Chapter 351: Threads of Collapse II
The Elder Crimson Shroud did not hesitate for long.
His vast eye, ringed in ancient crimson and blackened wisdom, narrowed only once before he inclined his great mass in a nod toward the man crowned in white.
“So be it.”
A ripple of power spread across the shattered star, invisible to all but those who understood the language of lineage. It was a gesture. An accord.
King Edmond’s smile widened.
“Good,” he said softly, stepping forward with the grace of a sovereign who had never known the weight of denial. “Then let this be the close of our negotiations. The pact is sealed, Elder.”
He paused, eyes aglow with clever light.
“You’ve just struck a deal with one of the Five Kings of the Virgo Stellar Expanse. Together,” he added with a glint in his voice, “we shall ascend, hand in hand, into the plane your kind have chased through whispers and glory for so long.”
He walked slowly now, robes flowing behind him, the folds laced with constellations still forming.
“And if we find prosperity in that plane,” he continued, “we split it evenly. As kings ought.”
The Elder Crimson Shroud said nothing.
Silence, at their level, was consent.
Edmond’s steps carried him to the center of the star fragnt, where Andras floated- barely coherent now, his eye half-split, his tentacles twitching in arrhythmic spasms. The starlight he had once devoured now trembled around him like frightened embers.
The blue-haired king tilted his head.
“Oh, little eye…” he said almost tenderly.
Then he opened his mouth.
A wet, obscene sound followed.
From his throat, a long tentacle erged, writhing with hundreds of tiny crystalline teeth. It darted forward in a blur and latched onto the ruined core of the Crimson Eye.
And then- it pulled.
A pulse.
A ripple.
Andras jerked, but he was far too gone.
Crimson light exploded outward like a supernova funneled through a needle’s eye. The tentacle began to devour his unraveling existence, drawing it in with a force like a newborn black hole.
As his body unraveled, Edmond’s voice slithered into the starlit silence.
“So tell , you broken thing,” he murmured, “who crushed your major heart so thoroughly that even your second body cannot survive it?”
Andras said nothing.
But the answer fed itself into Edmond’s bloodstream.
A taste of fate.
A whisper of sothing else.
His eyes shivered with delight.
“What waits for in that plane?” he whispered, his voice lost beneath the tides of crimson light.
No one answered.
But the ripple of this choice and what it would subsequently lead to…would stretch across the Star Seas!
—
Hours later
In the Plane of Existence of Ethemia!
The waters near the Adrastia Continent shimred with new breath. Golden-purple waterfalls spilled into the skies, catching starlight and folding it into wonder.
Above, the sky was bathed in soft hues of dawn that had no beginning, auroras weaving across the firmant like mory wrapped in silk.
It had been hours.
Hours since the Primordial Light of Darkness, was buried in silence. Not slain by violence, but unraveled by glorious power!
And at this ti, nant Ancient Ones were converging towards the Adrastia Continent.
The Ancient Lineages descended like falling stars.
Mythical Dragons whose scales bore the luster of entire landscapes. The High Elves robed in sorrowful light from their recent losses in thr hands of the dead Lunaris Throne.
Ancient Titans…and the Royal Panthera Lions!
From all edges of this vast plane, they answered the call.
A radiant ssage, golden and undeniable, had etched itself into the skies the before, and it had remained since then.
A proclamation written in Destiny flaring across continents.
Their expressions were veiled, wary. Cautious.
They wanted to et the Human who could control destiny so freely!
Would he be the answer against their enemies?!
As they ca, a few radiant auras blood from the Adrastia Continent. Of Dr. Shaw, Lancelot, Aliya, and a few others!
They welcod the Ancient Ones.
And they would guid them toward the Primal Neon Tower.
But as they entered, none noticed the particles in the air.
Spores.
They laced the light. They twisted with wind. They dissolved into breath. No Astral Core Ascension being could see them!
And even an Empyrean Star Nexus Transcendent, if unfamiliar, would pass them by unnoticed.
They entered through the skin silently.
They did not take root.
Not yet.
They simply… waited.
—
In the skies of Adrastia, deep within the Sea of Thalassara, an underwater palace shimred beneath the waves.
Only two beings resided within.
Achilles and Rose.
He stood beside a circular forge of folded tal and glowing runes while Cataclysmic Star Items floated in the air around him. His gaze passed through the translucent walls of the palace, rising across the waters and skies.
He could see them.
The Ancient Ones, and mixed in were their humans who pledged allegiance to them.
All arriving.
All breathing his spores.
He said nothing.
Only turned back to the forge and lifted a molten crown of gold-silver alloy. Its edges bled fla. He examined it like a sculptor choosing the next piece of an item!
He rembered the words of his great-grandfather.
Refine. Consolidate. Rule. Know everything and everyone. When you fight, already be assured of victory!
The advice of the Fourth Adrastia Emperor King was grand.
And Achilles had chosen to listen.
To him, and to all Adrastia Emperor King he had t!
He would study their victories. He would learn from their mistakes.
Because he could not die.
He must not die!
HUUM!
He was the Last Adrastia Emperor King.
And now that the Outsider had fallen, the greatest threat to this Plane had been carved out like rot from living flesh.
He had bought them ti.
Months, by his estimation.
Months where the Crimson Shroud Vortexes would still fail to find this Plane.
And in that ti…
He would change everything.
And if enemies were coming… he would et them with glorious preparation.
The kind of preparation only a man who had already won could afford.
His eyes shimred.
And he planned as many possibilities flashed before him!
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