Ash sat alone on the crimson throne, one elbow propped on the armrest, chin resting lazily in his palm.
Six crowns floated before him in a slow, solemn orbit.
In the center spun Velora's ancient crown—azure metal with gems inside of it.
Around it circled five others: a blackened iron crown, a star-iron tiara, a crown of living flame, a circlet of shadow, and a crown of shattered gold that screamed with a thousand dying royal voices every time it turned.
Up until now nothing about Velora had changed much... aside from the capital now being crimson and white. He had yet to merge the lands nor had he even begun to wear the crown. However, now it was time for that to change. He knew from Thalion's explanation when he first arrived... this crown would give him two things.
Loyalty to everyone under his banner.
And.
Power....
These two things were things he didn't quite need, but if he was going to be a true king to these people. Then taking up the position, the right way was what he would do.
Ash lifted his hand and began merging the crowns...
Nothing dramatic happened.
The five simply drifted forward as though they had always belonged there, melting into the azure circlet like rivers returning to the sea.
Seamless.
Inevitable.
When the last drop of foreign metal vanished, the crown reshaped itself in utter silence—crimson metal braided with pure white alloy, open at the top so his fox ears remained free.
It hovered for one heartbeat longer, waiting for permission.
Ash reached up and placed it on his head.
The moment the cool metal touched his hair, a ripple no eye could see rolled outward across the kingdom. The rest of the Kingdom of Velora drank the color of conquest and rebirth, turning crimson and white before every soul that now belonged to him.
Outside the palace windows, the perpetual violet sky of Elaris bled into a dawn of deep rose-gold at the edges, then settled into the same crimson-white that now adorned every banner, every guard's cloak, every flower blooming in the capital gardens.
Far beyond the capital, in the newly absorbed lands that had once bowed to five different thrones, the earth itself answered.
Mountains shifted with the patience of titans, sliding hundreds of kilometers to form natural defenses. Rivers rerouted in glowing crimson-white lines that steamed gently in the morning air.
Forests marched like silent armies, trees uprooting and replanting themselves in perfect defensive rings.
An old woman in a village that had been part of the Iron Kingdom yesterday stepped outside and saw the sky painted in color she had no name for. She dropped her water jug, fell to her knees in the dust, and pressed her forehead to the warm earth while tears cut clean tracks down her weathered cheeks.
She did not know the name of the king...no.... her god, but she felt the same thought bloom in her chest as in every other citizen across six hundred thousand square kilometers:
He is home.
[A/N: These are the people he initially killed when destroying the holy bastards... Just for those who don't remember the ability details I will mention it here.
Lunar Apotheosis |Lunar + Phoenix Fire + Illusion| - Silver rebirth-flames sweep the battlefield. Victims burn to ash in perfect illusionary moons, then rise reborn with silver eyes and absolute devotion, believing Ash is their only god.]
The World Steles across Elaris flared crimson and white.
VELORA KINGDOM TERRITORY EXPANDED TO 612,400KM! NEW RULER: ASH SOLACE!!!!
Ash stood at the balcony, crimson-white cloak stirring though there was no wind, gazing out over lands that had finally become his.
"Now, I don't know much about how other Kingdoms are run or should operate... but this Kingdom, heh... it won't be a mere Kingdom nor Empire..."
He said to himself as he looked at the new land added to Velora
----
"Well, well, well," a voice drifted across twenty thousand kilometers of empty sky.
"The ant finally shows himself."
Nxyion Elarian smiled with black-void eyes as the Stele's announcement burned itself into the air. One might think they were countless kingdoms away from Ash.... but no, they had been waiting in the Velora kingdom since the moment they descended.
Celetis only sighed.
Two hundred S-rank Void Reapers rose behind them like a tide of black blades.
Until now they had no proper way of tracking him, and Celetis, he didn't want to simply destroy the kingdom.
"See?" Celtis said, stepping forward. "I told you he would reveal himself eventually. Now we end this."
Nyxion smirked.
"Brother… you don't mind if the palace ceases to exist, do you?"
Celetis just shook his head knowing that his brother liked to go over the top with things.
Nyxion stepped forward with as his smirk warped into a smile. He then activated a talent.
|Spatial Thread - Blooming Division|
The moment he activated his talent; his black eyes spun like voids. The space around his body compressed into a single silver thread thinner than a hair, humming with the promise of absolute severance.
He exhaled.
Then, the thread vanished.
-----
Two hundred thousand kilometers away, Ash was still standing at the palace window, gazing out over lands that had just learned his name, when his Eyes of First Dawn ignited without warning.
The Aspect that was now fully fused into his soul showed one of its uses....
An hour of future slammed into his vision like a burning film: the thread, the palace sliced into drifting petals, crimson-white banners falling like dying birds. He moved before the vision even finished.
His legs bent before he took one massive leap from the window leaving behind a whole in the wall. His ten tails flared crazily behind him as his newly crimson and white crowned gleamed under the sunlight. He then willed his talent into action.
|Absolute Null Zone|
Then across 2.5 million Km mana vanished.
The silver thread met the zone three thousand kilometers short of the palace and dissolved into harmless glittering dust that rained across empty sky.
Two hundred S-ranks and two imperial princes plummeted like broken dolls.
Ash let them fall just long enough for terror to bloom, then released the zone and spoke a single word that tasted of phoenix fire, paradox, and ancient longing.
|Eternal Craving | -60% MP|
"Kneel."
The word rolled across the sky like warm silk laced with molten gold.
Two hundred and two pairs of eyes bled silver fire at the exact same instant. Then... memories that had never existed rewrote themselves across their souls: ten thousand lifetimes of waiting, wanting, worshipping a fox-eared king they had only now remembered.
Nxyion hit his knees first, palms slamming together in desperate prayer, silver tears carving tracks down his face.
"My Lord… I have worshipped you across every life.... and forgot until this moment… forgive this worthless life…"
Celetis pressed his forehead to the empty air, voice cracking like breaking glass.
"I dreamed of the day you would return my lord.... for twelve hundred years and woke up empty every time. Please! Do not cast me away now that the dream is real… command me, break me, burn me, only let me stay…"
Behind them the Void Reapers wept openly, armor clattering as they bowed until their foreheads bled silver.
Ash face scrunched up hearing all of their nonsense.
'The fuck?' He thought before shaking his head. Although he had created the skill... he didn't think they would begin rambling a bunch of nonsense.
He simply shook his head as he turned and walked back toward the palace on solid air.
"Come. Follow me."
They crawled after him across the sky, tears falling like silver rain, begging with every ragged breath to be allowed to serve the man they had died a thousand times to find.
----
Ash drifted back through the shattered balcony and settled onto the obsidian throne once more, the crimson-white crown resting lightly on his brow as though it had always belonged there.
Before him, two hundred and two broken souls knelt in perfect silence, their silver eyes reflecting nothing but him.
Two status windows bloomed in the air like burning glass.
[Celetis Elarian
Race: Human (Voidblood Lineage – Space-Time) (S)
Rank: Low S-Rank (Existence Level: 70,000)
Age: 1,200 years
....]
[Nyxion Elarian
Race: Human (Voidblood Lineage – Space-Time) (S)
Rank: Low S-Rank (Existence Level: 68,850)
Age: 1,196 years
.....]
[A/N: No need to waste on minor characters.... right? If their role increases somehow, I will properly introduce them....]
--
The two princes trembled hardest of all; every breath came ragged, as though the air itself had become too precious to waste on anything except waiting for his next word.
The palace guards who had rushed in at the commotion froze mid-step, weapons lowering instinctively the moment they felt the new weight of the crown pressing gently against their hearts.
Ash leaned back, tail curling lazily over one armrest, and finally spoke.
Nyxion's voice cracked the instant he tried to answer, silver tears still sliding down his cheeks.
"M-my Lord… we were ordered by the Goddess to eliminate you the moment you revealed yourself.
Celetis bowed so low his forehead touched the marble, hands clenched until blood dripped from his palms.
"The Goddess is the only reason we would ever meddle in the affairs of the kingdoms."
'The Goddess, huh?' Ash thought as everything was finally coming together.
"Tell me about this Goddess."
Hearing that Celetis continued,
"M-my Lord... not much about the Goddess is known. We have never even seen her, only silhouettes... But without her voice guiding our bloodline, the Empire would have rose above others... She promised glory… and… in exchange for one task."
Ash's ears flicked forward, the crimson-white crown catching the light like fresh blood on snow.
"She wanted us to cross the Wall of Death," Nyxion whispered, the name tasting like poison and reverence at once.
"She has always wanted someone to cross it… but after the Emperor and Empress sent multiple legions into it, they died on contact.... since that time, we've never tried again."
A chill that had nothing to do with temperature settled in the throne room.
Even the silver-eyed Void Reapers shivered.
Ash felt it too—the same icy dread that crawled through Vaeloria's ancient memories whenever that Wall was mentioned.
A barrier older than the Ten Thousand Kingdoms, older than the sky itself, where even the strongest of Vaeloria's time didn't dare enter.
The revelation of this made Ash brow furrow completely. Things made sense... but then it didn't... Obviously, this Goddess were using different pawns to accomplish her goals, but the Wall of Death?
'What's so important about it?' Ash thought to himself, he had always looked at it in the distance, but he knew nothing of it.
Besides it was absolute Death....
"How do you contact this Goddess?" he asked, voice deceptively calm.
Celetis swallowed hard enough to be heard across the hall.
"We… we cannot, My Lord. Only she reaches us—through dreams or materializes through the blood in our veins. She is probably watching us right now… knowing we failed… knowing we belong to you instead."
Ash went very still.
For the first time he clearly felt it.... It was as if two sets of eyes were watching him from high above. Now it wasn't an evident feeling one would get when a lower cultivator tried to pry too far but more like the feeling that something was watching from the darkness, but you couldn't see a thing.
He forced his voice to remain level.
"Alright. Enough of that for now. You will all remain in the palace until I return."
He rose, the crimson-white cloak settling around his shoulders like living flame and walked past the kneeling army without another glance.
The bond with Nia and Vaeloria tugged insistently at his chest... and from it could clearly tell they were in a good mood.
He smiled just thinking about what news they would bring.
Ash stepped off the balcony and shot towards they pull faster than the new dawn, leaving two weeping princes and two hundred reborn worshippers kneeling in the throne room that now belonged to a king they had died a thousand times to find.