Bone was used to carve the stairs.
Blackened, dense, humming with silent hunger—not white, not brittle. It seemed as though the staircase was alive—and listening—as each step they took down into Layer Fourteen felt like a pulse beneath their soles.
Hollowfang bared his teeth and gave a low growl.
"Not stone," it uttered in a voice ripped from instinct. "This is the spine. The backbone of someone.
Raen gave one nod. "Then we're going down through the body of something that can still remember pain."
Jester Wyrm laughed uneasily. That's just poetry, isn't it? An eerie staircase composed of regrets and dead kings. incredibly thematic.
Ember Vow's armor radiated uneasiness as her flames flickered. "They're watching us."
Hopelessness Raen sensed it too, but Maw didn't answer. Not the eyes. Teeth. not snarling. Awaiting.
At the foot of the stairs, a huge, reverberating vault opened into the chamber. And a throne stood in the middle of it, half-buried in layers of ash and broken roots.
Or what used to be a throne.
It was backless. No seat.
Just a round dais ringed with ivory fangs, some wet with what appeared to be ink, some broken. Above it, heavy, rusted chains dangled from a ceiling so high that the darkness vanished.
Raen moved in closer.
The System gave a chime.
[Identified Throne: Maw-Cradle]
[Purpose: Trial of the Monarch]
[Warning: Class: Prime Devourer; Entity Below Detected]
The air grew heavier.
A voice resounded—from inside the bones, not from above or below.
"Give yourself a name."
Raen did not recoil. "Raen Tiberis."
The dais was pulsing.
"Not your real name. You deserve one.
He hesitated. The others were tense as they stood at the edge. Raen entered the teeth's circle.
"I served as the Broken Crescent General of the Empire. Abyss beast-tamer. Burned to sorrow and suffering. I bear Kaelyn's name. Furthermore, I don't bow down to rot thrones.
Not a word.
Then a grin.
He didn't hear it. He sensed it. The smile a wolf flashes just before jumping.
The floor splintered.
And it rose from the depths beneath the throne.
It wasn't a beast.
It was a living throne. A creature with spinal arcs and jawbones that crawls on jointed tusk limbs. Its maw parted sideways, revealing dozens of thrones inside, shaped from kings that had been eaten and fused to ribs.
It hissed, "Then sit, Raen of No Crown."
"And endure judgment."
Raen remained motionless.
"I don't tolerate parasites."
The vault shook as the creature roared. Chains broke from above. Like a storm, ash spiraled. The others jumped back.
The Prime Devourer sprang forward.
Raen rolled, ducked beneath its tusk-limbs, and conjured the essence of Hollowfang into his left arm. Skin exploded with claws. He cut upward, cutting off one of the creature's front joints. As it was flung down, it shrieked—like a throne screaming.
Leaping onto its back, Jester Wyrm threw glowing riddles like bombs. "Have you ever consumed your own metaphor?"
Ember Vow's sword sliced through ribs as she plunged through flame.
Hopelessness Maw slowed the creature, but it did not attack. caused it to falter. It gazed too long into the grief it reflected.
Raen discovered the heart.
It's not where it should be.
but up above.
within the ceiling. within the chains.
A faint pulse. Nearly—
He stopped. "The beast is not the throne. It's the crown.
He raised his head.
A circle of jagged crystal hovered above them, encircled by hooks and cables. A broken halo. It was not natural because it spun too slowly. And as Raen turned, he saw pictures mirrored in its fragments:
He knelt down.Kaelyn is on fire.
—The fall of the Empire. —Lucien, the treacherous friend.
—A cold, empty throne.
The Devourer hesitated. It paid attention to the halo. then made another lunge.
Raen took off running.
Not out of fear. In its direction.
He yelled, "Get me in the air!"
With its wings spread wide, Jester Wyrm encircled him. "You're crazy."
"I was insane from birth."
They took off. Then came the creature's scream.
Raen arrived at the halo—and made contact with it.
A scream that had never been heard before ripped through the vault. The halo broke. The illusion of control flew outward with the shards.
Below, the Devourer started to shake.
Bones snapping, its throne-body sagged.
Raen landed on top of its shattered skull.
He did not address the beast. However, to the world:
"I can rule without a throne. I can lead without a crown.
His fist clenched.
"And I don't have to forget to live."
He pierced the beast's brain with the broken piece of the halo.
A dazzling flash.
Then silence.
Snow-like ash fell.
Sucked into itself, the throne-beast fell inward. There was only one intact tooth left.
Raen took it up.
[Purchased: Fang of the Fallen Kings]
[Devourer's Pact: System Upgrade Unlocked: Increase Mental Fortitude by 10% in Monarch Zones and Resistance to Domination]
The others assembled.
Wyrm, the jester, whistled. "You really don't want to rule as a king, do you?"
Raen gave a headshake. "No. I'm turning into something worse.
He walked over to the next gate.
And the shattered vault behind him mumbled, not in alarm but in relief.