๐ฅ[๐๐ผ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ผ๐๐! ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐จ ๐ฉ๐ค๐๐๐ฎ!]๐ฅ
๐๐ ๐๐ง๐ #๐ญ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฌ๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฃ๐ค๐ฉ ๐จ๐ฉ๐ค๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐ฃ๐! ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ค๐ช ๐ฌ๐๐ฃ๐ฉ ๐ข๐ค๐ง๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐! ๐๐๐ฉ'๐จ ๐จ๐๐ค๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐ฃ๐ค๐ซ๐๐ก ๐ฌ๐๐ค ๐๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ง๐๐๐ก ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ฃ! โ๏ธ
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The Prophecy of the Seven and the First Step
The Prophecy of the Seven
The verdict of the ancients echoes, upon seven names, the selected ones. Baptized by the glow of the first, by the light of the fairies, the blessed.
By the Blessing of Day, in purity nature remakes itself. The one capable of, in the abyss, bringing the opportunity that brings peace.
By the Blessing of Time, the unparalleled becomes a defendant in trust. The one capable of gifting the others with the greatest skill under heaven.
By the Blessing of the Just, where equality is the law that leads. The one capable of gifting the others with the impossible wrapped in light.
By the Blessing of Reason, where creativity is the engine of action. The one capable of gifting the others with the sacred power of creation.
By the Blessing of the Heart, in the vitality that the spirit consumes. The one capable of gifting the others with new blessings that have no name.
By the Blessing of Transformation, in the rebirth that the soul embraces. The one capable of gifting the others with the adaptation that overcomes misfortune.
From the union of the seven chosen, in the shield reflected by each flash, hope shall ariseโthe final threat to the Black King and his eternal darkness.
The descent from the ridge should have been easier than the climb, but the Elinor Woods had changed. The mist that had previously been a thin, ghostly veil was now a thick, suffocating shroud of violet-gray. It didn't cling to the ground; it pulsed, moving in waves that seemed to sync with the throbbing in Leonardo's left eye.
The silence was no longer the natural quiet of the wild. It was an artificial void. The insects had stopped their clicking, and the wind no longer groaned through the high branches. Every step Leonardo took felt heavy, as if he were walking through waist-deep water.
He held the Sting firmly. The dagger was dark, its silver etchings now stained with that bruised purple hue, a silent witness to the four lives it had just drank. Leonardo didn't feel stronger. He felt marked.
"Grandfather?" he called out, his voice sounding flat and hollow in the mist.
There was no reply. No rustle of a cloak, no dry chuckle. The Star Reaper, who had vanished so effortlessly earlier, was nowhere to be found. Leonardo reached for his Void State, trying to sense Arthur's massive mana signature, but he found nothing. It was as if the world beyond the mist had ceased to exist.
Then, he smelled it.
It wasn't the sweet rot of the Seekers. It was the scent of ancient ozone, of cold ash, and of a power so vast it made the 12-Tier system feel like a child's drawing. The air grew so cold that the moisture on Leonardo's eyelashes turned to frost.
Ahead, the trees began to warp. The massive oaks didn't break; they bent, their trunks curving away from a central point as if repelled by an invisible force. In the middle of a clearing that shouldn't have been there, a figure stood.
It wasn't the dream-version from the throne. This was physical. This was real.
A manโor something shaped like oneโstood with his back to Leonardo. He wore a simple, long black duster that seemed to be made of woven shadows. He wasn't armored, he wasn't glowing, and he didn't carry a staff. He was just... there. A hole in the fabric of reality.
"The Star Reaper is a clever man," the figure said. The voice was the same as in the vision, but now it carried the vibration of the physical world, making the pebbles on the ground dance. "He hid the spark in a vessel of nothingness. A clever, desperate move."
Leonardo's hand trembled on his blade. He couldn't move his feet. The pressure was absolute.
The figure turned, and the movement was so smooth it felt like the world itself was rotating. He didn't have the obsidian mask from the vision now. Instead, he had the face of a man in his primeโpale, with sharp, aristocratic features and hair as black as a starless night. But his eyes were the horror. They weren't eyes; they were two stable, horizontal rifts of violet light that seemed to look through Leonardo and into the very foundation of the mountain behind him.
Ele nรฃo tinha mais a mรกscara de obsidiana da visรฃo. Em vez disso, tinha o rosto de um homem no auge da sua beleza โ pรกlido, com traรงos aristocrรกticos marcantes e cabelos negros como uma noite sem estrelas. Mas seus olhos eram o horror. Nรฃo eram olhos; eram duas fendas horizontais e estรกveis โโde luz violeta que pareciam atravessar Leonardo e penetrar atรฉ os alicerces da montanha atrรกs dele.
The pressure intensified. Leonardo's knees buckled, the stone beneath his boots cracking under the weight of a presence that shouldn't exist.
"You're shaking, little ghost," the Black King said. He didn't move toward Leonardo, yet he seemed closer with every word. "Is it fear? Or is the Vazio inside you recognizing its master?"
"I don't have a master," Leonardo wheezed, his lungs feeling like they were collapsing under a physical weight. He forced his head up, his left eye burning with a frantic, pulsing violet light that mirrored the King's own.
The Black King tilted his head, a flicker of genuine curiosity crossing his cold features. "A Level 1 Supreme. An anomaly in a world of rigid Tiers. They call you 'Inept' because they cannot measure a vessel that has no bottom. Never realizing it's a well that leads to the abyss."
He took a single step forward. The grass beneath his boots didn't just wither; it turned to a fine, gray ash that drifted upward, defying gravity.
"The Star Reaper thinks he can use you as a shield against the coming storm," the King continued, his voice dropping to a silken whisper. "But you are not a shield, Leonardo. You are the crack in the world that I have been waiting for. You are the bridge."
Leonardo gripped the Sting, the metal now vibrating so hard it hummed a low, mournful note. He knew, with a clarity that surpassed logic, that if he tried to strike, the King wouldn't even have to move to kill him. The gap between them wasn't a Tier; it was a universe.
"Why are you here?" Leonardo asked, the words catching in his throat. "Why show yourself to me now?"
The Black King smiledโa thin, cutting smile, devoid of any human warmth. "Because I wanted to see him up close." He glanced at Elinor's warped ceiling, his expression shifting to one of slight irritation. "...your grandfather is about to arrive, and he's always been so noisy."
The atmosphere, already heavy with the King's presence, suddenly tore open. A golden-white flash, sharp as a lightning bolt, lanced through the violet mist. It didn't strike the ground; it erased the shadow.
Arthurโthe Star Reaperโmaterialized ten paces from the Black King. He wasn't wearing his scholarly robes or his grandfatherly smile. He was clad in armor of hammered starlight that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of the galaxy. In his hand, he held a scythe whose blade was not metal, but a curved sliver of a dying sun.
"You're early, Malakor," Arthur said, his voice no longer old or frail. It was a tectonic rumble that shook the mountain to its roots.
"And you are late, Arthur," the Black King, Malakor, replied without turning. "The boy has already seen the truth behind your Tiers. He has felt the weight of the throne."
"He has felt nothing," Arthur retorted. He stepped forward, and with every footfall, the gray ash on the ground was replaced by vibrant, defiant green grass. The two powersโthe infinite Void and the burning Starโclashed in the center of the clearing, creating a static charge that made Leonardo's hair stand on end.
Leonardo was caught in the eye of the storm. To his left, the absolute cold of the Black King; to his right, the incinerating heat of his grandfather. The pressure was so immense that the air began to liquefy, turning into shimmering ribbons of distorted space.
"Leave him," Arthur commanded, raising the solar scythe. The blade began to hum, a sound that harmonized with the Sting in Leonardo's hand.
"He is already mine, Star Reaper," Malakor said, finally turning to face Arthur. "You carved the vessel, but I provided the ink. We are both his creators now."
Malakor raised a hand, and the violet mist coalesced into a blade of pure darkness. The two legends movedโnot with the clumsy speed of mortals, but with the instantaneous grace of fundamental forces.
The collision didn't make a sound. It was a silent erasure of reality. A shockwave of pure energy erupted from the point of impact, throwing Leonardo backward as if he were a dry leaf in a hurricane.
Leonardo hit the ground hard, the air driven from his lungs in a ragged gasp. He scrambled to his feet, shielding his eyes from the blinding radiance of the clash. The clearing was no longer a piece of the Elinor Woods; it was a theater of cosmic destruction.
Where the two legends met, space itself seemed to fray. The Star Reaper's scythe carved arcs of solar fire through the air, each swing trailing a wake of burning constellations. Malakor didn't dodge; he flowed. Every time the starlight blade threatened to sever his form, the Black King dissolved into a swarm of violet shadows, reappearing an inch away, his dark blade humming with the sound of a dying world.
Malakor's voice echoed, unfazed by the violence of the exchange. "The Twelve Levels are a cage to keep the weak from seeing the truth. But the boy..."
Arthur let out a roar of effort, his starlight armor flaring with the intensity of a supernova. "He is my blood, Malakor! And he will be the end of you!"
The Star Reaper swung the scythe in a massive, horizontal cleave. The energy release was so potent it sheared the tops off a dozen ancient oaks instantly, the wood vaporizing into golden dust. The shockwave hit Malakor head-on, but the Black King simply raised a single hand.
The solar fire didn't explode against him; it slowed. The golden light turned a bruised, stagnant purple as it entered the King's personal space, losing its momentum until it flickered out like a spent candle.
Malakor looked past Arthur, his violet rifts for eyes locking onto Leonardo. The boy felt a cold, oily sensation slide down his spineโa mental touch that bypassed all his defenses.
Malakor whispered, the sound bypass-ing the roar of the battle to settle deep in his mind. "The starlight will fade. The Tiers will crumble. But the Void is patient. I will be waiting when you finally realize that the 'Inept' are the only ones who are truly free."
With a final, mocking bow toward the Star Reaper, Malakor's form began to unravel. He didn't teleport; he simply ceased to be a solid object. The violet mist that had defined the clearing was sucked into his vanishing silhouette, creating a localized vacuum that nearly pulled Leonardo off his feet once more.
Then, there was only silence.
The silence that followed Malakor's disappearance was heavier than the roar of the battle. The golden-white radiance of the Star Reaper began to flicker, the armor of starlight receding into Arthur's skin like cooling embers. The scythe, once a sliver of a sun, turned back into a simple wooden staff before vanishing altogether.
Arthur stood in the center of the ruined clearing, his shoulders slumped. He looked older than Leonardo had ever seen himโnot just tired, but diminished. He didn't turn around immediately; he stared at the spot where the Black King had vanished, his breath coming in ragged, white plumes.
"Grandpa?" Leonardo called out softly, his voice trembling.
Arthur turned slowly. His eyes, which usually held the sharpness of a hawk, were clouded and bloodshot. He looked at Leonardo, and for a moment, his gaze fixed on the boy's left eyeโthe violet veins still flickering beneath the surface.
"He touched you," Arthur whispered, more to himself than to Leonardo. "The Incision... it didn't just open the woods. It opened a door inside you."
He walked over to Leonardo, his gait heavy and uneven. He reached out a hand, but hesitated before touching the boy's shoulder, as if afraid he might burn him.
"I'm fine," Leonardo said, though every muscle in his body was screaming. He gripped the Sting, the hilt still humming with that dark, rhythmic heat. "What was that? Who was he?"
"The end of the world, Leo," Arthur said, finally resting his hand on Leonardo's head. "He is the shadow that the 12 Tiers were built to hide. And he has chosen you to be his mirror."
Arthur looked around at the devastated treesโthe vaporized wood and the scorched earth. The Elinor Woods would recover, but the secret of the "Inept" was no longer a secret. The Black King was back, and he hadn't come for the Kings of Albion or the High Priests of the Spire. He had come for a twelve-year-old boy with a hollow soul.
"We have to go," Arthur said, his voice regaining some of its steel. "The Spire will have felt that clash. The 'Sacred' ones will be swarming this ridge within the hour, and they cannot find you like this."
Leonardo looked at the Sting, then at his own hands. He didn't feel like a hero who had survived a legend. He felt like a lightning rod in a world that was about to be struck by a storm.
"Can I still go to Albion?" he asked, a strange, desperate need for normalcy rising in his chest.
Arthur looked at him with a mixture of pity and pride. "You'll go to Albion, Leonardo. But not for a vacation. You're going there to hide in plain sight. Because from this moment on, you aren't just an Inept. You are the most dangerous thing in this kingdom."