The catacombs beneath the Academy were forbidden for good reason.
They had been sealed generations ago after the last Sovereign War—when the boundary between reality and the arcane thinned, and what the world called "relics" began to awaken with hunger. There, beneath stone and silence, the first kings of the old world buried what they could not destroy. Some called it the Root. Others, the Seed of Catastrophe.
To Zero, it was a whisper—a beckoning he could no longer resist.
Night blanketed Mount Solari in a shroud of mist and starlight. Zero moved swiftly through the undercroft of the Academy, silent as shadow. His breath came slow, controlled. His fingers grazed cold stone, and he followed the memory burned into his veins—an echo of dreams not his own.
Hidden beneath the library's collapsed western wing, a secret passage yawned open where a broken statue of the sun god once stood. He crouched, slipping inside, careful not to disturb the glyphs etched into the archway. They shimmered faintly as he passed.
Deeper and deeper he went. Past bones of forgotten beasts. Past murals of kings long erased from history. Past the scent of magic and old blood.
SYSTEM BOOTING...
THREAD OF FATE: ACTIVE
USER ID: ZERO [GENETIC MARKER: SHADOW CROWN]
RELIC SYNC COMPATIBILITY: 97.3%
His pulse quickened.
A wall of black stone loomed ahead. Obsidian veined with glowing red crystal, humming like it breathed. No key. No lock. Just a symbol etched in mirrored glass—the silhouette of a crown, broken and burning.
Zero touched it.
And the world screamed.
Above, alarms tore through the Academy's sanctum. Headmaster Ravaryn flung his cloak over his shoulders as enchantments flared across the domes.
"Pre-Epoch surge detected in Theta sector," barked Lysaria, his arcane adjutant. "The catacombs."
"Impossible," Ravaryn muttered. "They were sealed."
"Not to him."
Ravaryn stared at the scrying mirror, where a pulsing light bloomed. "All elite units to Sector Theta. Now."
Inside the vault, Zero collapsed to his knees as memories surged—millennia of forgotten truths forced into mortal bones.
He saw a world before gods.
He saw the Red King crowned by fire.
He saw the betrayal of the skyborn pantheon.
BLOODLINE MATCH: CONFIRMED
SHADOW CROWN ACCESS GRANTED
CLASS UNLOCKED: WARDEN OF THE FORGOTTEN
THREAD INITIATED: THE LOST SOVEREIGNS
He gasped, lungs burning with revelation.
The door parted.
The chamber beyond stretched wider than any hall in the Academy. A cathedral of stone and bone. Nine massive thrones circled a central pit, their occupants cloaked in petrified silence—kings and queens of a world no longer remembered.
And at the center—
A crown. Floating. Waiting. Forged from ash and ember.
It pulsed as he neared, recognizing him.
Then—
"Stop!"
A blur of light and steel. Marina Velorin crashed into the chamber, coat torn, sword drawn, face flushed with panic.
"How did you—" Zero began.
"I followed your signature," she snapped. "This place—it's not meant to be opened. It's sacred. It's cursed."
Zero turned his gaze back to the crown. "It called to me."
"Relics don't call, Zero. They consume."
He paused. "And yet here I am."
She advanced slowly. "You don't have to do this."
"I already did."
He reached forward—
—and touched the Crown of Ash.
The entire mountain shook.
Ravaryn and the strike team arrived just in time to witness a pillar of red light pierce the heavens from deep underground.
"It's begun," Lysaria murmured. "The Crown has chosen its vessel."
"Then we may all be damned," Ravaryn muttered.
Within the chamber, Marina shielded her eyes.
Zero floated above the pit, the Crown blazing above his head. Runes spiraled down his arms. His eyes—no longer merely golden—burned like stars in collapse.
He wasn't just wielding power.
He was becoming something else.
SYSTEM INTEGRATION: 48%
WARNING: DIVINE ENTITY DETECTED
ARCHON-CLASS INTERVENTION INCOMING
"Marina," Zero said, his voice layered in echoes. "You should go."
"Not happening."
Above, the air tore open.
Descending in a maelstrom of mirrored wings and light came the Archon—a divine enforcer, armored in crystalline authority.
It pointed a hand at Zero.
"Unauthorized artifact sync. Threat level: catastrophic. Commence eradication."
And the battle began.
What followed defied mortal comprehension.
Zero moved with instinct deeper than training, evading beams of divine energy, striking with flame-etched fists. Marina danced beside him, sword singing with defiance.
The Archon was faster.
Stronger.
But not whole.
With each pulse from the Crown, Zero adapted.
Grew.
Changed.
SYSTEM SYNC: 71%
GOD-KILLER PROTOCOL: INITIALIZED
He whispered a word that cracked the chamber.
A forbidden command left behind by the Red King.
The Archon faltered.
Then Zero struck.
His fist connected.
The Archon screamed.
And the chamber exploded in white.
Silence.
When the smoke cleared, the Archon was gone.
The Crown was inert.
Zero lay broken but alive, veins glowing faintly. Marina stumbled to his side.
"You idiot," she whispered. "You did it."
He smiled faintly. "No. We did."
Behind them, one of the nine thrones cracked.
And a second relic awoke.