Two days later, the Dark Empire felt normal again.
Not peaceful. Not fragile.
Normal in the way a place becomes when it has survived enough disasters to stop flinching.
The central plaza was alive. Vendors shouted prices. Children ran between stalls. Music drifted from somewhere near the outer ring. Civilians laughed without checking the sky first.
Gilmuar stood near the open square, arms loose, shoulders slightly slouched. He looked exhausted in a way sleep could not fix. His eyes were sharp, but heavy. Gravity curved subtly around him, invisible to everyone else, enough that dust never quite settled near his boots.
Across from him stood Kharos.
The king remained still, posture straight, hands behind his back. The thin metallic headband covered his eyes completely, etched with symbols so old they barely registered as writing anymore. He had not removed it once since arriving.
Tier, Leona, and Cron stood off to the side.
Cron leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, watching closely. Leona stood forward, alert. Tier was quiet, already thinking ten steps ahead.
Gilmuar broke the silence.
Gilmuar: You stayed?
Kharos turned his head slightly toward the city.
Kharos: I was curious.
Gilmuar: About what?
Kharos: About why this place still stands.
Gilmuar snorted.
Gilmuar: That's a weird compliment.
Kharos: It was not meant as one.
A group of children ran past them, nearly colliding with Gilmuar before swerving away, laughing.
Kharos tilted his head.
Kharos: You are not concerned?
Gilmuar: About kids?
Kharos: About collateral.
Gilmuar glanced around once, calm.
Gilmuar: They won't feel anything.
Kharos paused.
Kharos: That is confidence.
Gilmuar: No.
Gilmuar: That is control.
Cron let out a short laugh.
Cron: He's not bluffing.
Kharos turned slightly toward Cron.
Kharos: You are... interesting.
Cron: Yeah? You're not.
Kharos smiled faintly.
Kharos: Fair.
Gilmuar looked at the headband again.
Gilmuar: You never take that thing off, huh?
Kharos lifted a hand, touching it lightly.
Kharos: It was made by my grandfather.
Gilmuar: To hide your eyes?
Kharos: To restrain me.
That got Gilmuar's full attention.
Gilmuar: Restrain your power?
Kharos: My existence.
Leona frowned.
Leona: That doesn't sound healthy.
Kharos: It is necessary.
Gilmuar studied him for a moment.
Gilmuar: Power Source?
Kharos answered immediately.
Kharos: Endless Void.
The air shifted just slightly.
Tier's eyes narrowed.
Tier: Void type...?
Gilmuar blinked once.
Gilmuar: Pure void?
Kharos: Yes.
Gilmuar: That's rare as hell.
Kharos tilted his head.
Kharos: Yours is rarer.
Gilmuar smirked.
Gilmuar: Gravity.
Kharos shook his head.
Kharos: That is the element.
Kharos: Not the Source.
Gilmuar's smile thinned.
Gilmuar: Gravitas.
The plaza seemed to tighten.
Not collapse. Not shake.
Just... compress.
Kharos took a half step back before he realized he moved.
Kharos: ...I see.
Kharos: That explains why the air feels heavy around you.
Gilmuar: You felt that?
Kharos: I feel everything.
Cron muttered.
Cron: Must be annoying.
Kharos ignored him.
Kharos: Gravitas users do not live long.
Gilmuar: Yeah?
Kharos: They either collapse into singularities.
Kharos: Or awaken into something that no longer resembles a person.
Gilmuar smiled wider.
Gilmuar: Guess I'm late then.
Leona glanced at him.
Leona: That's not reassuring!
Gilmuar: Relax. I'm still me. Mostly.
Kharos was silent for a moment.
Kharos: Why did you invite me to stay?
Gilmuar shrugged.
Gilmuar: I didn't.
Kharos: You didn't ask me to leave either.
Gilmuar: True.
Kharos turned his headband slightly toward the city again.
Kharos: If we fight...?
Gilmuar cut in.
Gilmuar: When we fight.
Kharos paused, then corrected himself.
Kharos: When we fight... this city will not break?
Gilmuar turned his head slightly.
High above, clinging to a spire like a living shadow, Biru watched.
Insectoid. Chitin layered and sharp. Eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. His presence pressed downward like a silent verdict.
Kharos felt it.
His shoulders stiffened.
Kharos: That thing...
Gilmuar: Biru.
Gilmuar: One of the Emperor's Champions.
Kharos: That is not a beast.
Gilmuar: No.
Gilmuar: That's insurance.
Kharos exhaled slowly.
Kharos: Then I will not restrain myself.
Gilmuar's hand opened.
Gravity answered.
A single battle axe formed, dense enough that the air bent around its edge.
Gilmuar grinned.
Gilmuar: Good.
Kharos reached into his hair and pulled free a thin golden rod.
Kharos: One last question.
Gilmuar: Yeah?
Kharos: Why do you want this fight?
Gilmuar thought for a moment.
Gilmuar: Because I want to know...
He lifted the axe slightly. The ground beneath him creaked.
Gilmuar: ...how heavy I really am.
Kharos nodded.
The rod unfolded mid air, stretching into a glaive that hummed with void energy.
Kharos: Then let us measure.
The plaza went quiet.
People stopped walking.
Children looked up.
And then—
They vanished.
One moment the plaza was full of noise and color, the next it was a hollowed sphere of compressed space layered invisibly over itself. The stalls remained. The streets remained. The people remained.
But everything inside was held.
Paused.
As if the world itself was holding its breath.
Biru's shadow expanded outward from his perch, spreading like a living veil across the plaza. It did not block sight. It blocked consequence. Children froze mid step, laughter caught in their throats, dust hanging motionless in the air.
Inside that suspended pocket—
Gilmuar and Kharos moved.
Their clash did not produce sound.
It erased it.
Gilmuar crossed the distance first, axe already mid swing, gravity condensing along the blade until space bowed inward toward the edge. The strike curved reality, dragging matter toward it like debris toward a falling star.
Kharos stepped forward instead of back.
He rotated the glaive once.
Not fast.
Precise.
The void around the blade expanded outward, thinning existence itself. Gilmuar's strike did not miss.
It arrived.
And found nothing to land on.
The axe passed through a region where presence had been removed entirely. No air. No resistance. No target. The gravity collapsed inward on itself and detonated behind Kharos, crushing a pocket of space into a dense implosion that vanished a heartbeat later.
Gilmuar clicked his tongue.
Gilmuar: That's annoying.
Kharos slid past him, glaive sweeping low. The arc did not cut.
It erased.
The ground beneath Gilmuar's feet vanished for a fraction of a second. Gravity lost its anchor. Gilmuar dropped—
Then slammed his foot down.
The plaza screamed as weight returned violently. Space buckled under the sudden reassertion, snapping back into place as Gilmuar launched upward, axe reversing grip mid motion.
Gilmuar: Gyuro.
The word did not echo.
It compressed.
Gilmuar: Seven.
The axe head trembled as a dense node of pressure formed along its edge, gravity folding tighter and tighter until light bent around it like a halo collapsing inward.
Gilmuar swung.
The release came out as a thin crescent, not wide, not flashy. It moved without speed, arriving before distance could exist.
Kharos crossed the glaive in front of him.
The crescent hit.
And slowed.
Not stopped.
Slowed.
Void peeled away layers of force as the gravity sliced deeper, pressure screaming as the two principles devoured each other. The crescent thinned, fractured, then split into three collapsing lines that tore past Kharos and buried themselves into nothingness behind him.
Kharos exhaled.
Kharos: You refine destruction well.
Gilmuar rolled his shoulder.
Gilmuar: You talk too much.
He vanished.
Not by speed.
By weight.
Gravity collapsed inward and spat him out behind Kharos, axe already descending. The strike carried stacked pressure, layers of attraction multiplied into a single point.
Kharos leaned back.
The glaive flicked upward.
The axe stopped inches from his skull.
Not blocked.
Suspended.
Gilmuar's arm shook as gravity fought something that refused to exist.
Kharos spoke calmly.
Kharos: Absence does not resist.
Kharos: It replaces.
He stepped forward.
Gilmuar was hit again.
Folded.
The space around his torso inverted violently, compressing his organs sideways. Blood burst from his mouth as he slammed into the suspended ground, skidding across stone that had forgotten how to feel impact.
He laughed again.
Short.
Breathless.
Gilmuar: Yeah. Okay.
He pushed himself up, spine cracking back into alignment, gravity stitching bone and muscle into place.
Gilmuar: You're not stronger.
Kharos tilted his head.
Gilmuar: You're just harder to touch.
Kharos's grip tightened on the glaive.
Kharos: And you—
Kharos paused.
For the first time, uncertainty crept into his tone.
Kharos: You are getting heavier.
The air around Gilmuar deepened.
Not darker.
Denser.
Dust that had been frozen in place began to fall straight down, crushed into fine lines as gravity intensified locally around him.
Tier's voice came out tight.
Tier: That density is increasing without expansion...
Leona whispered.
Leona: He's pulling inward.
Cron grinned.
Cron: Uh oh.
Gilmuar lifted the axe again.
His breathing slowed.
The hum returned.
Low.
Ancient.
Like the world recognizing something it remembered.
Gilmuar: Gyuro.
The plaza tensed.
Gilmuar: Twelve.
The ground beneath him compressed so hard it went smooth, stone flattening into a glass-like plane. A spherical distortion formed around the axe head, gravity folding in recursive layers, each one heavier than the last.
Kharos stepped back.
Just once.
Kharos: Careful.
Gilmuar's smile widened.
Gilmuar: You felt that.
He swung.
The sphere did not fire outward.
It collapsed inward.
Then rebounded.
The release did not travel.
It existed.
A localized annihilation of resistance crushed everything within a fixed radius, gravity stacking until even void began to thin under the weight.
Kharos was driven backward this time.
His boots carved deep trenches as the ground screamed beneath him. The glaive vibrated violently in his grip, symbols along its length flickering as absence strained to keep up.
Kharos steadied himself.
Slowly.
Kharos: So this is Gravitas.
Gilmuar exhaled.
Gilmuar: Still not the heavy part.
The hum deepened.
Biru's shadow surged, reacting instinctively, the barrier thickening another layer without instruction.
Tier swallowed.
Tier: ...This is still base.
Kharos straightened fully.
His stance shifted again.
Not ready.
Serious.
Kharos: Then I will respond in kind.
He raised the glaive and traced a symbol in the air.
Not glowing.
Not chanting.
The space inside the symbol vanished.
A hollow formed.
Perfect.
Silent.
Kharos: Come.
Gilmuar's eyes lit up.
The plaza trembled.
To be continued.
End Of Chapter 8.