Chapter 548: Abyssal XI
Roselia, still kneeling, planted her emberblade tip-first into the stair to hold herself steady. Her eyes glowed with both fear and reverence as she whispered, "No one has ever struck down a Throne... Leon, you’ve made war with eternity itself."
Leon did not answer immediately. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, each breath fanning the chorus-fire that clung to him. His gaze lifted—beyond the crumbling echoes of the Inviolate, to the breach above.
The rift seethed. Chains uncoiled downward, their links vast enough to strangle worlds, engraved with judgments that pulsed like beating hearts. Behind them, shadows shifted—each vaster than the first, each carrying a weight different from law but no less absolute.
The crowns were stirring.
Roselia’s grip tightened on her sword. "They won’t come one by one now. You’ve forced their hand."
Roman spat blood onto the stair and smirked. "Good. Let them all march. Better to burn in the open than rot under their boots."
Liliana shivered as her silver threads writhed, pulled taut by the growing pressure. "No... not all. One. The next is already here."
The marrow pulsed in agreement. The stair cracked again beneath the weight of another descent.
This Throne did not blaze with decree. It weighed with judgment.
Where the Inviolate was geometry and law, this one descended as a figure robed in veils of black parchment. Its form shifted with each step—sometimes a judge, sometimes a gallows, sometimes an executioner’s blade. Its face was a void filled with scales, always tipping, never balanced.
Its voice was neither inscribed nor sung. It was verdict.
"I am the Arbiter. I am Balance Without Mercy. I am That Which Decides."
The erased flinched as the Arbiter’s shadow swept over them. Whole bonfires guttered into sparks, their flames weighed and snuffed as "unworthy." The hymn faltered, voices breaking beneath the judgment.
Milim hissed, violet fire snapping violently. "It thinks it can weigh me? I’ll eat its damn scales!"
Naval bared his teeth, molten light blazing. "Judgment, law, silence—it’s all the same poison. Leon. Say the word, and we’ll break this one too."
But Leon’s flame did not flare immediately. He stood still, eyes narrowed, as if listening not to the Arbiter, but to the marrow itself.
The Arbiter raised one hand. The scales tilted.
And with the tilt came verdict.
Half the erased froze, their flames collapsing inward. Their voices vanished mid-note, erased not by decree, but by judgment—measured and found wanting.
Roselia staggered, her emberblade dimming. Liliana cried out, her threads unraveling. Even Roman’s specters flickered, the Arbiter’s verdict weighing on their worth.
The Arbiter’s voice thundered like the crack of a gavel:
"There is no song. There is no flame. There is only sentence."
The hymn faltered on the edge of silence.
And then Leon’s flame rippled—not bright, not violent, but steady, like the beat of a drum no scale could weigh. His voice cut into the hush, low but unshakable:
"Then weigh me first."
The Arbiter’s scales froze.
For the first time, the void-face tilted downward—toward Leon.
And the marrow itself trembled.
The Arbiter’s parchment-veils shivered as if caught in a wind no one else could feel. The scales within its void-face swayed once, twice, then steadied—poised above Leon.
The marrow’s chains groaned as though the Tower itself braced for the clash.
Leon did not flinch. His flame burned low, not the wild surge of rebellion but the steady glow of marrow’s core, the fire of origin that had endured silence and decree.
The Arbiter’s voice ground like a thousand gavels striking stone.
"Very well. You will be weighed."
The scales tipped.
On one pan fell decree-shards—remnants of the Inviolate’s shattered commandments, glowing like broken suns. On the other, Leon’s flame descended, not as fire alone but as resonance, carrying echoes of every climber’s step, every erased soul reborn in the hymn.
The Arbiter’s form trembled, parchment ripping. The scales buckled, unable to balance.
"Impossible... a mortal cannot outweigh law..."
Leon’s eyes narrowed. "I am not weight. I am rhythm."
The chorus surged as if answering his words. The erased who had faltered flared again, drawn back by resonance. Roman roared laughter, his specters returning tenfold. Roselia drove her blade into the stair, its glow spreading constellations across the marrow-cracks. Liliana’s threads whipped outward, binding voices into harmony. Naval’s roar shook the stair like thunder. Milim screamed with wild joy, violet fire swallowing judgment whole.
The Arbiter staggered, its scales twisting violently, one pan snapping free, the other spinning wild. Verdicts spilled uncontrolled, falling like broken thunder, condemning nothing, absolving nothing.
Leon stepped forward, his voice calm, each word cutting deeper than any blade:
"Judgment without mercy is not balance. It is tyranny. And tyranny breaks."
The Arbiter shrieked, parchment-veils unraveling, its void-face splitting as the scales shattered into molten fragments. Its final cry thundered through marrow and stair alike:
"Then there is no balance! Only ruin!"
Leon raised his hand, flame arcing like a conductor’s final stroke.
"Then let ruin sing."
The chorus struck in unison. Resonance thundered. The Arbiter’s form convulsed, then collapsed inward, parchment burning into ash, scales exploding into sparks that became stars across the marrow’s dark.
Silence followed—brief, raw, terrible.
Then the chains below rattled louder, shaking the stair until dust fell like rain. The Tower groaned, awakened further by the breaking of two Thrones.
Above, more shadows stirred. Not one, not two—many.
The crowns were rising.
The breach widened like a wound in the sky.
Where once one Throne had descended with majesty unchallenged, now the void seethed with agitation. Shapes moved within the rift—vast, terrible, distinct. No longer patient, no longer testing. The crowns were rising as a host.
The stair bent beneath the pressure of their gathering. Laws writhed in panic, judgments snapped against one another like clashing blades. The marrow itself groaned, each chain straining, as if daring to tear free entirely.
Roman spat blood and barked laughter that shook his broken ribs. "Hah! I knew it. You rattled the whole nest, Leon. Now they’ll swarm us!"