Chapter 520: Inevitable IV
But the storm of echoes didn’t reach them—it wrapped only around Leon, tightening like a crown of thorns. Every heartbeat threatened to shatter him. His skin split wider, cracks spilling with burning resonance, showing glimpses of something less human beneath—something woven of pure rhythm and fracture.
Roselia pressed both hands together, golden flame bursting from her palms. "Then I’ll force the echoes to share!" She thrust her light toward him, but as soon as it touched, her spell disintegrated into dust. She staggered, horrified. "I can’t heal him—the burden itself rejects me!"
Roman bellowed, fists clenched, driving his body-force outward in sheer defiance. "Then we rip it off him!" He struck the ground, sending fissures racing toward the storm. But when the cracks met Leon’s resonance, they didn’t break it—they were absorbed, becoming part of the burden.
Liliana’s voice trembled, her staff vibrating in her grip. "It’s no longer a spell or a law—it’s the spine of reality trying to rebuild. If Leon drops it, everything we’re standing on... everything... disappears."
The void beneath them surged higher, hungry, endless. It wasn’t a battlefield anymore—it was a canvas waiting for a hand to define it.
Leon forced his head up, sweat and blood streaking his face, his eyes blazing with too many rings to count. His voice came ragged, but certain.
"...Then I’ll hold it. Even if it kills me."
"No!" Milim’s scream cracked like lightning. "You always do this! You always try to burn alone!" She seized his arm, her aura flaring until it blistered the air. "If you take this weight alone—you’re not Leon anymore. You’ll vanish into it!"
For the first time, the storm paused. The echoes quivered, uncertain, as if her voice had reached some hidden thread inside Leon.
Naval grit his teeth, water rising behind him like a tidal wall. "Then we drown in it together if we have to!"
Roselia raised her staff again, hands shaking but her voice steady. "Better to share the fracture than lose you to it."
Roman slammed his fist against his chest, roaring. "Your spine doesn’t stand alone. Ours anchor it too!"
Liliana lifted her voice in song, no spell this time—just resonance, pure and raw. It threaded into Leon’s Fifth Pulse, trembling but refusing to fade.
The echoes stirred.
For the first time, they bent outward—not only demanding Leon’s body, but brushing against his allies, testing their wills. The storm grew wilder, heavier—but not singular anymore.
Leon’s body eased a fraction. The cracks across his chest slowed. His voice came low, hoarse.
"...If you take this weight... you’ll bleed with me. You’ll break with me."
Milim’s eyes blazed, her grip unyielding.
"Then we’ll fracture together."
The storm howled—then split.
The Fifth Pulse expanded outward, resonance breaking into countless threads that lashed to each of them. Naval, Roselia, Roman, Liliana, Milim—all jerked as the weight slammed into their cores. Their bodies cracked with the same burning light, their veins carrying echoes, their breaths staggering.
But the void shivered—and held.
For the first time, the burden wasn’t crushing. It was shared.
Leon exhaled, a ragged laugh breaking from his bloodied lips. His eyes—still blazing, still fractured—met theirs.
"...Then let’s carry infinity together."
The battlefield steadied. The void below curled back into silence, no longer devouring but waiting, patient.
The Sovereign of Law was gone. In his place, the broken spine of reality now had six bearers.
And Leon’s throne pulsed brighter than ever, not as one flamebreaker—
—but as the first conductor of infinite echoes.
The silence after the storm was heavier than any battle cry.
The marble court was gone. The ruined city was gone. Even the horizon was gone. What remained was a vast, colorless expanse—like parchment stripped bare, waiting for ink. The void pulsed faintly beneath their feet, threads of possibility writhing without form, yet held steady by the resonance the six of them now carried.
Leon sagged forward, bracing himself on one knee. Every breath rasped like glass through his lungs, but the unbearable pressure had eased, thinned by the others taking it with him.
Naval staggered upright, his trident dragging against the nothing-floor, eyes wide. Cracks of light traced across his skin in jagged currents, glowing faintly before dimming again. "Damn it... it’s like trying to stand against the ocean in every direction at once."
Roselia knelt, her hands pressed to her chest, golden sparks escaping her fingertips and vanishing before they could form a prayer. Her lips trembled, but her eyes burned steady. "It’s... endless. Every choice, every possibility, all pulling, all screaming to exist."
Roman spat blood, wiping it with the back of his fist. His body-force shuddered around him, veins bulging with the weight of resonance. But his stance remained unbroken. "Tch. Feels like the world’s trying to sit on my spine. Let it. I’ll carry it."
Liliana’s song had quieted, but her staff still hummed with resonance. Her shoulders shook, yet her gaze was sharp as steel. "We aren’t just resisting anymore. We’re... holding it together."
Milim’s expression was the most raw of them all. Her usual cocky smirk was gone, replaced with gritted teeth and damp eyes. She still clung to Leon’s arm, as if refusing to let him slip away. "Don’t you dare scare me like that again. You almost—" Her voice cracked, but she didn’t finish.
Leon forced his head up, blood running down the side of his face, his eyes glowing with too many rings of resonance. He took them all in—their cracked forms, their bleeding strength, their shared burden.
"...You didn’t just save me," he rasped, voice breaking into layered tones. "You saved this. All of this." He gestured weakly to the void around them. "The fracture doesn’t belong to me alone anymore. We’re carrying it together. That’s the only reason it’s still holding."
The void pulsed in answer, as if acknowledging their shared claim.
For the first time since Halreth’s fall, silence wasn’t suffocating—it was alive. The blank expanse no longer threatened to consume them, but awaited.
Roselia exhaled slowly, her trembling easing into a fragile smile. "...Then this is our law now. Not inevitability. Not judgment. Shared weight."
Leon gave a broken laugh, shaking his head. "Not a law. A promise."
But before the moment could settle, the void shivered.
A tremor rippled across the blank horizon, not collapse, but intrusion. Something stirred at the edge of the unwritten, like ink spilling onto parchment. Darkness—not entropy, but shape—began to coil, forming a figure.
Naval tensed immediately, trident rising despite his exhaustion. "Another one?"
Liliana’s eyes narrowed, her voice steady. "No... something worse. It’s not the void reacting—it’s something answering it."
The figure stepped forward, each footfall leaving trails of black fire across the nothing-floor. His presence wasn’t inevitability like Thalen, nor decree like Halreth. It was hunger. His armor looked forged of broken crowns, jagged and smoking, and in his hand he carried a blade that dripped with burning shadow.
When he spoke, his voice was a rasp that scraped against the edges of thought.
"Flamebreaker. You fractured law. You broke decree. You carry what was never meant to be carried."
His helm tilted, eyes burning crimson through the slit.
"That makes you mine to devour."
The void recoiled as his aura spread, bending the canvas of reality inward like a maw.
Roselia’s face paled. "...No. That presence—" She nearly choked on the words. "—it’s Sovereign Glothar. The Maw of Thrones."
Leon forced himself upright, the Fifth Pulse already stirring, though his body screamed in protest. His lips curved into a sharp, bloody grin.
"...Then let him choke."