Riven POV – The Descent of a God
Virell was not merely a city; it was an idea. Built upon the Great Pillar—a natural stone spire that pierced the clouds—it had stood for a thousand years as the "City of Balance." Here, the laws of the mortal kings were supposed to fade into the mist. They believed their neutrality was a shield, a divine contract that even the darkest monsters would respect. They thought that being high above the world meant the world's problems could never reach them.
They were wrong. Neutrality is just a word used by the weak to hide from the inevitable.
I didn't fly to the summit. I didn't use a mount. I simply walked the Thousand Steps. Each step I took felt like I was dragging the entire weight of the Void's gravity behind me. The power I had absorbed from White Riven—the raw, refined essence of the Void—no longer whispered or struggled. It was a silent beast, chained to my heartbeat, breathing only when I allowed it.
"My lord," Cory whispered, his breath visible in the cold mountain air. He stayed exactly three paces behind me, a shadow bound to its master. "The scouts have spotted us. The silver bells are ringing. They are closing the Great Gates of Mithril."
I didn't look up at the towering gates. I didn't need to. I looked at the air itself. The atmosphere was thick with protective enchantments, centuries of "holy" magic designed to repel anything dark. It felt like a fly buzzing in my ear.
"The air is too loud here, Cory," I said. My voice didn't echo; it seemed to swallow the sound around it. "It lacks discipline. Tell it to be silent."
I didn't wait for a response. I didn't draw a weapon. I simply released a fraction—a mere spark—of the absolute zero within my soul. It wasn't an explosion. It was a wave of pure negation. As the wave touched the mountainside, the silver bells didn't just stop ringing; the sound they had already made seemed to get sucked back into the metal. The birds circling the spires didn't die—death would be too merciful. They simply lost the will to flap their wings and fell like stones, paralyzed by the sudden, suffocating absence of hope.
When we reached the Great Gates, the guards were frozen. Their hands were locked onto their spears, their eyes wide with a terror they couldn't name. These were men who had trained for war, but they weren't facing an army. They were facing the end of the story.
The Mithril gates, legendary for being indestructible, didn't shatter. They began to turn gray. Then white. Then, they simply crumbled into a fine, colorless dust. The concept of a "barrier" no longer existed in my presence. I walked through the dust, my boots silent on the stone.
The High Plaza was a sea of gold and silver. The High Council of Virell stood at the center, surrounded by three thousand elite mages of the White Circle. Their staffs were raised, glowing with a blinding, celestial light that was meant to banish shadows.
"Riven!" the High Elder stepped forward. His golden robes trailed on the floor, and his voice trembled like a leaf in a storm. "You violate the Sacred Accord of the Seven! This is neutral ground! Even the Void-touched must respect the laws of Virell!"
I stopped ten paces from them. Behind me, the three kings I had summoned—the King of the Wild Lands, the High Elf, and the Frost Dwarf—stood like statues. These were men who could level cities, yet in this moment, they looked like terrified children seeking shelter behind a titan.
"Laws are for those who fear the dark," I said, my voice cutting through the magical tension like a blade through silk. "I have eaten the dark. I have made it mine. Your 'Sacred Accord' was a contract made in my absence. It is void."
"We will erase you!" the Elder screamed, losing his composure. "Fire! Light! Obliterate the intruder!"
Three thousand staffs ignited at once. A sun's worth of energy was directed at me. A roar of light that should have turned the entire mountain peak into glass.
I didn't move. I didn't even blink.
As the light hit the space around me, it simply... vanished. I didn't block it. I consumed it. The Void within me was a hunger that could never be filled, and these mages were merely offering me a snack. The plaza fell into a darkness more profound than any night.
"My turn," I whispered.
I raised my hand, fingers splayed. I didn't attack the soldiers' bodies. I attacked the reality they stood upon. The white domain—the infinite, empty space where I had defeated the Void—began to bleed into the physical world. For a mile in every direction, the world lost its color. The blue sky turned ash-gray. The gold on the Council's robes turned to lead. Even the blood in their veins felt cold and heavy.
"Kneel," I commanded.
It wasn't a suggestion. It was a fundamental law of physics. Three thousand elite mages hit the stone floor at the exact same microsecond. The sound of three thousand pairs of knees shattering against the marble echoed through the silent city like a single, horrific thunderclap. They didn't just kneel; they were crushed by the sheer weight of my will.
The High Elder stayed standing only because I held him up with an invisible thread of power. He looked at his fallen army, then back at me. His eyes were no longer filled with judgment, only a primal, ancient horror. He realized then that I wasn't a rebel or a conqueror.
"What... what are you?" he wheezed, blood trickling from his nose.
"I am the silence at the end of your prayers," I replied.
I stepped past him, my cloak brushing against his paralyzed form. I walked toward the Great Spire, the seat of all knowledge and law in the world. I didn't need to kill them. To kill them would be to acknowledge they were a threat worthy of effort. To me, they were now part of the landscape.
"Cory," I called out, not bothering to turn around.
"Yes, my lord?" Cory's voice was filled with a religious fervor. He had seen the truth.
"The flags of the Seven Nations that hang from these balconies... burn them. All of them. From this moment on, the world has no colors, no borders, and no neutral ground."
"And what shall we fly in their place, my lord?"
I reached the doors of the Spire and pushed them open. Inside, the history of the world was recorded in millions of books. I looked at the empty throne at the end of the hall.
"Nothing," I said. "The world will learn to be comfortable in my shadow."
The game wasn't just over. I had deleted the board.