Chapter 551: Abyssal XIV
Naval faced the Silence Crown, its dominion smothering every sound, turning flame into hollow gestures. Yet the dragon knight's will was fire incarnate. His blade hissed with molten fury, carving words into the silence. Each swing wasn't just steel—it was defiance, each strike a roar that couldn't be muted. The Crown's void stuttered, cracks spiderwebbing across its form as dragon-flame wrote sound back into the mute dominion.
Roselia stood within the illusions of Archive Glass, surrounded by false histories—worlds where Leon had failed, where their resonance had been erased. But her stars spun into constellations of truth, mapping memories the Glass could never forge. When the illusions tried to bury her, her cosmos only shone brighter, rewriting the sky itself until every false shard shattered under the gravity of her will.
Liliana wove her hymn into war. Her threads lashed two Thrones at once—one of shadowed decree, one of fractured oath. They struggled, twisting their dominion into curses, but Liliana's song bound them together, turning their power into knots of resonance they could not escape. With every tug, she drew marrow through their cores, erasing the falsehood in their fibers.
And at the center—Leon stepped toward the last Throne, the fractured crown of shadow and light.
It staggered, trying to knit itself whole, torn between silence and decree, fire and glass, oath and shadow. Its voice wavered, not commanding, not cursing, but begging:
"…Without us, what holds the Tower upright? Without law, without silence, without command… only collapse remains."
Leon's flame pulsed, marrow chains spiraling around him like a cloak. He extended his hand, not in wrath, but in resonance.
"The Tower doesn't stand because of silence or decree," he said, his voice carrying like a hymn through marrow and chain alike. "It stands because those who climbed it gave their voices, their lives, their memories. You erased them. I will not."
The Throne reeled, its dominion unraveling in the marrow's pull. Its crown cracked, spilling fragments of light and shadow into the abyss.
Leon lifted his hand higher, the marrow flame swelling until it blazed like a second heart of the Tower. His allies' battles echoed around him, each duel a thread in the greater hymn.
And then—he struck.
Not with fire, not with blade, but with resonance. His flame surged through the marrow's chains, pulling every fractured voice, every erased soul into harmony. The roar became chorus, the hymn became verdict.
The six Thrones screamed, their dominions buckling. The Council of Thrones was no longer eternal—it was breaking.
The war for the Upper Thrones had turned from resistance into collapse.
And Leon stood at the center, conductor of the unmaking.
The Tower wailed like a living thing, its marrow convulsing as eternity's foundations tore apart. The six Thrones writhed in the binding storm, their dominions unraveling under the weight of voices they had sought to silence for ages.
The Silence Crown cracked first, Naval's dragon-flame searing words into its hollow void until the mute dominion fractured. The moment sound returned, Naval roared, his voice a war-cry that shattered the last remnants of its authority. The Crown dissolved into dust, chains snapping it apart link by link.
The Archive Glass followed, Roselia's constellations burning hotter than false histories. Each star blazed with truth, and when the last illusion broke, the Glass shattered into a rain of prisms. But instead of bending memory, those fragments dissolved into the marrow, returning what had been stolen. Roselia lowered her blade, her stars orbiting her in silence, defiant and proud.
Liliana's hymn grew sharper, relentless. The Thrones of shadowed decree and fractured oath screamed as her threads dragged them together, binding their contradictions into a single knot they couldn't escape. With a final pull, her silver weave snapped—and both Thrones disintegrated, their dominions collapsing into tangled dust. Liliana's voice trembled, but she sang on, her song steady even as blood streaked her lips.
Milim burst from her battlefield drenched in violet flame, her laughter echoing like a storm. The Commandment Furnace lay in ruins, commandments scattered and burnt to cinders. "Boring god," she spat, cracking her knuckles. "Tasted like ash."
That left only the fractured crown of shadow and light before Leon. It staggered, its body collapsing under the marrow's resonance, yet still it tried to rise. Its voice broke into fragments, desperate:
"Without law… there is chaos."
"Without silence… only madness."
"Without us… the Tower falls."
Leon's eyes burned with marrow flame, his voice steady, unwavering.
"Without memory, there is nothing. That is what you feared. That is why you silenced them. But silence ends here."
The marrow chains surged on his command. They lashed around the fractured crown, dragging it down. The Throne screamed—not in wrath, but in terror—as its dominion split apart. Shadow and light tore away from each other, shattering into raw fragments of eternity.
And then—it broke.
The last Throne's pieces fell into the abyss, carried by the marrow's roar.
Silence followed. Not the false silence of the Crown, not the smothering silence of erased memory, but a stillness after the storm—a waiting, listening hush.
Leon stood in the center, flame flickering with the resonance of countless voices. His allies gathered, scarred, bloodied, but unbowed.
Roman coughed blood and wheezed a laugh. "Well, Leon… you didn't just rattle the nest. You burned down the whole damn council."
The Tower itself groaned, as if deciding whether to collapse into nothing—or reshape itself in the marrow's song.
And far above, where the Upper Thrones once loomed untouchable, cracks of light split the dominion sky. Something new was forming.
The Throne War was not over.
It had only just begun.
The cracks above widened, spilling not collapse, but raw possibility. The dominion sky fractured into rivers of light, each vein pulsing with power that had once been hoarded by the Council. What had been locked in silence now streamed downward, searching for a vessel, a verdict, a will to anchor it.
The marrow chains quivered, uncertain, as though even they did not know whether they rose to bind or to bear. The Tower's bones shivered with choice.