📍 Velaria – Royal Throne Hall
The throne room of Velaria was suffocatingly still.
King Verin sat slouched in his ornate chair, eyes cold, fingers steepled over a pile of reports. Each parchment dripped with the same truth: the rogue Sovereign continued to spread like wildfire.
"He commands relics we've long sealed, bends protocols with mere words… and now, he gathers followers."The royal advisor's voice wavered as he read the final report aloud. "Even the inquisitors stationed in the western sector refused to engage him. They say… he spoke and the crowd turned on them."
Verin leaned back, expression unreadable. "So the infection spreads."
"Your Majesty, if we don't respond—"
"We will." He stood. "Summon the Inquisitor."
📍 Orvale – Rooftop Shadows
Kaelira and I watched from atop an abandoned spire. The city below churned with tension. Murmurs. Movement. Posters bearing my face were plastered across walls. Some torn down. Some protected.
"They fear you," Kaelira muttered.
"Fear is leverage," I replied. "If applied correctly, it topples kings."
She glanced sideways.
"And if it turns on us?"
"Then we sharpen it."
📍 That Night – The Hideout
The moon cast sharp angles through the broken rafters above. We were discussing next steps when the door creaked.
A figure stepped into the dim light — tall, cloaked, calm.
Kaelira's daggers were already out, the tips glinting cold.
"I come with a proposition," he said, revealing the silver seal of the royal Inquisition.
"You're either brave… or foolish," I said without rising.
"Neither. I'm… curious."
"Curiosity can be fatal."
He smiled.
"Only if you're wrong."
Behind him, shadows moved. Four more stepped into view — robed, armored, silent.
đź“Ť Clash of Wills
Kaelira struck first — fast and merciless. One inquisitor dropped before he could blink.
I met the lead Inquisitor head-on.
He raised both hands and called forth the System's authority. Light formed glyphs in the air — judgments, bindings, divine classifications.
"You've defied the will of the world," he declared. "Now, it will erase you."
The pressure hit — a spiritual weight designed to collapse identity.
But my will was already carved in stone.
The Crown of the Forgotten flared at my side, and I spoke:
"Edict of Refusal."
The air buckled. The symbols shattered.
He reeled, stunned.
"That's not possible…"
"It is," I said, stepping closer. "Because I don't obey rules written for someone else's story."
He lashed out — light and fury.
I answered with raw dominion.
The ground split. The stone we stood on fractured.
He dropped to his knees — eyes wide with something between awe and horror.
"You serve a structure already rotting," I told him. "And I'm the one breaking the foundations."
đź“Ť Aftermath
The survivors fled.
The people who watched — those hiding behind broken shutters and cracked doors — saw what the system didn't want them to see:
A Sovereign standing.
Kaelira stood beside me, her breathing steady despite the blood.
"They'll send more," she said.
"Let them."
She looked at me, uncertain for once.
"What happens when we're no longer the rebels?"
I smiled.
"Then they'll call us rulers. And it'll be too late."
The flames behind us burned quietly.
The city watched.
And somewhere deep within the system, another warning lit up red.