The sky wept fire.
Radiantus was a battlefield in the heavens now. Below, the city was ash and ruin. Above, divine fire clashed against abyssal void in a storm unlike any the world had ever seen. Two powers diametrically opposed, both absolute tore at the very fabric of reality.
Oscar hovered in the air, the abyssal halo around his head spiraling outward like a black eclipse devouring the sun. Across from him, the Last Light blazed with celestial fury, wings of flame stretching wider than mountains, its voice a harmony of divine judgment.
"You were once human," the Last Light thundered. "Do you even remember what it is to feel hope? Or are you now just a vessel for hate?"
Oscar smiled.
"I remember everything. The screams. The chains. The betrayal. Hope?" His voice deepened. "Hope is what they whispered before they buried us."
The abyss behind him answered with a low, pulsing growl like a world breathing in fury.
Clash of Titans
The Last Light dove first.
A lance of golden light formed in its hand, tearing through the sky with holy wrath. Oscar raised a single finger, and the void bent. Space itself screamed as the lance passed through time only to vanish in a blink, devoured by the emptiness.
Oscar countered.
He didn't throw a weapon.
He became the weapon.
His form flickered and vanished appearing above the Last Light in an instant, striking with an obsidian blade forged from a collapsed star. The divine being twisted mid-air, parrying with a shield of pure will.
The impact fractured the sky.
A ring of shockwave expanded across the heavens, flattening what remained of the cathedral and sending tremors across the continent.
Mortals fell to their knees, blood pouring from their ears.
Dragons hiding in ancient mountain lairs stirred.
Even the gods… watched.
Selene and Aldric Lead the Charge
On the ground, the abyssal legions surged forward.
Selene led the charge, her twin sabers singing through the air like whips of night. Her armor pulsed with corruption, eyes burning crimson. Every holy knight who stood before her was sliced down without mercy.
Beside her, Aldric unleashed his power half-radiant, half-abyssal. A walking contradiction. His blade glowed with both light and dark, confusing friend and foe alike.
"You swore to protect the people," he roared at the Seraphim lieutenants. "And now you burn them in the name of god!"
They hesitated.
That hesitation cost them their lives.
The Shattering
Above it all, Oscar and the Last Light reached the apex of their battle.
Each blow was a sermon.
Each strike, a gospel rewritten.
And then Oscar roared.
The abyss surged outward, no longer content to match the divine now it overwhelmed it. The Last Light's wings shrank, sputtered. For the first time in its eternal life… it looked afraid.
"You dare challenge the eternal!"
Oscar's voice was calm.
"I don't challenge eternity. I replace it."
With one final blow, Oscar thrust his hand forward his abyssal core unleashed, raw and primal. The Last Light was struck, its body folding inward, breaking apart like shattering glass.
A scream echoed through creation.
And the god fell.
The Hollow Thrones Awaken
The world held its breath.
The sky, once torn by divine fire and abyssal shadow, now hung eerily still. The golden remains of the Last Light drifted like ash through the air, settling across the scorched remnants of Radiantus. What was once the Holy Kingdom's capital was now a monument to destruction a city consumed by wrath, faith, and the abyss.
And in the eye of the storm stood Oscar.
Silent.
Unmoving.
But within him… something shifted.
A threshold had been crossed.
By slaying a god, Oscar had not merely declared war on the heavens he had dethroned divinity.
And the universe noticed.
Whispers from Beyond
In the far corners of the realm places untouched by mortal memory the Hollow Thrones stirred.
Buried deep beneath forgotten catacombs, lost in starless voids and time-locked tombs, they began to awaken.
They were not gods in the way mortals understood. Not beings of light or darkness. They were something older. More alien. Beings whose existence had been erased from scripture, whose names could not be spoken without unraveling language itself.
One such throne cracked.
Its occupant shifted, blind eyes opening in the dark.
"He has opened the Gate."
Another voice, distant and dry as dust, answered.
"One of flesh has slain the light. The balance is broken. The feast may begin."
And from across the infinite night, something watched Oscar.
Not with hate.
Not with awe.
But with hunger.
Back in the Abyssal Citadel
Selene stood before the great abyssal mirror, watching the ruins of Radiantus flicker across its surface. The fall of the Last Light should have filled her with triumph.
Instead, she felt uneasy.
"What have we become?" she whispered.
Aldric entered behind her, still wearing a mantle of fire and shadow.
"You're afraid," he said simply.
Selene didn't deny it.
"Ever since we left the mortal path… we've climbed so far. But the higher we go, the more I feel we're walking toward something we can't understand."
Aldric crossed his arms, his eyes glowing faintly.
"Do you think he's becoming one of them?"
Selene didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
Oscar's Vision
As he stood in the ruins, the world fell away.
Oscar's consciousness was pulled into the void past time, past space, past reason.
He found himself standing before an infinite row of empty thrones.
Massive stone seats carved from bone, obsidian, and star matter. Each one held the imprint of something that had once sat but now slumbered, waiting.
One throne, at the very end, pulsed faintly.
Oscar was drawn to it.
As he reached out, a voice immense, cold, and ancient boomed:
"Will you claim the power that cost eternity its soul?"
Oscar's hand trembled.
But he did not hesitate.
"I will."
The throne answered.
And the void trembled.
The Abyss That Walks
The land itself recoiled.
Wherever Oscar walked, the earth warped beneath his steps, twisting into shadowed veins that pulsed with abyssal life. Trees rotted in seconds, animals fled in terror, and the sky above him churned with unnatural clouds.
He had become more than a man.
More than a sovereign.
More than a god.
He had become an idea one that defied order, fate, and all cosmic design.
The Council of Broken Crowns
Far to the west, hidden within the ruins of the Old Empires, seven ancient rulers met in secret.
Once kings, now wraiths sustained by forbidden rituals and fractured time, they had watched the world burn from their shrouded citadel. Each wore a crown cracked with age, bound by a pact forged before recorded history.
"He walks now," rasped the Hollow Pharaoh, his voice like wind through a tomb.
"The abyss is no longer a place," said the Frost-Queen of Oblivion. "It has grown legs, ambition, will."
An ancient lich, cloaked in robes of starlight, clutched his scepter tightly.
"We must act before the Thrones awaken fully."
"But how?" demanded another. "He killed the Last Light! He commands corrupted demigods and divine corpses!"
Silence fell.
And then… a voice that should not exist one that came from inside their minds spoke:
"He must be offered a choice."
The council froze.
One by one, they turned their withered eyes toward the black mirror on the wall, where an impossible reflection smiled.
Within the Abyssal Citadel
Selene stood at the top of the spire, gazing out over the Abysslands.
The corruption had spread farther than she imagined. What was once a small domain carved from war and sacrifice had become a shifting kingdom of nightmares cities made from bone, rivers of ink, forests that whispered prayers backward.
And at the center of it all: Oscar's Throne.
She descended into the heart of the citadel, where Oscar waited, silent and seated. His eyes no longer glowed with hunger they burned with something deeper. Something incomprehensible.
"A visitor approaches," Selene whispered.
"I know," Oscar said.
"Will you face them?"
"I don't need to."
Selene tilted her head.
Oscar stood.
"They'll face me."
The Approach of the Void Shepherd
The air split open.
A rift tore through space itself, and from it stepped a figure cloaked in robes made of folded dimensions. Their face was hidden beneath a veil of impossibility, and they carried a staff topped with a black sun.
Oscar watched from his throne.
The figure bowed.
"Oscar of the Abyss. King of the Forgotten. Slayer of Light."
"You have many names for me," Oscar said.
"I am but a herald," the being replied. "The Thrones stir. They do not wish war. They offer a covenant."
Oscar raised a brow.
"Speak."
"You may ascend," the being said. "Claim the Empty Throne. Become what the First Flame denied you. Not a god. Not a king. But a concept that even time must kneel to."
Oscar stood, the shadows around him writhing.
"And if I refuse?"
The being paused.
"Then the Hollow Thrones will awaken. And they will march."
Oscar's lips curled into a dark smile.
"Then let them."