Chapter 6: Thronefall
Space split.
Not silently, nor with drama, but with reverence. Like a curtain pulled open by unseen hands.
And through it descended the Throne.
It was not a ship in the traditional sense. It did not burn upon entry. It did not echo. It exhaled gravity. A presence sculpted into a monolith of obsidian and gold, edges folding in and out of reality, trailing banners of null-light stitched with language that Joshua could not read, yet understood.
> Object Detected: Apex-Class Entity
Composition: Multi-Dimensional Coreframe + Living Shell
Classification: Divinity-Shell / Sovereign Interface
Threat Level: Terminal
Joshua stared skyward as the Throne cast its shadow across half the horizon. His blood, newly rewritten, thrummed in sync with the world beneath him. He was stronger than ever.
And still, his instincts whispered: Run.
He did not listen.
He dug his claws into the ground and watched.
---
It did not land.
It planted itself.
Roots of light speared downward from its underside, punching through clouds and crust, threading into the world's leylines like needles. The earth moaned. The air distorted.
From its center unfurled a shape.
A figure.
Manlike. Towering. Wearing the Throne like armor. Or perhaps the Throne was it.
The Choir had been precise.
This was something else.
A king. A god. A warden.
And it looked directly at him.
> Interface Online
Identity Broadcast: Hieromancer Gaul
Function: Custodian of Cycle Integrity
Directive: Extinction of Aberrant Vectors
Joshua opened his mouth and tasted ozone.
Then he moved.
---
He didn't charge this time.
He burrowed.
Beneath the dust, the rust, the magnetized veins of iron, he surged. His Aero-Mass Sinks adjusted his gravitic weight, letting him slingshot through the crust like a torpedo. His senses painted the world in threads of pressure and signal.
He felt Gaul raise one hand.
He changed direction.
The beam struck where he had been—not light, but absence. The ground vanished in a line, not vaporized but removed from reality. A clean wound across kilometers of landscape.
Joshua erupted from below, claws wreathed in Stormlash, tail splitting into a harpoon formation mid-strike. He struck Gaul center-mass.
It should have torn through.
It did not.
> Alert: Feedback Loop Engaged
Energy Reflection Detected
Damage: Self-inflicted (Minor)
Gaul's armor had no seams. No reaction. It reflected motion, force, even thought.
But not intent.
Joshua twisted, activating Chorus Break at point-blank range.
Sound ripped through the world.
---
Gaul staggered.
The harmonic blast didn't damage him—but it shifted him. And that was enough. Joshua slipped under his guard, mandibles splitting, venom glands flaring.
He bit down on the back of the construct's knee.
No flesh.
But there was resonance.
And that, he could exploit.
> Trait Activated: Harmonic Memory Layer
Echo Signature Imprint… Complete
Joshua sang into Gaul's limb.
A mimicry of the Choir's language, filtered through rage and instinct.
For a moment, Gaul stilled.
Then retaliated.
---
Joshua flew backward.
No motion. No impact. Just will made manifest.
He hit the plateau and cracked it like an egg.
> Core Integrity: 64%
Regeneration: Active
He rose.
Slowly.
And he laughed.
It was not bravado.
It was hunger.
He was learning. Gaul's defenses were perfect—but only against what it knew.
And Joshua… was something new.
---
Gaul descended.
No words.
No taunts.
Just decree.
Each step he took rewrote the gravity around them, bending laws into shapes more suitable for divine warfare. Joshua skittered to the side, spore glands activating.
> Mode: Sensor Blind – Wide Bloom
Cloud Density: 300%
A sphere of glittering golden fog blanketed the plateau. Light bent. Signals jammed.
Gaul stopped.
Joshua didn't.
From within the cloud, he unleashed Stormlash again. Then again. Then again.
He wasn't trying to damage.
He was mapping feedback.
Each pulse gave him coordinates. Angles. Gaul's reactions were predictable now.
He launched.
---
Claws met gauntlet.
Tail met aura.
Fangs scraped against metaphysical armor.
And then—
> Trait Fusion Triggered
Magneto-Sensory Filaments + Echo Shell + Tempest Heart Node
Result: Storm Echo Array – Allows Joshua to predict and imprint local environmental harmonics and redirect electrical discharge through sound tunnels.
New Skill: Vortex Cage – Traps a target in a sound-electric feedback loop for 7 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
He deployed it instantly.
Gaul halted mid-strike.
Locked in a vibrating prism of shrieking energy, caught between tones that clashed with his own essence. His throne flickered.
Joshua roared.
And charged again.
---
This time, he didn't strike Gaul's armor.
He struck the roots.
The tendrils that connected Gaul to the planet. To the Throne. To the authority he wielded.
He tore through them.
One.
Then two.
The third bit back.
It flooded him with visions. Cities devoured. Stars silenced. Others like him—failed, broken, sealed.
> Memory Imprint: Accepted
Directive Fragment Acquired: "Contain the Seed of Unmaking"
Joshua devoured the knowledge. Consumed it. He didn't know what the "Seed" was.
But they thought he was it.
And he smiled with his whole body.
---
Gaul broke free.
He was no longer calm.
He spoke.
A sound like collapsing mountains, like the void's heart. Language meant to erase meaning.
Joshua bled.
Every orifice.
Every pore.
> Neural Overload: Imminent
Relic-Bound Core: Stabilizing…
His mind screamed.
But his will stood.
He raised one hand.
And returned the song.
Screamed it back in fractured notes, with instinct and mimicry and vengeance.
Gaul faltered.
For just one heartbeat.
And Joshua ripped out his throat.
Or what passed for one.
---
The Throne screamed.
Not audibly.
Not materially.
But its code bled.
Its form cracked.
And then it vanished—folded back into its own origin point with a shriek of compressed failure. Gaul's body, now severed from its source, collapsed.
Empty.
Dead.
Joshua stood over the remains, breath heaving. Limbs shaking.
Not from weakness.
From excess.
He had consumed a god's emissary.
> [Devourer's Right Activated] Biomass Acquired: 91%
Integrity: Fragmented
Processing… Complete
> New Trait: Null-Aura Tolerance – Immune to low-level divine nullification fields. Can partially resist reality suppression.
> New Passive: Sovereign Predator – Presence now registers as Apex-class predator to all lower entities. May incite flight response or instinctive submission.
> Evolutionary Progress: 132% – Overclock Mode Available.
He knelt.
Claws sank into the ground.
And his body began to split.
---
> Overclock Mode Initiated
Muscle liquefied. Bone reformed. Horns erupted from his shoulders. Wings unfolded—not for flight, but for balance, for heat regulation, for signaling.
His mind became twinned—logic and instinct fully separated, operating in perfect sync.
His voice returned.
And he spoke:
"Send another."
---
Above, the stars heard.
And below, something in the planet's core began to wake.
Not in anger.
In anticipation.