The Vault had fallen.
Not collapsed—fallen, as if the entire dimension had decided it could no longer bear the weight of what Cled had become. Dust floated in slow motion, drifting like dying stars. Crimson energy coiled around Cled's limbs, the last remnants of the Crimson Echo settling into his bones. Each breath he drew hummed with a vibration that felt too ancient for a mortal body.
The air rippled.
A step echoed.
And the world itself seemed to bow.
The Shattered King emerged fully from the rift—tall, fragmented, each piece of his body floating a finger's width apart like a being that had been broken on purpose and never put back together. His presence bent gravity; the Void shivered around him.
His voice wasn't heard.
It happened.
"You absorbed what was meant to destroy you. Interesting."
Cled wiped the dust off his cheek, his expression calm, wise—older than when he entered the Vault. "It tried," he said. "But destruction is just another form of directionless power."
The Shattered King tilted his fractured head, amused. "And you believe you can give direction to everything?"
"No," Cled said.
He stepped forward, and the ground steadied beneath him, as though recognizing a higher authority.
"But I can give direction to myself."
A low hum rolled through the world—the sound of the King's broken pieces grinding against each other, like a man laughing through shards.
"Very well. Walk then, Sky Against Sky."
Cled didn't hesitate. "Is that your way of saying you'll test me?"
"It is my way of saying," the King replied, "that you are not ready."
The sky tore itself open.
Crimson lightning split through the clouds, responding to Cled's body as if drawn toward the echo he had just absorbed. The King raised a hand and flicked a finger. The lightning redirected instantly, bending around him as though he were the pivot point of existence itself.
Cled's eyes narrowed.
That flick carried power equal to a full-force strike from a Domain Lord.
Before he could react, the King moved.
A single step.
Just one.
And the world buckled, folding like fabric around his presence. Space compressed, ancient runes flickered into existence, and shockwaves spiraled outward like ripples in a cosmic ocean.
Cled's feet slid back across the shattered ground, boots carving twin lines behind him before he stabilized with a firm stomp.
Boom.
Earth steadied.
His aura rose.
He looked up calmly. "Your step carries the weight of a world."
The King's body shifted—pieces sliding with a crystalline chime. "You learned much in the Vault. Enough to see weights that others drown beneath."
"Enough," Cled said, "to face what stands in front of me."
The King spread his arms, floating fragments rearranging into the outline of a throne behind him—shards hovering like an echo of lost royalty.
"You misunderstand," the King said. "I do not stand in front of you. I stand above you."
The throne dissolved.
The world dimmed.
Then the King appeared behind Cled without moving.
"—and beneath you."
Cled spun instantly, his palm surging with crimson energy. He struck, but the King's body scattered into floating fragments around the blow, reforming on the opposite side.
"You fight like one who has glimpsed the truth," the King said. "Yet you still grasp at it with mortal fingers."
Cled exhaled calmly.
"I'm not grasping," he murmured. "I'm shaping."
His aura deepened again—crimson folding into white, white folding into something purer, sharper. He felt the echo inside him stir, neither fighting nor submitting, but aligning.
He lifted his hand.
The sky shook.
A beam of condensed crimson-white force surged upward, carving a spiraling column through the clouds, creating a wound in the heavens. Far above, stars flickered and realigned. The world gasped.
For the first time, a crack appeared in the King's composure.
"Impossible."
The King's fragmented body expanded outward defensively, shards forming floating shields around him. The beam continued to rise, its power stabilizing instead of collapsing like wild energy normally should.
"You redirected the Echo's instinct."
"You refined its hunger."
"You forged intention from chaos."
The King's shards vibrated in disbelief.
Cled lowered his hand slightly. "I told you. Direction."
The King's aura darkened, becoming a crushing pressure that forced the world to kneel. Mountains bent like soft clay in the distance. Rivers dried midstream. Time stuttered.
Then—
The King stepped again.
And the universe folded.
Cled felt his lungs compress, his heartbeat freeze for half a second, as though he were trying to breathe inside a realm that had not been created yet.
The step wasn't an attack.
It was a command.
A declaration of superiority so absolute that the world obeyed.
Cled's knees nearly buckled—nearly. His aura flared, resisting the forced submission. The crimson echo surged in defiance.
"Your body," the King said softly, "isn't ready to withstand my steps. Your soul is. But your vessel…"
He reached out a hand, not attacking—assessing.
Cled slapped the hand away.
The shockwave uprooted an entire canyon.
The King's eyes glowed. "You deny my evaluation?"
"I deny your arrogance."
Silence fell.
Then the Shattered King smiled—if the shifting of glass-like shards could be called a smile.
"Good," he said. "Break the sky if you must. Show me a path I have never seen."
The King turned away, as if the conversation itself had concluded. "Your next trial begins when the third sun rises," he said. "Prepare yourself."
Before Cled could speak, the King dissolved into fragments that lifted into the sky like ascending embers, vanishing one piece at a time.
Cled stood alone amid the ruins of the collapsed Vault.
But not alone in sensation.
Something stirred behind him.
The air tensed.
Cled didn't turn. His voice was soft, calm, and full of knowing weight.
"You can come out now."
Footsteps approached—the cautious, trembling kind. A figure emerged from behind a fallen obelisk: a young girl in a robe stitched with ancient sigils, her eyes glowing with faint violet light.
"You…" she whispered. "You survived the Echo. And spoke with the King."
Cled faced her. "And you are?"
She bowed deeply, trembling. "I… I'm the Guide of the Outer Rings. And I was sent to bring you to your next path."
Cled's gaze sharpened.
"Then show me."
Her eyes widened.
As if she realized she was speaking to someone who no longer stood on mortal grounds.
She turned.
And the ground opened into a glowing pathway—spiraling downward into an unseen world.
Cled took a step.
The world felt it.