Chapter 545: Abyssal VIII
The clash was not quiet.
It was thunder written into marrow, light and shadow colliding with flame and memory.
The first wave of Throne-Bearers struck the stair like a storm. Spears bent time, unraveling moments to pierce before defense could rise. Shields erased wounds, turning blood back into flesh. Voices sang decrees that bent gravity, flinging entire ranks of spectral flames into the abyss.
But the chorus answered.
The erased did not fight as mortals. They fought as embers of defiance, each strike not bound by body but by memory itself. A blade of fire might break under decree, but the memory of the blade—how it was once swung, how it once killed—burned on, remade again and again. For every erased flame shattered, three more rose in its place, each singing louder, each burning brighter.
Roselia’s emberblade split into dozens, spectral reflections fanning out with every strike. Naval’s scales burned molten, his roar summoning dragons of flame that clashed fang-first with bearers’ rewritten weapons. Liliana’s threads tethered broken sparks together, weaving the erased into formations that fought as one, voices aligned to the same rhythm.
Roman laughed, blood bubbling from his lips as his shattered arm swung phantom echoes of his old strikes—every duel he’d ever fought replaying in fire at his side. "Hah! Look at them! They can’t silence what already sang!"
And Milim—Milim danced. Her violet fire tore through decree as though it were parchment. She welcomed the Throne-Bearers with wild abandon, ripping geometry from their shields, devouring their rewritten laws like meat. Her laughter echoed louder than the crowns themselves.
But it was Leon who bound it all.
He did not move with frenzy, nor with rage. He conducted. Every spark of fire, every scream, every strike—he wove them together. When a Throne-Bearer bent time to strike early, Leon’s flame pulled the echo of a slain climber from centuries past to block the blow. When decree tried to erase a wound, Leon’s fire rewrote the erasure into ash. When gravity itself turned traitor, his flame rewove the rhythm of falling into the rhythm of rising.
He did not fight the laws. He made them sing.
And the bearers faltered.
For the first time in eternity, servants of the crowns met resistance not from decree, not from rebellion alone—but from memory itself refusing to die.
The stair shook with their war, flame and decree colliding until sparks scarred the heavens.
Far above, beyond the rift, the Upper Thrones watched.
One voice, cold as shattered glass, hissed: "He wields the marrow. He calls the erased."
Another thundered in fury: "He cannot be allowed to stand. Send more. Send all. Drown him."
But others—silent until now—whispered with unease. "He bends flame as we bend decree. If we strike wrong, the fracture spreads. The marrow itself may wake fully."
Division grew.
And in the silence between their voices, something older stirred.
Deep in the Tower’s core, beneath the abyss, beneath the marrow—the chains rattled again.
The Tower itself was listening.
On the stair, Leon raised his hand, flame coiling in answer to every erased climber that had joined his side. His voice, carried in the roar of the chorus, burned through the battlefield:
"This is not your Tower anymore. It never was. It belongs to every step that dared climb—and today, it climbs against you."
The chorus thundered.
And the legions of the crowns broke against the fire that refused to be silenced.
The War of Flame and Decree had begun.
The legions broke, but they did not scatter.
The Throne-Bearers, bound tighter than bone to decree, did not know retreat. Their forms cracked, splintered, remade—each death unraveling into light, only to be pulled back together by the crowns’ will. They were endless, a tide of rewritten law.
But the chorus was endless too.
Every fallen bearer fed the flame, their decrees torn apart and folded into the song. Every erased climber rekindled stronger, drawn to Leon’s rhythm. What began as chaos became battle-choir—an army whose voices struck sharper than steel.
Roselia’s emberblade sang in harmony with the sparks around her, her strikes multiplying not by force but by memory of battles past. Naval’s molten roars echoed into draconic choruses, each spectral wyrm’s roar shaking decree apart. Liliana’s silver threads quivered, weaving not just the erased but the living, binding their pulses into a single rhythm.
Roman howled with laughter as phantom duels replayed beside him—ghosts of himself past and future striking in time with his shattered arm.
And Milim—Milim’s dance became frenzy divine. She leapt, burned, consumed, violet fire unraveling geometry faster than it could be written. Each decree devoured was spat back out as raw chaos, reshaping into crescents of fire that split the battlefield.
Leon was the anchor. The center.
He did not roar. He did not rage. He guided.
Every strike, every scream, every ember bent toward his pulse. He turned chaos into chorus, discord into hymn. His flame no longer belonged to him—it belonged to the Tower, to every step ever climbed.
And for the first time, the legions of decree hesitated.
Not because they were afraid. Because they wavered. The song tore at them, their decrees quivering as if tempted to bend. Some faltered mid-strike, their spears trembling, their voices breaking from command into something dangerously close to memory.
One Throne-Bearer screamed, his shield cracking. "I... I remember—" before flame consumed him, not in destruction, but in release.
Far above, the Thrones roared at once.
"Hold the line!" thundered one.
"Do not bend! Do not sing!" shrieked another.
"Erase them! Erase HIM!"
But beneath their unity, fracture deepened. Their silence no longer held.
And the marrow listened.
Chains rattled louder. Something vast pressed against the bones of the Tower, older than decree, older than crowns. Not servant, not law—foundation. The Tower itself shifting in its sleep.
On the stair, Leon’s eyes burned brighter as the chorus swelled. His voice, quiet yet absolute, cut through war and thunder alike:
"Every bearer that breaks will not return to them. They will return here. To us. To the fire."
The chorus answered in kind, their song burning the sky.
And with every verse, with every flame reborn, the Tower itself began to hum.
It was no longer just a battlefield.
It was awakening.