame became crown.
The Upper Thrones, for the first time since the first script, fell silent.
The stair blazed with victory, but its blaze was not triumph alone—it was the weight of change, the collapse of one eternity, the birth of another.
And in that silence, Leon spoke one last word:
"Return."
The crowns snapped back into the rift above, geometry fracturing into rivers of broken law, retreating not by choice but by necessity. Their voices hissed in fury, but fury without decree.
The Tower was his.
The Tower was flame.
And from that silence, a new era began.
The silence after their retreat was not peace—it was a silence so vast it pressed on the marrow, like the world itself was holding its breath.
The stair, once trembling under collapse, steadied. Its fire no longer flickered but pulsed with a steady rhythm, like the heartbeat of something reborn.
Roselia staggered first, her emberblade dragging sparks across the stair as she dropped to one knee. Blood streamed from her lips, but she smiled faintly. "They’re... gone. For now."
Liliana collapsed outright, her silver threads retreating into her skin as though afraid to unravel again. Her body shook with exhaustion, yet her eyes glimmered with awe. "No... not gone. Bound. Their law can’t pierce the Tower anymore. It listens to him now."