I Own the Multiverse's General Store!

They did not fly to the Memory Sea.

They descended into it.

The journey began at the edge of a dreamscape, where the ruins of Hyracil bled into waters that reflected not light, but recollection. A liquid archive of every moment, of every soul that had lived, died, and dreamed. The Sea had no shore. It had no bottom. It simply was, spreading infinitely beneath the layers of time.

Lucius stood at the bow of the memorycraft, a vessel forged from crystallized remembrances—woven by Walter from the remnants of a thousand stories. The ship rippled with flickers of laughter, sorrow, rage, and joy as it cut a silent path into the endless sea.

Lilith clutched his arm.

"I don't like it here," she whispered. "It feels like drowning in someone else's life."

Luna leaned against the railing, her expression unreadable. "That's exactly what it is."

Walter stood at the helm, eyes glowing with silvery light. "The Sea remembers everything. And beneath its surface lies something older than the Throne. A place even the Empress never touched."

Alexia, silent until now, stepped forward. "Are we sure this is necessary?"

Lucius didn't answer right away.

He could feel the pull. A resonance within him—not from the Pillars, but from the Throne itself. Something had been left behind. Or perhaps… hidden.

"We're not here to find something," he finally said. "We're here to return something."

Walter nodded solemnly. "The Throne did not start at the Core. Its seed was buried here—beneath the Sea. Before kings. Before rules."

The craft slowed.

The Sea began to rise, not like water—but like memory manifesting into form. Great shapes emerged from below. A tower formed from forgotten names. A whale made from lullabies. An entire battlefield built from betrayals.

And at the center… a gate.

It pulsed softly.

Waiting.

Lucius stepped off the vessel onto a bridge of shimmering thought.

Behind him, the others followed.

The gate opened without force.

And they passed beneath the Memory Sea.

They emerged into silence.

Not emptiness.

But a silence so deep it trembled. The kind of stillness that came before creation. The air tasted of ancient thought—raw, unfiltered, endless. Pillars rose around them, carved not from stone, but from moments. Each tower shimmered with golden fragments of lives unlived, choices unmade.

"Where are we?" Lilith asked, her voice a whisper.

Walter stepped carefully, reverently. "This is the origin layer. The bedrock of the Throne. Where possibility first took form."

The ground shifted beneath them.

A ripple passed through the space, and a structure formed ahead—an altar surrounded by a ring of floating orbs. Each orb pulsed with the echo of a world not yet born.

At the center, a cradle of light.

Lucius moved forward, each step guided by instinct.

Inside the cradle lay a fragment.

Not metal. Not stone.

Idea.

A shard of something fundamental.

Walter approached slowly, hands trembling. "That's it. The original seed of the Throne. Before it was corrupted by succession, by ambition, by need."

Lucius extended a hand.

The fragment responded, floating upward, spiraling with light that whispered his name—not in sound, but in meaning.

Lilith gripped his cloak. "Lucius… if you take it…"

"I won't take it," he said, eyes fixed on the fragment. "I'll restore it."

The fragment drifted toward his chest.

And entered him.

For a heartbeat, time cracked.

He saw everything—every birth, every death, every choice in every world at once. But he did not break.

He breathed it in.

And the Memory Sea sang.

The bedrock lit up, runes igniting in waves, cascading through the pillars of forgotten time.

The Throne—no longer a relic—became whole.

Rewritten from its very origin.

***

The world around them transformed.

No longer submerged in memory, no longer adrift between echoes—the companions stood at the threshold of origin. Where history had once been bound by cycles of conquest and legacy, a new force now radiated outward from Lucius, drawn from the very source of the Throne itself.

Light unfurled across the crystalline sky.

It did not burn—it revealed. Ribbons of ancestral truth flowed from the core of Lucius's being, trailing through the vast cavern of potential they had awakened. The fragment of the Throne—the first dream ever dreamt—had taken root in him. And through him, it began to speak.

Not in words.

In reminders.

Of what power was meant to be.

Of why the Throne had been forged—not to dominate, but to hold the fragile multiverse together. A dream shaped by sacrifice, maintained by memory, and corrupted only when kings forgot it had once been shared.

The air shimmered with the quiet grace of rebirth.

Every breath was a ripple. Every heartbeat—Lucius's and his companions' alike—echoed across timelines now responding to the new pulse of the Multiverse.

Walter knelt, overcome.

He saw not only the present Lucius, but every possible Lucius—one who failed, one who ruled with cruelty, one who chose isolation, and one who chose others. He wept softly, tears crystallizing as they hit the dream-forged ground.

Lilith shielded her eyes, not in fear—but reverence. Her fire, once wild and unbound, now shimmered with calm. She moved closer, and Lucius's presence soothed the roaring storm within her.

Alexia's lips parted, her cold composure faltering as something old inside her stirred—a warmth she had buried beneath centuries of silence. Her fists unclenched, and her blood—so long warped by imprisonment—now pulsed with harmony.

Luna stood frozen, not by doubt, but awe. Her shadows settled at her feet, unthreatened. For the first time, she saw no masks around her. No veils. Only clarity.

And Lucius… stood still.

The ground beneath him shifted into a mirror of galaxies. The stars there were not celestial—they were decisions. Mistakes. Forgiveness. Every step he took echoed outward into the weave of the Multiverse.

Then the light coalesced into form—a figure, ancient and transparent. A memory given shape.

The First Bearer of the Crown.

A being without name, their face formed of many, genderless, ageless. Their presence was not commanding, but intimate. Like the voice of a story told beside a hearth. Their body shimmered with truths forgotten.

"You have come," it said, voice layered with echoes.

Lucius met its gaze. "To end the lie. And begin the truth."

The figure nodded.

"You carry not just the Crown. But its intent. That is what we lost."

It stepped forward, each motion sending ripples through the world.

"Kings wore it. Emperors clung to it. Tyrants broke it. But you... You remembered."

Lucius said nothing. He only bowed.

The First Bearer extended both hands.

From the air, a new crown took shape—not one forged from gold or judgment, but from vision, resolve, and humility. It formed from strands of memory, flickers of possibility, and light shaped by selflessness. It glowed not with power—but with trust.

Lucius stepped forward.

And took it.

The moment his fingers closed around the Crown, the world inhaled.

He did not place it upon his head.

It rose.

And chose him.

Settling upon his brow like a thought long awaited.

The Source accepted him.

And across all realms, the sky shivered—not from fear, but recognition.

A king had come.

But he was not alone.

He carried everyone.

Rays of potential burst from the altar, threading into the ether. Lucius turned and extended a hand toward each of his companions. One by one, they stepped forward.

Walter touched his shoulder and bowed low.

Lilith grasped his fingers, fierce and unyielding, but loyal.

Alexia knelt without command, offering her oath with a quiet dignity.

Luna leaned in, kissed his cheek, and smirked. "Looks good on you."

Together, they turned.

Before them stood a vast sky where new constellations were being drawn—each line etched by the will of a people awakening.

Lucius raised the Crown.

And the Multiverse listened.

***

The stars bowed.

Not in the way mortals knelt, nor how realms yielded—but in subtle bends of gravity, in pulses of radiant rhythm, as if the cosmos themselves were acknowledging a truth older than time:

A new sovereign had risen.

Lucius floated above the Memory Sea, the Source Crown upon his brow. It did not gleam—it resonated. With intent. With harmony. With the collective breath of a multiverse that, for the first time in eons, could dream again.

He extended his hands.

And the stars answered.

Beams of light cascaded through existence, not merely illuminating worlds, but touching them—each world, each creature, each echo of life receiving a glimpse of the moment. Even those who had never heard of the Core, of the Throne, or of the old Orders, felt it deep within—the warmth of a dawn they hadn't known they needed.

On a fractured moon orbiting a lost sun, a child stopped crying.

In the halls of a dormant god-world, ancient machinery flickered back to life.

In the remains of a library drifting through dead space, books rewritten themselves.

Across stars and shadows, coronation did not thunder—it breathed.

***

In the Core Citadel, Alexia, Lilith, Luna, and Walter watched the light wash through the sky dome, their hearts pierced by wonder.

Lilith whispered, "I didn't know it could feel like this."

Luna wiped a tear she didn't admit was real. "He did it. He made the Throne… kind."

Walter clasped his hands before him. "It was never meant to be a seat of power. It was meant to be a bridge."

And Alexia closed her eyes, breathing deeply. "Then let us walk across it."