Chapter 537: Inevitable XXII
The first of the abyssal beasts dragged itself through the wound.
Its body was not one thing but many—an amalgam of claws and wings stitched together by black-gold ligaments of script. Its head split open into three jaws, each dripping a language no mortal tongue could form. Every syllable it breathed was a decree older than the Thrones themselves, a ruinous command that sought to overwrite existence.
Roselia met it head-on. Her emberblade carved upward in a single arc, flames spilling across the beast’s chest. The wound glowed for an instant before trying to seal with runes, but she pressed forward, forcing her fire deeper, her voice a battle-cry: "Burn until nothing rewrites!"
The beast shrieked, the sound shattering three more steps of the stair.
Naval slammed his trident into the stone, stormlight spreading in jagged veins. Bolts of lightning speared the beast’s runes, holding them open so Roselia’s fire could consume them. His scales cracked under the recoil, blood searing into steam, but his teeth bared in defiance.
Above, Milim tore a spear of decree apart with her bare hands, her destruction flaring brighter with every impact. Each strike left violet scars in the air, wounds that refused to heal. "COME ON!" she screamed at the Thrones, laughing even as blood ran down her arms. "SEND MORE—I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED!"
Liliana knelt at the heart of it all, silver threads darting out faster than sight. She wasn’t weaving walls anymore—she was binding collapse itself. Every crack in the stair, every ripple of ruin, she tied shut with her pulse. Her skin paled to snow, her veins lit silver, but her voice held steady: "Leon’s path stays whole. No matter the cost."
Roman leapt into the fray where the abyss tore wider, his fists hammering against a second beast that dragged itself up. Each blow split his knuckles open, but molten light filled the cracks in his skin, turning every strike into a furnace blast. He grinned through the blood. "C’mon, freak—let’s see who breaks first!"
The stair became a battlefield of impossible scale.
Spears of law rained from the heavens.
Claws of ruin clawed upward from the deep.
And between them, five warriors stood like teeth against the tide, their every strike a denial of fate.
For every spear Milim broke, two more fell.
For every beast Roselia and Roman carved down, another clawed through the wound.
For every crack Liliana sealed, new ones split the stair beneath her knees.
And still, Naval’s voice carried, thunder and command entwined: "Hold. This is the only war that matters now. He descends—we hold."
The abyss answered. The sky roared.
And somewhere far below, the pulse of Leon’s flame deepened—carving a rhythm through eternity, each beat shaking the stair his friends bled to protect.
The rhythm echoed up the stair—not just sound, but weight, a gravity of fire that pressed against every soul locked in battle. For a heartbeat, even the Thrones hesitated, their spears faltering mid-descent as though the authority they wielded was being rewritten beneath them.
The abyssal beasts shrieked in answer, thrashing harder, their forms glitching between flesh and scripture. Black-gold ligaments snapped, reknit, and snapped again as Leon’s flame carved through the foundation they clawed upon.
Roselia felt it in her blade first. The emberlight surged, not with her will alone, but with his—their bond striking a resonance across the abyss. Her flames roared higher, cutting the beast in half as though guided by a hand far below. She staggered, gasping, but a grin split her face. "He’s burning with us."
Naval drove his trident into the stair, arcs leaping skyward. The bolts didn’t just clash with decree—they bent them, twisted their commands into storms that raged out of control. His voice thundered like the sea in storm: "Hear it, wolves. His fire is ours. Our stand feeds him."
Milim cackled, tearing another spear to shreds with her bare hands, destruction blooming in jagged blossoms of violet. Blood streamed freely down her arms, but her wings beat harder, louder, her laughter raw and furious. "Hah! Then I’ll tear down the whole damn sky until it’s nothing but tinder for his flame!"
Liliana trembled, her silver threads burning against her skin. The rhythm of Leon’s flame wrapped around her pulse, guiding her hands. Where before she had bound collapse with desperation, now she wove it with purpose—each knot tied in time with his descent. Her whisper was steady now, her eyes bright with unyielding fire: "He’s giving me the rhythm... and I’ll hold the stair together until the end."
Roman’s fists cracked another beast’s jaw, molten light spilling from its sundered throat. He spat blood, grinning through the ash. "Hah! You hear that, freaks? That’s the sound of the one you’ll never kill. You’ll break before he does—and I’ll make damn sure of it!"
The battlefield shifted.
The Thrones hurled decrees in desperation now, their radiance faltering, bending. The abyss clawed harder, birthing horrors half-formed, their limbs buckling under the flame’s deepening rhythm.
And at the center of it all, the path Leon had taken blazed brighter, no longer just a wound, but a beacon—each pulse a declaration that cut through heaven and abyss alike:
Return.
Roselia raised her blade, her voice carrying above the storm: "You hear it, don’t you? That’s not just his descent—it’s our victory. Every step he takes, we make it real!"
Naval’s trident struck, lightning answering like thunder’s vow: "Then we bleed, we burn, we hold—until his fire writes the end!"
The stair roared, a battlefield caught between collapse and rebirth.
And below, Leon’s flame pulsed deeper still—an unbroken chord echoing through eternity.
The stair groaned like a living thing, every fracture and echo carrying Leon’s rhythm outward. Where before it was descent alone, now it was return—each beat calling back the weight of every strike his allies made above.
The Thrones reeled. Their decrees fractured mid-command, edicts that once could silence storms now sputtered like dying sparks. The abyssal beasts convulsed, their bodies stretched between existence and erasure as the flame’s authority rewrote the laws they clung to.
Roselia’s blade sang, its flame harmonizing with Leon’s as though the stair itself were her scabbard. She lunged into the breach, cutting swathes of abyssal flesh and decree-light in equal measure, her voice raw:
"Every strike we land—it doesn’t fade! He’s turning our battle into his fire!"