Chapter 27: Chapter 27
System Update (Ding)
System Broadcast: Emergency Override Activated
Location: Fallen Throne Hall
Status: Structural Collapse Imminent
Core Entity Zephyr – Status: Awakened (Tier I – Crownless Sovereign)
The Throne Room – Moments After Collapse
The golden pillars cracked like brittle bones. Rubble thundered down from the heavens. The once-magnificent throne room was now a tomb, suffocating in dust, fire, and silence.
Zephyr stood at the center of it all—half-shrouded in smoke, wings of black fire stretched wide behind him. His hair whipped around his face like a crown of wrath. From his back, shimmering void-light spiraled into the air, bending gravity itself.
Before him knelt the remnants of betrayal.
Naeva coughed blood, her body pinned under a broken column. Lilith—Zahra’s twin—was on her knees, one arm torn, her blade gone, her glamour failing. Her face... no longer Zahra’s.
Zahra lay beside a crumbled pillar, half-conscious, her leg bleeding, her eyes wide in disbelief.
And Serephina... she knelt just in front of him, eyes trembling. Not from fear—but from something far deeper.
Recognition.
"You’re not just a prince," she whispered. "You’re a weapon."
The Voice Within – Crownless Sovereign
Inside Zephyr’s mind, the system pulsed with strange, older glyphs.
Warning: Unknown source of power linked to Sovereign Bloodline—"Vermis Originum."
System attempting synchronization...
Success rate: 17%
Core instability detected.
A voice—not human, not machine—whispered from the shadows of his soul.
"Feed. Rise. Rule. Let them burn."
And Zephyr listened.
He raised his hand.
One gesture—and the stone debris levitated, trembling in the air like weightless feathers.
Mercy or Annihilation?
Lilith coughed, struggling to rise. "You were always the weak one, Zephyr. A scholar. A pawn. What changed?"
Zephyr stepped forward, boots cracking fire through the marble.
He didn’t answer with words.
He opened his palm—and launched a black spear of flame that shattered Lilith’s other arm.
She screamed, falling fully.
Naeva groaned from beneath the wreckage. "Zephyr, listen... I did what I had to. The Queens—"
"You were nothing but vultures dressed as royalty," Zephyr snarled.
Serephina, still on her knees, looked up into his face. "Then kill us."
His gaze shifted to her—and for a moment, a flicker of the old Zephyr returned.
But the system pulsed again.
System Query: Execute "Soul Chain Severance" on Queen Serephina?
Yes [Y] / No [N]
His hand shook.
Zahra screamed, "No! Don’t—!"
Zephyr turned to her. "She betrayed me. They all did."
"She also saved you."
Serephina didn’t beg. She simply whispered, "Do it."
And for the first time... he hesitated.
Meanwhile
Elsewhere in the capital, the queens had felt the shift.
Queen Elira, in her icy sanctum, froze mid-step. Her breath misted. "The Sovereign’s blood has awakened."
Queen Valencia felt the tremor in her obsidian chalice. She rose, crown gleaming. "The throne falls. It is time."
Queen Mira of the East smiled from her glass tower. "Zephyr... my king. Don’t die before I reach you."
The war for the crown had just begun.
The Final Step
In the crumbling chamber, Zephyr stepped toward Serephina. His spear of fire poised.
And just as he raised his hand—
System Alert: Intrusion Detected
Entity Approaching – Tier Unknown
Codename: "Gravedancer"
The wall behind Zephyr exploded inward.
From the rubble, a man in a long black coat stepped forward. His face hidden behind a silver mask etched with fangs. In his hand—a scythe dripping with violet flame.
"Zephyr," the man said in a gravelly voice. "I’ve come to finish what they failed to."
Zephyr’s wings flared.
Everyone froze.
The air trembled.
System Override Active...
Incoming Entity Identified: Codename – "Gravedancer"
Tier Classification: Unknown (Threat Level – Cataclysmic)
Warning: Core Instability May Escalate Upon Contact
The Throne Ruins – Center of Collapse
The air buzzed with tension as shattered stone hovered midair, caught in a vortex of suspended destruction. At the center of the storm, Zephyr stood motionless—eyes fixed on the man in the silver mask.
The intruder’s cloak billowed from an unnatural breeze. His boots echoed across the broken marble as he approached.
One step.
Two.
Three.
"Did they tell you who I was?" the masked man asked, voice as cold as the grave.
Zephyr remained silent, flames flickering at his fingertips.
"Of course they didn’t." The man raised his scythe, violet flame rippling along the blade. "They never speak of the ones they bury in the dark."
System Interface – Clash Triggered
Engagement: Initiated
Combat Protocol: Locked – Adaptive Tier Scaling
Zephyr Class: Crownless Sovereign – Awakening Stage I
Gravedancer Class: Forsaken Reaper – Ethereal Bound
WARNING: This encounter exceeds current system capacity.
Recommended Action: Flee.
Zephyr smirked.
"I’m done running."
The Dance Begins
Gravedancer vanished in a blink.
Zephyr’s instincts flared—he twisted just in time as the scythe carved a burning arc past his face, nicking his cheek. Blood steamed in the air.
Zephyr summoned two blackfire blades from his arms, crossing them as Gravedancer’s next blow rained down.
The collision ruptured the floor beneath them.
Dust exploded.
Both were flung backward.
But Zephyr twisted midair, wings flaring, skidding to a halt with grace.
Gravedancer chuckled. "Impressive reflexes. For someone born in chains."
Zephyr growled. "What do you know about my birth?"
Gravedancer’s eyes gleamed behind his mask.
"I know who your father is."
Serephina’s Horror
From her place near the broken altar, Serephina’s heart nearly stopped.
The Gravedancer was a myth.
A relic.
A nightmare summoned only when royals broke their contracts with the ancient system.
If he was here—it meant Zephyr’s existence threatened something older than kingdoms.
"No..." she whispered. "This isn’t a test. It’s a cleansing."
Clash of the Sovereigns
Zephyr roared as he charged again, this time faster—his body flickering in and out of flame. Each strike sang of fury and betrayal.
Gravedancer met him step for step, the scythe spinning like a deadly ribbon, cutting the very essence of flame.
Each impact cracked reality.
Even the system struggled to keep up.
New Combat Skill Unlocked: "Cinderstep Blink" – Phase Dodge + Flame Trail
New Passive Trait Unlocked: "Ashborne Wrath" – Critical Hits Burn Through Defense
Zephyr vanished.
Reappeared behind the Gravedancer—blades crossed.
He stabbed—
But the scythe turned, slicing one blade in half.
Gravedancer grabbed Zephyr by the throat, lifting him off the ground.
"You have power. But you lack control. Your system is still in chaos."
Zephyr’s pupils glowed white.
And then—he smiled.
System Override Unleashed
Manual Override Confirmed – Sovereign Will Detected
Protocol: "Wrathbound Singularity"
Engaged.
The world inverted for a moment.
A black sphere erupted from Zephyr’s core—gravity bent, flame froze, sound shattered. Even Gravedancer stumbled backward, cloak tearing as space itself twisted.
Zephyr’s voice echoed, not just in the room—but in the soul.
"You want to dance with death?"
"Then burn with me."
Far to the east, Queen Mira gazed across the Ashen Plains, a trail of elite guards behind her.
A messenger bowed. "We received word. The Gravedancer has entered the capital."
Mira didn’t blink.
"So the system fears Zephyr now."
She reached into her satchel, pulling a crystal orb carved with serpent runes. Within it shimmered a vision of a younger Zephyr, laughing—before being dragged from her arms.
"My son," she whispered.
Her smile returned, slow and deadly.
"Let them all fight. I’ll arrive when the ashes settle."
Back in the epicenter, the black flame vortex receded.
Silence followed.
Gravedancer stood—half his mask broken, one eye bleeding violet flame.
Zephyr knelt, body cracked, armor seared—but alive.
The two stared at each other.
"Round two," Zephyr said through clenched teeth.
But Gravedancer... smiled.
"You’ve passed."
And then he turned and vanished, leaving only scorched symbols burning in the stone.
Symbols Zephyr recognized.
Ancient royal bloodlines.
His bloodline.
The truth was buried deeper than betrayal.
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