"Tell the councils I don't want an audience," Alhen said, his silver-grey eyes fixed on the distant, shimmering towers of the capital. "Tell the High Lords that the 'Wave' is receding. The era of magic is over."
He wasn't looking toward the coastal reaches of Valencrest anymore. His gaze was locked on the heart of the continental power, the city that had dictated the flow of Essence for a millennium: The Golden Throne of Wilren.
Wilren, the seat of the High Sovereigns, where the air was so saturated with Mana that commoners could barely breathe. To them, it was a paradise of eternal light. To Alhen, it was a fever dream that needed to break.
"Wilren will not take this lightly, Alhen," Kaelen warned, his voice low. "The Sovereigns of Wilren aren't like Malakor. They don't just use the Void; they are the Source. Their Tier 5 masters are legion, and their High King is whispered to be touching the 'First Gate' of Tier 6."
Alhen didn't flinch. At twenty-one, the concepts of "Tiers" and "Gates" felt like children's bedtime stories. To an Anomaly, a Tier 6 King was just a man with a louder song—and Alhen was the silence that followed.
"Let them bring their legion," Alhen said, his white hair whipping in a wind that his own body seemed to repel. "The taller the tower of Wilren, the longer the shadow it casts. I am simply that shadow coming home."
He stepped to the very edge of the obsidian balcony. Below him, the clouds of the North were already beginning to grey and thin, the magical storms losing their coherence simply by being near him.
"Lira," Alhen called out, not looking back. "You don't have to follow me to Wilren. My path... it doesn't leave room for the Weavers. My presence will eventually starve your Mana if you stay too close."
Lira stepped forward, her sapphire hair glowing defiantly despite the drain. "I spent three years waiting for a ghost to wake up, Alhen. I'm not leaving now just because the 'Null-King' thinks he's too dangerous for friends. If Wilren falls, someone needs to be there to weave the world back together."
Alhen felt a ghost of a smile—the first in years—touch his lips. "Then keep your distance, Weaver. The air around the Golden Throne is about to get very cold."
Without another word, Alhen leaped.
He didn't use a [Wind-Glide] or a [Gravity-Anchor]. He fell like a meteor of pure, dense matter. When he hit the earth miles below, there was no explosion of light—only a dull, tectonic thud that shook the foundations of the Citadel.
A massive crater of dead, grey stone marked his landing. In the center stood the 21-year-old Anomaly, his black-iron slab slung over his shoulder.
He turned his back on the North and began his march toward Wilren. Every step he took left a footprint of absolute silence in the world's song.
The Sovereigns of the Golden Throne had spent centuries perfecting the "Wave." They were about to meet the man who was the Ocean's End.