NOVEL NEXT Chapter 50: Queen....
The Nameless Girl stood amidst a field of gravestone heads.
She did not call it a graveyard—for some reason, she knew there were no bodies buried beneath like a memeory fought to be preserved the tombstones were only there for the memory of what once was. The arrangement was peculiar, lacking the order of a proper cemetery.
And so, she unconsciously called it a field.
The stones filled the horizon, rising and falling beyond where her eyes could see.
They were scattered haphazardly, as though each one had been placed exactly where its owner had died during some long-forgotten event.
And though the sight should have been disturbing, there was a strange serenity to it—a beauty born of silence and stillness.
Each gravestone bore a name, carved not in stone but in the essence of stars. Yet, the stones themselves were forged from the abyss's deepest essence.
But the abyss was not merely black.
Just because it was an abyss did not mean it was only darkness.
There were other things hidden in the depths, things far more terrifying, things that lurked where the light did not reach. Darkness was merely the most familiar of them.
The stones shimmered with colors beyond mortal comprehension, hues that should not exist yet did. And each name carried a profane aura, as though the weight of those identities still lingered, merging with the abyss itself.
Yet, she could not read a single one.
She stood in silence.
The stillness was deafening, yet not suffocating. In fact, she felt... warm. Peaceful.
Nothing seemed as peaceful as death, the void without worry... and not empty...
Just still and welcoming
---
She decided to see them all.
The thought was born suddenly, yet it took root in her mind as if it had always been there.
She did not question it.
She simply began.
Moving from one gravestone to the next, she wiped the dust away with the hem of her tattered clothes, whispering incomprehensible words.
Her body still broken and yet moved as though it were not... there was an innocence to her that made her seem like the proper girl for her age, not the one burdened by life.
She did not know what she was saying.
She did not know why she did it.
Yet, she continued.
One after another. Never looking back.
She did not see how the gravestones crumbled into ash behind her, how the dust fused into her hair, into her skin, burrowing into her blood, bones, and cells.
She was too absorbed in her task to notice.
But with each gravestone she touched, the burden upon her shoulders grew heavier. It was an almost imperceptible weight at first, but the more she wiped away the dust, the more she felt it pressing down on her.
The ground beneath her feet was scorched black, burned beyond repair, yet something in her heart ached for something more beautiful.
And as if her words had shifted reality itself, the ashen soil trembled.
From the cracks in the blackened ground, flowers began to bloom—ghostly and ethereal, their petals a luminous silver, shimmering like the remnants of a dying star.
They wove between the gravestones, swaying as though they recognized her presence.
Yet, when she drew near, they parted for her.
She forgot her past.
She forgot the pain of her broken body, the hunger, the wounds, the life she had once lived.
She lost herself in the ritual of remembrance, tending to the gravestones, one after another.
And as she pushed further, the pressure upon her body intensified. Her bones strained, her muscles coiled, and the weight upon her flesh tempered her in ways no one could have imagined.
Even if Adler himself had been there to witness it, he would not have understood the truth of what was happening.
And Adler was insanely powerful.
She did not notice the obsidian tendrils laced with ethereal silver slithering across the field, weaving through the stones like serpents of the void.
She did not see them consume the names carved in starlight, devouring the luminous inscriptions.
The names did not vanish—but they changed.
What was once starfire white became obsidian black, veined with silver.
The gravestones themselves remained unchanged, or so it would seem to anyone who failed to look closely.
But hidden within their depths, scripture—runes of madness and pride—began to etch themselves onto the stone.
They seemed to root themselves onto the pride of those that were to give form to what will.....
The only thing that remained untouched were the ashen flowers.
They refused to be altered, swaying in defiance of whatever force sought to claim them.
They seemed to exist in a boundless reality where they were free from sin...delicate and charming as they were they held the weight and magnitude of worlds and galaxies...
But the girl knew none of this.
She was diligent. Unwavering.
And so she continued.
Hundreds of years passed, Eons flashed by as though time meant nothing.
She did not age, she did not tire.
She did not stop, she was as diligent as the first time.
She wiped thousands of gravestones, never pausing, never questioning, never breaking.
Even when some become as large as worlds....as heavy as stars....
As powerful as gods.. she wiped them all the same...
The ashen flowers underwent strange variations, influenced by the gravestones they grew beside. Some became more ethereal, others more beautiful, each shifting in ways no mortal mind could comprehend. In places many would never see...they grew larger...etching themselves with her story her legend... the Queen that will...
But none changed more than the Nameless Girl herself.
The transformation was so vast, so alien, that she no longer resembled what she once was.
Had anyone seen her now, they would not have recognized her.
Her hair no longer obeyed natural form.
It shifted—flowing in the darkest hues of all colors. If it turned gold, it became the darkest, most corrupted version of gold. If crimson, it became the deepest, most eldritch shade of red.
Yet, the color it seemed to settle on most was obsidian gray, woven with silver veins that pulsed like something alive....it was so dark it looked like living obsidian
Her hair had grown impossibly long, yet it never dragged. Instead, it transitioned between mist and serpent-like strands, floating behind her like the shroud of a long gone past....an era of ancients dead.
It was so vast, so unnatural, that it formed its own domain.
And within the shadows of her hair, names sang in whispers, echoing from the depths of the abyss.
Her skin, once fragile, had become bone-like silver, caught between the eerie and the divine.
She had become so beautiful that to look upon her was a sin.
And yet, her eyes never changed.
They remained empty, devoid of emotion—save for one thing.
A sparkle, faint but undeniable.
A glimmer of interest in what she had done...and one could see that as the moments passed by...it was growing with fervor....what this meant for her was unknown
Eons passed before she reached the end—a chasm where the field of gravestones ceased to exist.
Before her lay nothing but darkness, thick and impenetrable.
She dared not cross it.
But she didn't need to.
For there, standing at the edge of the abyss, was a gate.
A tombstone—plain, unassuming.
Yet, unlike the others, this one bore an inscription that she could finally read.
[QUEEN OF THE DEATH'S GUARD]
And somehow, she knew.
This had been her trial.
She had passed.
And yet, she wondered—
Had it truly been difficult?
All she had done was wipe the dust from gravestones.
Care for them like she would have done for those of her parents... she felt there loneliness and though she would not be able to give them love they sought... the best she could do was clean their memory honor the reminder of what they once were to give them a chance to live through their names aline...
Time may have been cruel to them but she would bear their pain...wash away any dust... if only for her own selfishness...atleast she would have done something....
Their names were all that was left of them and many she could not read but atleast she would member... them....she would show them the world through her own eyes...
She would carry their memory within her heart
...
This may have been the most peaceful and self fulfilled she had ever been and she liked it....whatever challenge it was...it did not seem as heavy as she thought it would be for her legacy awakening....
She might not have known of the world of pathwalkers before...but it could not be so easy to become one otherwise it would take away the reverence of their power.
She might not have known that this would be her last easy or not so simple trial as it was on the surface...
She passed this trial because of circumstances she had yet to understand but from now on....she would understand the value of power and the struggle mortals go through to attain it
But that didn't stop her thoughts....
....
For a fleeting moment, she thought perhaps it was not as grand as she had expected.
Perhaps, in the end, she was never meant to be powerful.
She was just a peasant.
And peasants were never meant to be great.
Right...?