While the Heavens plotted in blinding light, the deep earth groaned in absolute darkness.
Kiron stood before the Casket of the First Age, his stone eye burning with a violent, violet intensity. The "Original Bile"—a fluid so black it seemed to absorb the light of his own soul—hissed as it pooled around his boots. This was the concentrated essence of the Decline, the raw source of the petrification that was slowly claiming his body.
"Stay back, Grave-Blood!" the Pale-Vane shrieked.
The traitor was perched atop a rusted catwalk, his hands dancing over the final bone-crank. His face was a mask of frantic greed. "You think you're the only heir? I have studied the marrow-codes for a lifetime! I will drink from the First King's heart and become the mountain itself!"
Kiron didn't speak. He couldn't. The Liturgy in his stomach was vibrating against his spine, a cold, predatory pulse that demanded he move. The stolen energy of the Revenant guards hummed in his basalt limbs, making him feel lighter than the air.
With a final, catastrophic crack, the hatch gave way.
It didn't swing open; it was blown outward by a thousand years of pressurized rot. A wave of black sludge erupted from the chamber, hitting the floor with the sound of falling lead. From the center of the dark opening, a figure began to emerge.
It was the First King.
He was a titan of black coral and fossilized bone, his body reaching nearly fifteen feet in height. He wasn't a man anymore; he was a forest of jagged mineral formations. In the center of his chest, where a heart should have been, sat a single, pulsating crystal of Void-Amber.
The Pale-Vane dived from the catwalk, reaching for the crystal with a scream of triumph. "Mine! The Origin is mine!"
Kiron moved.
He didn't use Lament. He propelled himself forward with a burst of Revenant speed, his stone hand blurring through the air. He caught the Pale-Vane by the throat mid-flight, the force of the collision shattering the traitor's collarbone like dry twigs.
Kiron slammed the Usurper into the black coral of the First King's chest.
"You wanted to be the mountain," Kiron rasped, his voice a landslide of gravel. "Now, feel the weight of it."
The "Original Bile" on the floor began to climb Kiron's legs, drawn to the Liturgy in his gut. It didn't burn; it felt like coming home. The basalt on his neck smoothed out, turning into a polished, obsidian armor that hummed with ancient authority.
"Please!" the Pale-Vane choked, his eyes bulging as Kiron's stone fingers tightened. "I can help you... the Zen-Zun... they are coming! I have the codes for the—"
"I don't need your codes," Kiron said. "I have his memory."
Kiron reached past the Pale-Vane and sank his basalt fingers into the Void-Amber heart of the First King.
The connection was instantaneous. A millennium of agony, betrayal, and buried power surged into Kiron. He saw the Fall. He saw the Luminous tearing the sky open. He saw the first Grave-Blood warrior kneeling in the ash, swearing to wait in the dark until the world was ready to burn again.
The Liturgy in Kiron's stomach roared. It began to pull.
The First King's coral body began to crumble, its essence being siphoned through Kiron's hand. The Pale-Vane, caught in the middle of the energy transfer, began to wither, his life-force being dragged out along with the King's.
"No... no!" the traitor gasped, his skin turning to grey ash. "It's... too much... you'll shatter..."
Kiron didn't shatter. He grew.
The chamber began to shake as the very foundations of Dis responded to the return of the Origin. High above, in the city, the Revenants dropped to their knees, their hollow eyes turning toward the Lower-Marrows. They felt it. The true King had finally arrived.
But as the last of the Void-Amber dissolved into Kiron's palm, a sudden, sickening sweetness hit the air.
A shaft of white light, thin as a needle and sharp as a razor, pierced through the mile of rock above. It hit the center of the chamber, and there, standing in the glowing dust, was Asha.
She looked the same, but her eyes were no longer gold. They were a glitching, fractured white, and her skin was veined with a shimmering, celestial mercury.
"Kiron," she whispered, her voice a chorus of a thousand electronic screams. "The Heavens have a gift for you. Are you still... hungry?"