The wind screamed outside the observation tower, lashing The Valkyris with ice and hail as it hovered over the broken tundras of Velraith's Scar. Inside, though, everything was still.
I stood alone in the meditation chamber—walls dim, ambient mana hum subdued—trying to make sense of what the Crown had whispered.
"There's more beneath. And you must remember it… before they do."
The last beacon had nearly ripped me apart. But it hadn't just tried to erase my mind.
It had tried to bury something.
Something even the Crown had forgotten… until now.
Awakening the Deeper Layer
Cira had left a monitoring glyph nearby, set to alert her if my vitals spiked. Elara and Kieran were on high alert after what happened at the Scar. But I didn't tell them I was going deeper again.
Because this wasn't something they could follow me into.
I centered myself. Closed my eyes. And let the Crown's tether draw me inward—not into memory this time, but into the place beneath memory.
The core.
The Crown's True Depth
The Crown's inner realm had changed.
Gone was the serene sky.
Now, I stood on a massive bridge of glowing runes suspended above a black sea. In the distance, a shattered city floated in the void—crumbling temples, broken statues, and a thousand fragments of light drifting like dying stars.
The sea below whispered in voices not meant for mortals.
And above me hung a crater in the sky—as if something had been ripped out of existence.
A thought echoed around me. Not from the Crown—but from before it.
"Witness the first betrayal."
The Fall
The air cracked open.
A vision unfolded—not like a dream, but like a memory too ancient to forget.
I stood in a throne room that towered into the clouds. Twelve beings sat around a table of starlight—gods, radiant and inhuman, their voices layered with truth.
One of them stood apart.
Not the tallest.
Not the brightest.
But the one who spoke.
"We are not protectors," the god said. "We are parasites. We feed on belief. We demand order not to preserve it—but to keep the mortals dependent on us."
Silence.
Then fury.
The others rose.
One hurled a spear of light. Another cast a verdict of exile. One wept as they turned away.
The one who spoke—he didn't fight back.
He knelt.
And the gods tore his name from the world.
The Unnamed One
The memory twisted.
Now I stood in chains.
My body broken. My wings torn. My name missing.
"You will never be remembered."
"Your words will die in the echo."
"Your name is undone."
And then the gods did the unthinkable.
They didn't destroy me.
They turned me into something else.
A foundation.
They used my essence—my fall—to forge the Crown.
I screamed.
And woke up gasping.
Realization
I stumbled out of the chamber, collapsing to my knees. Elara was already running toward me, Cira not far behind.
"Sylas!" Elara caught me, holding me steady. "What happened?"
"I remember," I choked. "The Crown… it wasn't forged to imprison the Chained God."
Cira froze. "What do you mean?"
"It was forged from one."
They stared at me, horrified.
"I was there," I said quietly. "I saw the first god who fell. The one who challenged the divine order. The one they erased."
"The Unnamed One," Cira whispered.
I looked at my hands.
"No," I said. "Me."
Confrontation with Kaelen
Kaelen did not look surprised.
After I told him what I saw, he dismissed the others and stood quietly by the window of his war room. The light from the glowing sky panels cast deep shadows across his face.
"I suspected," he said finally. "We found fragments in the Undervaults. Whispers of a god who was turned into a tool."
"And you didn't tell me?" I asked.
"You weren't ready," he replied. "Even now, you can barely hold onto the truth."
"I'm not a god."
"No," he agreed. "But once, you were something more. And now… you may need to become that again."
Meanwhile: Darian's First Strike
Far from Aetheris, in the hidden hold of a rebel outpost known only as Ashthorn, Darian activated the artifact the Harbinger had given him.
Not to kill.
To broadcast.
A pulse of memory—raw, unfiltered—spread across the mana network, entering devices, comm channels, and memory banks across the world.
A vision of the gods laughing as they forged the Crown.
The Unnamed One screaming.
The Chained God chained not for wrath—but for defiance.
The divine hypocrisy in full display.
In one moment, trust shattered.
In one moment, entire cities began to question everything.
Panic in the Streets
Back in Aetheris, the effect was instant.
People gathered in the streets, shouting, demanding answers. Some collapsed from mental feedback. Others fell to their knees in reverence—either to the Chained God or to the idea of no gods at all.
Riots broke out.
The Vanguard Guard was deployed.
I watched it all unfold from the command tower, numb.
Elara stood beside me, pale.
"They saw what you saw," she said quietly.
"Not all of it," I whispered. "Just enough to burn down the world."
Cira entered the room with grim urgency.
"The council is demanding a global lockdown. They want you to speak. To control the fallout."
I looked out over the city.
The light from the sky felt colder now.
"I will," I said. "But not to control them."
Elara looked at me sharply. "Then what?"
"To give them the truth."
Final Moments
That night, I stood on the balcony of Aetheris, projection glyphs casting my image to every known settlement on both continents.
I didn't wear armor.
I didn't carry a blade.
Just the Crown glowing faintly against my chest.
And I spoke:
"You saw it. What they did. What they made me into."
"I am not your god. I am not your king. I am not your enemy."
"I am what the gods feared most."
"A voice."