The chamber trembled beneath Tianlong's voice, frost cascading from the ceiling like stars shaken loose from heaven. His galaxies dimmed, then flared, burning as though they sought to remember something even older than himself.
"I will answer your questions," Tianlong rumbled, "Every one of them."
Before Nameless could speak, Ryne's voice cut through the silence, sharp and wary. "How?" the voice demanded, her hands tightening at her side. "How can you possibly know this? You speak as though you were there, but you weren't. None of this should be remembered. These are things swallowed by time, erased from every record. So how do you know?"
The dragon turned, and for the first time, his galaxies flickered with something almost human—weariness.
"I know," Tianlong murmured, "because I carry what others cannot bear. Because when the world splits, when gods die, when kings are unmade, when the blood touches me… memory itself does not vanish. It screams."
The dragon's claws curled, scratching stone into dust.
"I am the Thought-Dragon. The Celestial Wing of the Void Abyss. My gift, my curse, is this: in battle, when my scales are bloodied, when I clash against beings greater than myself, I drink not only their strength but their remembrance. Their triumphs, their betrayals, their fears—every memory carved into their essence seeps into me. I am a mirror that cannot help but take the reflection. When I fought beside you, Nameless, when I bled under the hands of the seven gods and devoured their fire, I also devoured the fragments of their truths. Piece by piece, I became the archive of what even eternity wished to forget. Though we couldn't actually win that war"
Ryne staggered back, eyes widening. "You… carry memory like a plague."
Tianlong's laughter was thunder without joy. "A plague, yes. And a burden. Do you not see? These are not tales I wish to know. They are scars pressed into my soul. I cannot forget them, no matter how much I burn."
His gaze returned to Nameless, galaxies pulsing like dying stars. "And it is through these scars, through the memories I swallowed in war, that I know what you once were. That I know what they turned you into. That I know of the King who vanished and his story from those memories."
Nameless's crimson eye flared, sharp with desperation. His voice cracked. "Then tell me. Where is he? Can I save him? What have I done before they erased me? What is this mask that binds me? Don't make me repeat myself."
The dragon's chest heaved like mountains groaning beneath avalanches. "You wish for truth? Then listen. And do not flinch. I'll make this quick and simple for you"
But First, I will tell you about the Splintering of Realms:
"When the Seven bound the King of No End, their fear did not vanish. No… it grew. They feared the people's memory of him, feared rebellion, feared love itself. So they shattered Solivareth.
Not by blade. Not by fire. But by design."
The frost-lit chamber seemed to ripple as Tianlong spoke. Nameless felt the weight of the words bending against his own soul.
"They tore the Boundless Whole into seven realms, each twisted into their dominion. The rivers of time cut away from the seas of life. The mountains stripped from the breath of sky. Forests bled into deserts, deserts into ash. Each realm bore their mark, and each bore chains. Each carrying it's unique tragedy and pain.
And you, Nameless—you were their enforcer. Their blade. The executioner who cut the world apart."
Tianlong's voice deepened, grief woven into every syllable. "Then came the Heavens. Do not think Heaven was ruled by the true source—the One who dreams. That being slumbers still, birthing life with each unconscious breath. No, Heaven was tended by caretakers, stewards of light. Rulers and legions who upheld the skies in His absence."
His galaxies flared like storm-wracked suns. "They sent you against them. You, crowned in seven flames, carrying the grief of a thousand chains. You slaughtered the celestial hosts. Angels burned. Thrones crumbled. Skies split apart. The angels slaved.
They called you judgment. They called you end. But when their wings broke, when their voices fell to whispers, it was not hatred they held for you. It was fear. Fear of a weapon too perfect, too empty, to even understand why it killed. Remember that I'm telling you all this from the memories I have collected from yours, before you ever came to me to ask for the favor to fight against the gods"
Nameless staggered, the frost beneath his boots cracking. He pressed a trembling hand against his face, as though to hold his own face together.
"And when Heaven fell," Tianlong growled, "they turned you upon Hell.
Do you remember their cries? Brother. Savior. Those words followed you as you cut through rivers of fire. From the memories I have seen, I saw that they worshiped you once, Nameless. They sang your name in the pyres. And yet you were sent to destroy them. Maybe your body has been picked up from hell or from where I do not know, but they have forged you just right to achieve this great chaos.
And you did.
Hell collapsed, its thrones torn from their roots, its legions scattered into ash. And when you stood upon the ruin, crowned by silence, no triumph filled you. Only hollowness. The silence of a warrior who cannot remember why his hand still bleeds."
Tianlong's voice was heavy as stone, yet trembling as if beneath it lay something fragile.
"And still, they drove you on. But when you returned to the Vault… you did not return as they expected."
Nameless staggered, his crimson eye flickering. Tianlong's galaxies dimmed.
"You were not just victorious. You were broken. Weary. Hunted not by enemies, but by silence. You asked her, Nameless. You looked into Elara's eyes, and for the first time, you begged for truth.
'Why do they scream when I kill them? Why does it feel wrong?'"
The chamber trembled as if the memory itself strained to be heard.
"Elara—whose heart they had stolen, whose immortality was a curse, whose every breath was spent balancing the ruins left behind—she answered you. She told you what life meant. What death meant. What love was. Not the weapons they forged into you. Not the obedience they carved into your bones. But what it meant to choose."
Nameless's breath caught. His hands pressed tighter against his face, as though afraid it would fall.
"And through her," Tianlong whispered, "you began to notice. The cracks in their words. The contradictions in their commands. The hollowness in conquest. And for the first time, you began to feel grief. Not the grief they bound into you as weapon—but grief that was yours. And it drowned you."
You've collapsed into shadow. Your victories weighed like tombstones across your chest. Your crimson eyes dimmed as you wandered the Vault, silent, withdrawn. The cries of angels burned, the weeping of demons echoed, mortals chained and broken haunted every step.
The past him, that is you... could not sleep, for his dreams were soaked in ash. He could not wake, for his waking was worse. He wandered between silence and madness, a weapon forged for eternity, now shattered by a single truth:
He had destroyed more than he had ever saved.
Even the Seven mocked his despair. "Why does the blade tremble?" they laughed. "A blade does not mourn."
But Elara stayed. She whispered when no one else dared. She touched the edge of his mask with hands cursed never to die and said, "If you feel grief, it means you are not only a weapon. It means you are alive."
A seed was planted in that moment—fragile, inevitable.
And then came the judgment.
The Seven gathered in their Celestial Court, feasting upon light while the Seven Realms lay broken.
The rivers of Solivareth had turned to poison. The forests bled into desert. Hell itself burned in chains, its kin enslaved and butchered. Angels who once carried the sky were shackled, their wings clipped, their songs drowned in sorrow. Mortals withered beneath eternal war, crushed under the weight of false gods laughter.
And amidst their revelry, they called Nameless.
He entered the hall of endless gold, where wine poured in rivers and laughter smothered the cries of a universe.
"Behold our weapon!" one declared."Our perfect blade," sang another."The butcher of Heaven, the ashes of Hell," the Seven chorused, their crowns glinting like shattered suns.
Nameless knelt, silent, grief buried beneath his mask. But in his chest, a storm raged. He felt the weight of the enslaved angels. The agony of the demons who once called him kin. The cries of mortals echoing in silence.
And he did not understand why their laughter hurt him more than their chains.
In that court of light, Elara's voice lived in him. Her whispers. Her truths. The soft brush of humanity they had stolen.
He raised his head, crimson eye burning.
"Why do you rejoice," he whispered, "while they suffer? Why do you feast while the realms burn? Why do you chain me, and call me free?"
The court stilled. The laughter fell silent.
"Did you just dare question us?" "Did you forget your purpose?" snarled another.
But Nameless did not bow. His mask pulsed, shards of crystal pulsating into his flesh—the fragments of all seven realms, trophies of conquest bound into him as chains. They burned now, not with obedience, but with defiance.
He touched the mask, and for the first time, it did not feel like a prison. It felt like choice.
"I am not your blade," he said, his voice cracking yet unyielding. "I am not your silence. I am not your triumph."
His hand clenched the mask. His crimson eye flared.
"I am grief. I am memory. I am the scream of many that have died by my hands because of you people, I have realized late, Too late."
The crystals on his back flared with searing light, a storm of power never meant to be his own. His body cracked beneath it, but his will held firm.
And before the thrones of the Seven, Nameless rose.
"I declare war over you filthy beings," he thundered, the Vault shaking, the galaxies trembling in Tianlong's eyes. "Not for conquest. Not for hate. But because I cannot breathe in your silence. Because I cannot kill without feeling. Because I am not whole, but I will be free. I will fix everything I have broken"
The Celestial Court shuddered beneath his voice. The laughter of gods died into silence, their crowns dimming like suns eclipsed.
Then one of the Seven rose, robes woven from the marrow of stars. In white. His voice was silk wrapped in venom. "This rebellion…" he sneered, "this insolence is not your own. It reeks of her. The Keeper."
Another leaned forward, their eyes like burning voids. "Elara," they hissed, tasting her name as if it were rot. "She dares to unmake what we forged? She dares to place a heart where only silence should dwell?"
The others stirred, their voices colliding into thunder. "She has poisoned him." "She has stolen our weapon." "She has betrayed the order of eternity."
And at last, the judgment fell from their seven mouths as one: "Then she will die."
Nameless's crimson eye widened, grief and fury colliding into flame. His mask pulsed, veins of power cracking across its surface.
"No." His voice shook the golden court to its roots. "You will not touch her. If you seek her life, then seek mine as well—for I am hers, as much as I am my own, I won't let you people get her before any of you get through me."
The crystals embedded in his back flared, each shard burning like a realm's heartbeat. The chains that once bound him now screamed as he turned them against their masters.
He rose from his knees, his shadow vast as night. "You made me a weapon. But it was she who made me human. And for that, I will burn every throne you sit upon."
The chamber split, rivers of gold cracking into abyss as the Seven beheld what they had never feared until now—Not their weapon. Not their blade. But their enemy.