Silence, for a breath.
And then, the altar trembled.
A suffocating weight descended, invisible and absolute. The Lunaris Throne gasped and dropped to his knees, his spine bowed as the pressure bore down on him like the gravity of a dying star. The air crackled. Blood on the walls began to ripple.
Then ca the voice.
It rolled through the chamber like thunder wrapped in Primordial Energy. Smooth, commanding, and cold as death.
"You need ?"
The tone was laced with mockery. Deep and unrelenting.
"You need . As if your needs were relevant. As if a starving dog gets to demand a feast."
HUUM!
The Lunaris Throne shook. Sweat poured down his face, his head bowed, teeth clenched.
"No. You do not need. You ask. You beg. You plead for a droplet of water to fall from my hand. That is the level you operate on. That is the place you’ve always belonged."
Each word slashed through the darkness with cutting grace.
"You are a child playing with swords in a world of weapons forged from despair and stars. You will not co to with demands. You will co on your knees. You will co broken."
...!
The Lunaris Throne lowered further, his forehead pressed to the blood-slick floor. His voice cracked.
"Please... Achilles Maxwell must die. I fear for my life every hour he continues to live."
...!
The altar pulsed with horrific intent. The shadows thickened, crawling like a living tide.
Then ca the answer.
"Power has a cost."
The Lunaris Throne remained still.
"If you seek strength that defies your natural limit, that propels you past the shackles of Astral Core Ascension..."
The altar growled.
"Then the price will be twenty-five million human souls."
The air seed to freeze.
"Their destinies, their dreams, their fates- will be mine. And with them, you will rise beyond your fears."
The Lunaris Throne’s eyes were wide now. Wild. Unhinged.
And then...
He nodded.
"Okay," he whispered.
His voice was hollow.
"Okay."
No remorse. No hesitation.
He only wanted power. He only wanted to be safe.
No matter the cost.
Under the breathless stillness of the blood-drenched chamber, the Lunaris Throne remained kneeling. His cloak dragged across severed limbs and pooling ichor, the glint of moonlight catching upon his trembling silver pauldrons. His voice, a whisper of dread, echoed into the obsidian shadows around him.
"How shall it be done?" he asked. "A swarm of Evolution Beasts? Shall I command the Ancient Ones to flood the streets? Tell - how shall the lives of millions be delivered?"
A pause.
Then laughter exhoed out.
Cold, sardonic, cruel. From within the Altar ca a rippling sound, like thunder muffled beneath an ocean of tar. The voice followed, deep and seething, amused.
"No," ca the reply, sharp with scorn. "Not through such laughable ans. Not by unleashing beasts to stumble about like children on a killing floor."
The shadows at the base of the altar twisted.
From within its depths, sothing rose.
A scythe.
A massive, obsidian sickle, taller than a man and curved like a crescent moon pulled from the edge of nightmares. Its blade shimred with layers of glossless black, and etched upon every surface were millions- yes, millions- of ancient Runescriptures, glowing with a dull crimson hue that throbbed like the dying heartbeats of the souls already trapped within.
The weapon floated, silent, inexorable, toward the kneeling man.
The Lunaris Throne recoiled.
His eyes widened as the air thickened, heavier with every heartbeat. "What do you an?" he asked, voice cracking with a hint of hesitation.
"You will take this," the voice said, low and commanding. "The Dark Star Scythe."
The sickle hovered inches before him now, humming, alive.
"You will not send orders. You will not point a finger and let others do what you are too frightened to commit. You will reap every single one of those lives. One by one, a garden of souls to be cut down like weeds."
The air turned colder.
"You will take this scythe and paint the soil with blood yourself."
The Lunaris Throne stared at the weapon. At the runes that burned with purpose. At the curve of the blade that seed to sing of finality.
"You cannot have help," the voice continued, final and absolute. "You will not share the burden. You will not deflect the guilt. This is your burden to carry. And only when twenty-five million souls fall beneath your hand will I lift you to the place you so desperately crawl toward."
He reached forward with shaking hands.
The mont his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the Dark Star Scythe, the shadows around the altar trembled. Then...quiet.
Until the voice ca again, no longer from the altar, but from the scythe itself. Cold. Deep. Towering over his soul like the voice of a disappointed father.
"You ask for life," it said. "And yet, you fear the weight of death."
The tone sharpened, almost disgusted.
"You don’t deserve anything, boy. You were not born worthy. You were not chosen. You clawed your way into a seat far too heavy for your spine, and now, it bends."
The Lunaris Throne gritted his teeth, the sha biting deeper than the scythe in his hand!
"But let teach you sothing about life," the voice continued, slow and venom-laced. "Life is not a gift. Life is not love. Life... is theft."
"You want to live without fear? Then understand. For every second you breathe, soone else must lose theirs. That is the law. The law you were born beneath. The law you must now enforce."
"For every step you take toward power, twenty must fall into the grave."
...!
He trembled.
"Learn this lesson well," said the voice. "For you are not the light. You...are not the salvation. You are not the sword that defends. You are the shadow that devours. Be that shadow... and you may yet survive."
Silence fell again.
And so, the Lunaris Throne rose.
The weight of the Dark Star Scythe nearly brought him back down, but he forced his limbs to move. The weapon was colder than ice and heavier than any moon.
He did not speak as he left the chamber.
He did not look at the bodies strewn about the floor.
As he stepped past the arched entry and into the black corridors beyond, the weapon at his side pulsed once. Then again.
And sowhere far beneath that cathedral, the Primordial Light of Darkness watched through runes and blood.
It had given its command.
And the executioner had answered!
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