The Dust Never Settles
The days following the fall of Nimistran were not days of peace. They were days of reckoning—brutal, bitter, and unbearably quiet.
The world had tasted what it meant to kill a god—and it hungered. Not for more blood, but for answers, for healing, for purpose in the chasm left by divine silence. Cities erupted into revolution. Shrines burned as if mourning. Statues of the Eternal Paladins were torn down by the very hands that once offered them prayer. The divine order, once carved into the heavens, had cracked—and the world bled through the seams.
Temples that once echoed with celestial hymns now stood hollow, reclaimed by vines, dust, and time. In the forsaken lower realms, oppressed peoples raised new banners—emblazoned not with sigils of gods, but with the names of the martyred, the broken, and those who dared to hope. Old seers named this age the Dimming—an era where faith was rewritten in blood and fire.
And yet, Matt Salurga stood still.
He moved through the remains of Nyuga like a phantom in mourning. Not as the Ashlight Ascendant. Not as the Godborn. But as a man. A man without a crown, without a throne, without a name he still believed in. The world whispered his legend—but he felt only the weight.
He wandered past the shattered temples of his youth, where broken bells lay in rusted heaps. He touched the scorched stone where his mother had once sung lullabies. He knelt before graves marked only by weathered stone, stripped of names and memories by fire and time. Every step northward was a funeral march.
The whispers of villagers who saw him pass were not of awe, but of reverence laced with fear. Children peered from behind ruined walls. Elders wept quietly in corners, unsure if they were watching the return of a savior or the coming of a storm.
In the distance, mountains crumbled under celestial dissonance. Skies dimmed like ash settling over the hearts of men. The world was changing—mourning what was lost, dreading what might come next.
The pendant of Amiya pulsed faintly against his chest—a soft, steady heartbeat of light. It guided him forward. Toward Moniyan Palace. Toward the reckoning. Toward the end.
---
Fractured Thrones
Within the celestial palace of Elyzeir, panic disguised itself in pageantry. The remaining four Imperial Paladins held court in a realm that shook beneath its own sanctimony. The divine halls, once immutable symbols of law and power, had grown brittle. Stained-glass windows flickered as if mourning. Statues wept molten tears. Even the air trembled.
Golden halls now felt like tombs. Ornate pillars carved with scenes of godly triumph stood cracked and hollow, their stories broken mid-sentence. Priests whispered prayers they no longer believed in, and divine fire dimmed to cinders in sconces long unextinguished.
In the Chamber of Binding—a sanctum carved from living starstone where destinies had once been forged and broken—Arshimest's voice sliced through the silence like a blade:
"The flame has spread. We cannot let him reach the heart."
Monshin answered with the cold detachment of a general already writing the next war:
"You speak of prevention like time obeys us. He is already moving. The throne may yet fall from within."
From the shadows, Analice emerged, smoke curling around her form like serpents. Her voice dripped venom:
"Then we tear the world apart before it welcomes him."
Only Thermuz remained silent. He stood beneath the fractured obelisk at the chamber's center—a monument to divine unity now cracked to its core. His molten gaze was fixed on the fault line running through its heart. A wound. A prophecy. A promise.
"We're already too late," he murmured. "The world remembers what it means to burn."
The silence that followed wasn't silence at all. It was dread—sharpened and waiting. The gods, once the architects of fate, had become prisoners of their own crumbling dominion.
Worse still, they no longer trusted each other. Arshimest's eyes scanned the others not with camaraderie but with suspicion. Whispers of betrayal curled between them. Alliances thinned. Old wounds reopened. The fracture wasn't just physical—it was spiritual.
The Eternal Order, once bound by shared purpose, now trembled under its own weight. Secret meetings gave way to shadowy accusations. Plans were drafted not just for defense, but for survival—each Paladin carving their own fate into the bones of the palace, should the others fall.
---
The Crownless King
Matt arrived at the gates of Moniyan not with armies, but with silence.
The sky cracked like flint overhead, thunder rumbling as his boots met divine marble. The sentinels—stone golems carved with celestial sigils—watched, unblinking. And yet, they did not attack. Their sigils flickered. Then faded. Perhaps it was recognition. Perhaps it was fear.
The gates opened.
He entered alone, walking through halls that breathed eternity. Murals of forgotten wars lined the corridor walls, their colors peeling, their stories unraveling. Fountains of liquid starlight trickled through cracked veins. Dust coated altars once revered.
Every step Matt took was heavy with memory.
He paused at the Hall of Whispers, where Amiya had once traced sacred runes in the air and taught him to listen—to voices, to winds, to silence. The scriptures on the walls had changed. They shimmered like living fire—rewritten by hands no longer divine.
In the Garden of Eternity, no petals bloomed. Only glassy soil and the echo of footsteps remained. A single black feather drifted down before him. Neither dove nor crow. Something older. Something final.
A fountain at the garden's center—once a place of meditation—now ran dry. At its base were offerings: broken swords, burned incense, locks of hair, torn ribbons of prayer. All testimonies to faith lost in silence.
He passed through the corridors of Celestial Doctrine, where scrolls had once floated on divine wind, and now lay as brittle ruins beneath his feet. His reflection in the Mirror of Judgment showed not a god, nor a monster—but a man, burdened with memory and a destiny that demanded sacrifice.
He had faced beasts birthed from oblivion. He had endured the screams of dying stars. But nothing felt heavier than the silence waiting beyond that final door. Not the gods. Not the fire. Not even the truth.
And then he reached the Hall of Thrones.
The remaining Paladins stood beneath their fractured banners, each cloaked in godly wrath.
Arshimest gripped the Staff of Judgment—an artifact meant to anoint kings and annihilate traitors.
Monshin summoned storms into his palm, lightning dancing across his armor.
Analice's fingers bled shadows, weaving blades from silk and fury.
Thermuz's arms glowed with volcanic ruin, each breath a threat.
Matt said nothing.
But his silence roared.
The mural behind the thrones—once depicting the rise of the Eternal Order—split down its center. Dust rained like ash.
The pendant against his chest pulsed once—bright and defiant, as if whispering: "Remember."
In that breath, he saw them—Amiya's last smile, Elric's scorched blade, Sam's hand outstretched through the dark. They were gone. But they burned within him still. The divine palace held its breath.
He raised no blade. He wore no crown. But the very cosmos leaned toward him.
And then, reality cracked like brittle glass. Flame screamed. Void howled. Steel clashed with prophecy. Storms shattered time. In the center of it all stood Matt—the man they could not unmake. And within the storm, four gods moved as one. Their strikes tore reality. Their fury sculpted apocalypse.
Matt met each blow not with rage—but with resolve. Each counter was a memory made weapon. Every movement whispered of pain endured, of loss unspoken, of truths remembered.
He struck not to destroy, but to restore—each blow a requiem, each movement a prayer for a better world. His power carried the echoes of the fallen, the prayers of the forgotten, and the wrath of the silenced. The thrones trembled not just from force—but from truth.
No prophecy foretold what followed.
Only flame, rising higher.
And in that rising fire, the world turned—toward a fate even the gods had not dared to write.