The Threadgrave was dead.
Truly dead, this time.
No illusions.
No defenses.
No forgotten gods left to whisper into broken stone.
Ash drifted through the ruined city like snow, coating the collapsed monuments in a soft, colorless shroud.
Elian stood in the center of it all.
Silent.
Unchallenged.
The girl approached slowly, steps uncertain, as if afraid even the ground might betray her under his gaze.
The rotborne woman kept her distance, eyes never leaving him.
They could feel it.
Elian wasn't just standing on the corpse of a civilization.
He was becoming its gravekeeper.
[Threadgrave Authority: Claimed]
[Threadlines Responding to New Anchor]
[Residual Sovereign Protocols Assimilated]
[Warning: You are no longer contained by system boundaries.]
The Seed's broken shard in Elian's pocket pulsed once, faintly, like a dying heartbeat acknowledging its replacement.
Elian exhaled slowly.
He could feel the rotlight threads stitching themselves into him — not like chains.
Like tools.
Weapons.
"They thought power was a throne," he murmured to himself.
"They forgot it's a knife."
He knelt, pressing his hand against the cracked ground.
A shiver passed through the ruins.
The monuments vibrated.
Memories long buried clawed their way to the surface — not screaming for release, but offering themselves willingly.
Elian chose carefully.
Not everything.
Only what would sharpen him further.
Sovereign Ashes.
The distilled remnants of dominion itself.
Not meant for mortals.
Not meant for systems.
Meant for monsters like him.
[Sovereign Fragment Acquired: Echo of the Last Crown]
[Effect: Thread Authority Over Minor Zones]
[Warning: Claiming further fragments will escalate existence drift.]
The girl finally found her voice, trembling:
"Elian… you're… changing."
He looked at her then.
Really looked.
Saw the fraying threadmark clinging to her — a fragile tether born of fear, loyalty, and something pitiful called hope.
He almost pitied her.
Almost.
"Everything changes," he said, voice like ash sliding down stone.
"The wise ones choose what they become."
He stood, dust cascading off his coat.
Above them, the sky fractured wider, as if the world itself was peeling open to watch him.
The rotborne woman bowed her head once — not submission.
Recognition.
Predators could recognize higher predators.
The ruins shifted again — deeper, older layers groaning awake beneath the ash.
A path revealed itself: a stairway spiraling into a deeper vault, hidden even from the Dreamborn Sovereign.
Elian's new authority tugged at him, urging him downward.
Not a trap.
An invitation.
"The grave isn't deep enough," he muttered.
"I want to find what they buried even from themselves."
He took a step toward the descent.
The girl called after him, desperate:
"What if there's nothing left down there?"
Elian paused at the top of the spiral, his silhouette outlined against the fractured sky.
He glanced back, eyes gleaming like a star that had forgotten how to die.
"Then I'll tear the silence apart," he said.
"And build my throne from its bones."
[New Objective Unlocked: Descend into the Forgotten Crypt]
[Warning: Entities Older Than the System Detected]
[Authority Interference: Denied]
Without waiting, Elian began his descent.
The deeper he went, the less real the world above seemed.
And somewhere below…
Something stirred.
Not in fear.
In hunger.
Because something buried in the Threadgrave knew:
The Devil had finally come to finish what the gods were too cowardly to destroy.