Thronefire Rising
The War Begins in Silence
Across the shattered heavens, three realms trembled.
The death of Silithar reverberated through the divine planes like a faultline snapping across eternity. It didn't shatter reality—it distorted it, splintering ancient truths long buried beneath divine silence. The chains that bound the cosmos to order—memory, silence, submission—began to fray.
Now, war stirred.
Three crowns blazed to life—manifestations of godly dominion:
A throne of flame suspended in storm-wracked crimson clouds.
A spiral citadel bound in golden chains that whispered oaths of conquest.
A floating sanctum of obsidian glass, bleeding starlight into the black void.
The last three Imperial Paladins had awakened.
---
Thermuz: The Infernal Warlord
In the Cradle of Embers, lava cascaded like the blood of titans.
Thermuz stood resolute, encircled by his monstrous Selvage horde—lava-skulled horrors melded from bone and cinder. His throne, a roaring pyre of dominion, reflected the inferno within.
He had felt Silithar fall.
He welcomed it.
"Let them rise. Let them burn. If the Vault has broken, then the seals must follow."
His voice echoed like a volcano's roar, searing through the atmosphere of his war-torn realm.
His generals bowed in solemn reverence. The Ravager Knights howled their fury, raising molten blades toward the skies.
A war-fortress stirred behind him—Volkrag, the crawling citadel, powered by magma-spirits and chained leviathans. Its furnaces roared to life.
The engine of war turned its fury toward Earth.
But Thermuz was not marching alone.
Within the fire, a forgotten sigil pulsed—one tied to an ancient oath sealed in primordial flame. As the molten glyph flared, a voice older than Thermuz rumbled in the deep:
"The pact cracks, Infernal One. The Flamebound will awaken."
He dropped to one knee before the Infernal Throne Core—an ancient slab of obsidian brimstone etched with the first fire-runes. When his hand touched it, the surface hissed, and a hidden inscription ignited:
"Peace is the final mercy of ash."
The Ravager Priests began chanting:
"From magma comes the memory of the first flame… and from wrath, the god who ends."
---
Analice: The Empress of Hunger
Within the Hollow Sanctum, where the walls pulsed like living flesh, Analice glided between shadows.
Half-beast. Half-goddess. Entirely predator.
Her disciples—the Shadowian Legir—circled her throne like beasts awaiting a kill, claws etching sigils into the glassstone floor, eyes ablaze with animal devotion.
She breathed in the silence left behind by Silithar's demise. To her, it was perfume laced with opportunity.
"Now Monshin has no excuse to wait," she whispered. "It's time I take my crown… and his."
She lifted her arms.
The void stirred.
And answered.
Tendrils of living darkness slithered from every crevice of the sanctum. Mirrors cracked without being touched. The boundaries between shadow and matter blurred.
Above her throne, a second mask hovered into being—ivory white, faceless, humming with divine hunger.
She smiled at it.
"Hello again, Sister."
Analice was not alone within her skin.
Inside her mind, another voice whispered—soft, childlike, insane:
"Let's eat the boy who remembers... let's wear his guilt."
She caressed her own throat and giggled, her smile splitting inhumanly wide.
In another corner of the realm, an ancient altar cracked open—revealing bones, memories, and the voice of a god she once devoured.
"I am every secret they forgot. And I am starving."
---
Nimistran: The Blade of Ending
Beyond time, at the edge of a collapsing galaxy, Nimistran knelt beneath a wounded sky.
Oblivion's Fang—his blade of absolute ruin—hovered silently at his back, its surface flickering with starlit omens.
He had felt Silithar's final breath.
And in that moment, he remembered a name:
Matt.
"So… the child remembers. Then the tale ends as it began."
He rose—not with fury, but with inevitability.
Galaxies collapsed behind him. Stars dimmed as he turned.
He stepped forward.
And the edge of his shadow crossed into the fabric of mortal time.
In his sanctum—a divine orrery of dead stars—Nimistran passed rows of frozen time-statues. Each a god he had silenced. Each engraved with the same phrase:
"Truth unspoken is peace unbroken."
At the altar of endings, he paused before a shattered blade—an earlier prototype, a failed attempt at god-slaying perfection.
"Even I once failed. I will not again."
A single star blinked out above him.
He smiled.
"All stories must end. Some simply don't know it yet."
---
Interlude: The Realms Shudder
Across the Outer Realms, the moons of Kaltris wept blood and flame.
In Nir'Val's Dreaming Roots, the god-trees convulsed and whispered in ancient tongues:
"Three Crowns Rise… Three Shall Fall…"
On Earth, Matt staggered—gasping as three pulses of divine power burned through the Ashlight still clinging to his soul.
The Vault trembled. Its newly freed memories flickered, uncertain.
He looked up at the sky—and for the first time since Silithar's fall, he felt fear.
---
Far below the known realms, beneath layers of sealed time and forgotten names, a single eye opened.
It had no name.
Only a purpose.
To watch the Hollow Crowns rise.
To remember their fall.
"The child has killed a god. Now he must choose which god he becomes."
And so, the Hollow Crowns rose—each forged by a forgotten truth, each sharpened by silence, each fated to fall.
---
War Marches on Flesh and Light
The Skyfall Covenant
A comet tore across the horizon, trailing blue fire and broken prayers.
Matt stood at the ridge overlooking the shattered landscape of Nyuga's outskirts—once a sanctuary of rebirth, now a scorched grave of ash and silence. Trees turned to obsidian husks. Rivers wept smoke. Dust danced in the air like ghosts with nowhere left to haunt.
His Ashlight flared at his fingertips.His Voidflame stirred beneath his skin.
And beside him stood Mailane, Grey, and Sam—scarred, battle-worn, but alive. They carried not just weapons, but history.
"They're coming," Mailane whispered, voice steady.
Matt nodded. "Let them."
Behind them, the Warborn legions rallied beneath the broken banners of Nyuga's lost kingdoms. From the frost-touched tribes of Serewyn to the ember-hardened warriors of Myos, all had gathered.
To stand.To fight.To burn.
The covenant had been made—Flesh and Light would no longer kneel.
Not to gods.Not to paladins.Not again.
And the wind carried a new name: Flame Requiem.
Blades on Black Soil
They met at the Weeping Expanse, a field where ancient magic had scorched the land beyond recovery. Blackened soil crumbled beneath marching boots. The Ravager Knights came first—Thermuz's horde screaming fury into the wind.
Matt ignited his Ashlight blade. Mailane whispered to her Shadowsidian edge. Grey cracked his knuckles, muttering old war chants.
Then the storm hit.
The two forces collided like crashing planets—flame versus Void, bone versus steel. Skyships torn apart midair, beasts of flame wrestled with war-forged titans, and amidst it all, Matt found him.
Thermuz.
"So the godchild stands," the Infernal Warlord spat. "Come, flamebearer. Show me why Silithar fell."
"I'm not here to show," Matt said, voice low.
"I came to end the gods…"
He stepped closer.
"To bury their graves…"
The Voidflame hissed.
"To finish their lies."
He raised his blade.
"Just. Endings. Now."
Their blades met—and the sky cracked. Thunder wept. The ground screamed.
The battle roared around them.
Ashlight Unleashed
Thermuz struck like a volcano made flesh—his strikes split mountains, his roars melted steel. But Matt fought with memory, with pain, with purpose. Every block, every parry, every counter—was a name, a face, a promise.
"For my mother."
"For Nyuga."
"For every soul you turned to ash."
Ashlight exploded from Matt's chest as Voidflame spiraled around his limbs. The hybrid force shook the battlefield. Mailane and Grey held the flanks as the Nayron Kings stormed into the fray—once enemies, now brothers-in-arms.
"The strong follow strength," Myuthor roared, hurling thunderbolts. "Today—we follow you!"
Matt's final strike cleaved through Thermuz's armor, splitting molten bone from cursed spirit. The Infernal Warlord howled.
And then, silence.
Thermuz fell.
Silence.
Mailane stepped beside Matt, blade lowered.
"That wasn't a battle," Mailane said, voice low. "That was a reckoning."
And from his corpse, a black crown of scorched obsidian rolled to Matt's feet.
He didn't pick it up.
He simply turned.
The March Doesn't End
As the dust cleared, Matt collapsed to one knee, breath ragged. Mailane was at his side in seconds, her voice shaking.
"You're hurt—"
"I'm fine," he lied. "We're not done."
Above them, the sky bled.
The Hollow Sanctum stirred.
And somewhere, a voice whispered:
"One throne burns."
"Two remain."
"And onlyone shall kneel."
Analice had seen the battle's end.
And now, she moved.
Her army was not fire.
It was shadow.
And shadow was patient.