CHAPTER 503: SHADES IV

Behind it, the younger warriors beat their armored limbs against the ground in a thunderous cadence—an ancient rhythm of acknowledgment, but twisted with uncertainty. For ants, a throne was always singular, a monarch absolute. What Leon and his team had done defied the order of things.

Roselia clutched Leon’s sleeve, her voice low but taut with nerves. "They... they aren’t angry, are they?"

"No," Liliana whispered, still staring at the faint glow in her hands. "They’re unsettled. We changed something older than memory."

Naval’s trident pulsed in his grip, drawing the Elder Ant’s attention. "If the hive remembers this as rupture," he said grimly, "then what will the other Thrones call it?"

The Elder Ant’s mandibles spread, releasing a chittering sound that echoed across the chamber—half laugh, half lament.

"They will call it heresy. They will call it weapon. They will call it doom. And yet... they will not ignore it."

The chamber shuddered suddenly, like the Tower itself had flinched. The air rippled, and for a heartbeat, seven faint silhouettes shimmered above them—thrones half-formed, hovering like constellations in a dark sky. Each bore a fragment of their essence.

The Obsidian Ants fell silent, mandibles locking shut. Even the Elder Ant bent lower, a rare sign of submission.

Leon straightened, chest rising and falling, his voice rough but unwavering.

"Then let them call it what they want. Heresy, doom, flame, echo. We’ll show them what seven can do together."

Roman chuckled darkly, hefting his hammer. "A throne war built for kings is about to meet a choir. That’ll rattle them."

The Elder Ant lifted its head slowly.

"So it begins. The Thrones will stir. The first to move will not come with parley—they will come to test. Prepare, Flamebreaker. Prepare, Chorus."

As the hive dissolved into their subterranean hymns, the fragments within Leon’s team pulsed once more, as though syncing—not only with each other, but with the Tower itself. Somewhere in the vast expanse beyond, ancient Thrones cracked open their eyes.

The Throne War was no longer a contest of kings.

It was becoming a chorus of ruin.

The Obsidian Ant tunnels stretched endlessly behind them, fading into a low hum as Leon and his team ascended the carved stairways. Every step upward felt heavier, not from fatigue, but from the weight of what they carried now.

Aboveground, the world of the Tower had shifted. The sky itself was no longer still—a faint pulse beat across the horizon, a resonance like the Tower’s very bones were quivering. Navals’ eyes narrowed as he watched the horizon ripple. "That’s not just us feeling it, is it?"

"No," Leon said, jaw tight. "Every Throne above us knows. They felt the fracture the moment the shard split."

Roman spat to the side, tightening the straps of his gauntlets. "Then we’re already targets."

Roselia glanced upward uneasily. "Not just targets. Invitations. They’ll come to test us. Like the Elder said."

Milim, oddly calm, stretched her arms and let out a yawn. "Good. Let them. This kind of tension makes me restless." But her eyes flicked to Leon with rare seriousness. "You know they won’t send weaklings. The first one to move will want to make an example."

Almost as if the Tower had been waiting for those words, the air cracked. A sound like glass splintering rolled across the plain, and a rift tore open in the sky.

From it descended a figure seated upon a throne of bleached bone, chains coiling outward into the stormclouds above. His body was clad in obsidian armor, but his face was bare, his eyes burning with endless hunger.

The Elder Ant’s words echoed in Leon’s skull: "The first to move will not come with parley—they will come to test."

The figure’s voice carried, booming across the plain.

"So this is the so-called chorus. The broken shard given to children. Pathetic."

He rose from the throne, chains dragging like rivers of steel. With a snap of his hand, one chain speared downward, cleaving the earth in half between Leon’s team. The sheer pressure made the air tighten, thick like stone.

Liliana staggered back, clutching her staff. "He’s suppressing the field itself!"

Naval braced his trident, water vapor spiraling around him. "Then we’ll cut through it."

Leon’s pulse hammered. The fragment within him burned, answering the presence of the rival Throne. He lifted his hand, Shell Reverb flickering faintly along his arm.

"Name yourself," he called out, voice steady despite the weight pressing down.

The figure smiled with teeth too white, too sharp.

"I am Kar’veth, the Shackled Sovereign. Rank Eight of the Upper Thrones. And I will be your first silence."

The chains snapped outward in a storm, blotting the horizon.

The chains tore down like a rain of iron spears, their edges jagged with an unnatural sheen that split not just earth but space itself. Every impact rattled the ground, leaving fissures that glowed faintly with sickly light.

Naval was the first to react. He slammed the butt of his trident into the ground, summoning a spiraling wall of pressurized water. The incoming chains struck it and slowed, hissing as steam billowed up. But the weight behind them was monstrous—Naval’s arms shook, the water wall cracking under the pressure.

"Move!" he roared.

Milim blurred into motion, wings unfurling in a storm of pink and white light. She shot upward, slamming her palm into one of the chains. The impact detonated, a shockwave blowing apart a dozen more as if they were brittle glass. But as soon as they broke, new ones surged from Kar’veth’s throne, like an endless tide.

Roselia’s incantations cut through the chaos, golden sigils blooming around the team. Her barrier shimmered like layered glass, catching several descending chains, sparks skittering across its surface. But sweat already traced her brow—maintaining it against Kar’veth’s domain felt like trying to shield against a collapsing sky.

Liliana’s voice cracked into the storm, sharp and resonant. "Echo Burst!"

She thrust her staff forward, amplifying Leon’s resonance through her channel. The ground beneath Kar’veth warped, a shockwave of sound exploding upward toward his throne.

The Shackled Sovereign barely moved. One chain lifted, deflecting the attack with contemptuous ease. His grin widened, teeth gleaming.

"This is what the shard chose? Sparks in the dark?"

Roman lunged forward, his gauntlets blazing with body-force, every step carving craters into the ground. He leapt, fists swinging down in a cross-hammer strike toward Kar’veth’s throne. The air howled under the blow—then a chain caught him mid-air and hurled him aside, smashing him through three ridges of stone before he stopped.

"Roman!" Roselia cried out, but her voice broke as another set of chains battered her barrier, splintering it.

Leon’s heartbeat throbbed louder. The Shell Reverb within him resonated violently, straining against his body like it wanted release. He felt the fragment’s hunger, the call of battle—no, the demand of the Tower itself.

If I don’t answer him now, we’ll all be crushed.

He stepped forward, extending one hand. His Shell layers flared—Tripart Echo, Absolute Return, Karmic Loop—all resonating, building like the layers of a symphony climbing toward its crescendo.

The world pulsed.

The incoming chains bent, their trajectory stuttering as if caught in another rhythm, another law of movement entirely.

Kar’veth’s grin finally faltered. His head tilted, eyes narrowing on Leon.

"Ah... so the shard sings."

Leon’s gaze hardened. "Not just the shard. Me."

His Shell Pulse detonated outward, the battlefield twisting into his tempo.