The city of Hanluang was a ghost.
Once a shining jewel of the Southern Dynasties, it now lay buried beneath ash and time. Cracked streets. Collapsed temples. Air so thick with memory, it tasted like incense and blood.
They stood before a gate carved with dragons—two, interlocked in eternal combat. One bore the crest of the sun. The other, the moon. Their eyes had long since been gouged out.
"The sixth throne is here," Juno said quietly, eyes glowing faintly as he traced sigils into the dirt. "Or what's left of it."
Rin shivered. Not from the cold—there was none. The air here was too still. As if the world itself was holding its breath.
Kael didn't speak.
He couldn't.
The sword on his back—Threadcutter—was humming.
Calling.
Pulling.
Toward something he both feared and knew he had to face.
---
The vault beneath Hanluang wasn't like the others. There were no stairs. No sacred halls. Just a chasm, splitting the earth where the great palace had once stood. Runes floated above it, suspended like dying fireflies. Kael stepped to the edge.
And it opened.
The air bent inward.
Rin caught him before he fell. "Don't let it take your balance. It's hungry."
"Like the vault in Goryeo," Mace muttered. "Except worse."
Juno's eyes narrowed. "Because this one wasn't sealed."
Kael frowned. "What do you mean?"
"This vault," Juno said, gesturing to the abyss, "was never meant to be locked. It was meant to be found."
A long pause.
Then Kael stepped inside.
---
It wasn't darkness that met them.
It was color.
Endless walls of silk, suspended in mid-air. Each one embroidered with a memory—a battlefield, a funeral, a prayer etched into the fabric of reality. Japanese ink paintings bled into Korean geomantic diagrams. Chinese spirit glyphs wrapped around every seam.
And in the center—
A throne.
Carved from black jade. Floating just above a pool of silver mist.
The air thrummed with power.
And pain.
Kael took a step forward.
Threadcutter snapped free of its bindings, flying to his hand with a speed that made everyone flinch.
The violet thread in his arm twisted violently.
And then—
The throne spoke.
> "You come late, Kael of the tethers."
Everyone froze.
The voice wasn't human. It didn't echo—it tore. Each word peeled reality back like rotten skin.
Kael gritted his teeth. "Zeyrox."
The air rippled.
The mist behind the throne parted.
And there he was.
A figure draped in void-black armor, face hidden beneath a silver mask that cracked down the center. Where his heart should have been, threads of every color writhed—red, blue, gold, white, black, violet.
Zeyrox.
The exiled. The chained. The rightful wielder of Threadcutter.
And the sixth.
> "You carry my blade," he said, stepping forward. "You carry my curse."
Kael raised the sword. "Then take it back."
> "Gladly."
Zeyrox didn't attack.
He appeared.
One instant, throne. Next—Kael flying backward, sword arm numb, ribs cracked from impact.
Rin and Mace lunged.
Rin's crimson rune lit up the room, slashing arcs of fire through the air. Mace's sabers caught Zeyrox's threads, forcing him back.
But only for a second.
Zeyrox raised one hand.
The threads lashed out.
Juno barely threw up a barrier in time. "He's feeding off the throne! It's alive!"
Kael staggered up, clutching Threadcutter.
And then—visions.
Not from the sword. From Zeyrox.
> A thousand battles. A hundred betrayals. Rulers of light casting him out—not for darkness, but for strength. Rulers of shadow rejecting him—for he bore light's scent. Alone. Torn. Hungry.
And through it all—Threadcutter in his hands. Severing gods. Ending kings. Not out of malice, but duty.
Until he was sealed.
"Why?" Kael whispered. "Why call me?"
> "Because I see myself in you," Zeyrox said quietly. "And because I am not your enemy."
The room pulsed.
The throne behind Zeyrox flickered—then cracked.
Juno gasped. "He's not the enemy… it is!"
The throne screamed.
Not Zeyrox.
The throne.
It opened like a mouth. Threads burst outward—pure violet, pure rage. Zeyrox turned, trying to contain it—but even he staggered.
> "It was meant to bind me," he growled. "But it fed on you."
Kael understood.
The throne had never been neutral. It was a trap. A parasite.
And now, it wanted a new host.
Him.
Kael gripped Threadcutter. "Then let's sever it."
---
The battle became a storm.
Kael and Zeyrox, side by side. Rin and Mace holding back waves of phantom threads. Juno chanting ancient seals, forcing the throne to reveal its true form—an entity of memory and hunger, shaped like a thousand mouths all whispering the past.
Kael leapt.
Threadcutter howled.
And with a scream that was not his own, he brought the blade down—cutting through the throne, through the false tether, through the lie.
The violet thread exploded.
And then—
Silence.
---
Zeyrox knelt, breathing heavily.
Kael stood over him, the sword now humming with something new. Not rage. Not pain.
Clarity.
> "You severed it," Zeyrox said. "You chose to remain yourself."
Kael nodded. "I'm not your heir. I'm my own."
Zeyrox rose, and for the first time, bowed his head.
> "Then may you do what I could not."
He stepped into the mist.
And vanished.
---
Outside Hanluang, the stars shifted once more.
The sixth thread was severed.
But Kael knew the war was far from over.
The throne had only been one voice.
And others were beginning to speak.