Chapter 28: The Riftborn Sovereign

1. The Silence After Ascension

The world had never known silence like this before.

The Pantheon was gone—its celestial halls reduced to dust. The Supreme God, the one who had dictated the fate of all existence, had fallen.

And the Ashen King stood alone.

He exhaled, watching the golden remnants of divinity scatter like dying embers. Around him, the last fragments of the gods' throne floated in the void, powerless, meaningless.

This was the end of an era.

Yet, in the vastness of creation, the fall of a god was never just an ending.

It was a beginning.

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2. The Watching Eyes

Far beyond the shattered heavens, they watched.

Beings who had never spoken.

Entities beyond comprehension.

They had remained dormant for eternity, for the gods had ruled as false kings, playing with stolen power.

But now, with the Supreme One's death, the true architects of existence had taken notice.

And they were curious.

"An anomaly…"

"A force that defies both divine and abyssal law…"

"Is he… one of us?"

The Ashen King's ascension had broken the balance, and something in the fabric of reality had stirred because of it.

Something that had never moved before.

Something that should not have existed.

The Boundless Ones.

And they were awakening.

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3. The Mortal Realms React

In the world below, nations burned their banners.

Temples were torn down.

Priests fell to their knees, weeping at the sky that no longer bore the light of the Supreme One.

Faith had shattered.

And yet, something new had taken its place.

A name. A presence. A force that mortals had never known but could not deny.

The Riftborn Sovereign.

His power was no longer whispered in shadows. It was spoken in fear, in reverence, in worship.

Some sought to resist. Kings and queens rallied armies, believing they could defy the new order.

They never stood a chance.

The Rift answered before the Ashen King even had to.

Their cities vanished.

Their weapons turned to dust.

And those who defied him… were never seen again.

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4. The Throne of Nothingness

The Ashen King floated in the void where the Pantheon had once ruled.

And for the first time, he considered a question he had never dared to ask.

What now?

He had never sought power. Never craved dominion. He had been forced into war, into ascension, into something greater than himself.

Now, he stood at the top.

The gods were gone.

The abyss feared him.

The mortals worshipped him.

But there was a feeling—a weight—pressing at the edge of his existence.

He looked down at his hands, at the power that no longer felt like his own.

And in the silence of creation, a whisper touched his mind.

"You were not meant to exist."

The Ashen King's gaze sharpened.

He turned—

And the universe screamed.

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5. The Boundless Ones Descend

The sky—what remained of it—cracked.

A presence unlike anything before seeped through the fabric of existence.

Not divine. Not abyssal. Not mortal.

Something older.

Something that had been watching since the dawn of time.

The Boundless Ones had arrived.

And the Ashen King was not ready.