Chapter 43: The Tomb of Ten Kings

The path to the tomb was no longer a road but a scar carved into the desert by time and tragedy. Winds howled through broken pillars, long-buried bones jutting out from dunes like fingers grasping at the surface. Leon, Juno, and the few trusted warriors who still followed them approached in silence. Even the horses seemed reluctant, their hooves dragging through the sand.

The entrance to the Tomb of Ten Kings was carved into a cliff of black obsidian unnatural, jagged, like a wound in the world. Symbols older than the Dominion Key pulsed faintly on the surface. Each rune throbbed with a rhythm, as if the stone itself was breathing.

"This place wasn't built," Juno whispered. "It was grown."

Leon stepped forward. "And it's waiting."

With a gesture, the Key fragment pulsed in his palm. The runes answered, parting the stone like flesh to reveal a tunnel of shadow and cold.

No one spoke as they entered.

Whispers of the Past

Inside, the air changed thickened, pressing on their lungs like invisible hands. The walls pulsed with faint echoes, voices whispering in forgotten tongues. Every step forward came with a sensation of walking backward, as if time itself bent around them.

Juno gripped Leon's hand tighter. "Something's wrong. My memories... they're bleeding into the walls."

He noticed it too. Flickers of the past danced on the edges of vision a childhood home, the faces of the dead, the night he first awakened the Key's power. The tomb was more than a crypt.

It was a mirror.

They reached the central chamber.

Ten thrones lined the circular room, each occupied by a stone figure armored, crowned, and faceless. Their heads turned as the party entered. The silence cracked like thunder.

"Leon Valebreaker," a voice echoed from all around. "Why do you come?"

Leon stepped forward. "To claim the sixth shard."

The figures stood.

"Then you must face what each king buried not in the world, but in themselves."

Trials of the Kings

One by one, Leon and his companions were separated.

Juno found herself in a chamber of mirrors, each reflecting versions of herself she had never become a mother, a killer, a queen. They spoke to her in unison. Which one do you wish to be? Which one do you fear the most?

Leon, meanwhile, stood before a stone child the image of his brother, Taren. The one he had left behind. The one he had watched die.

"You said you'd protect me," the boy said. "But you chose the Key. You chose power."

Leon dropped to his knees. "I didn't know how to save you."

"And now you want to save everyone?" the child hissed. "Liar."

Pain speared through Leon's heart. The Key burned in his chest judging.

Unworthy

One of the thrones shattered. A voice boomed: Unworthy.

The tomb began to tremble.

"No!" Leon stood, clutching his chest. "I won't be judged by ghosts! I carry my sins. I've buried friends, betrayed trust, sacrificed peace all for a throne I never asked for!"

The ground split beneath him.

Juno appeared beside him, bloodied but standing. "Then stand for it."

Together, they raised the Key and with it, their truth.

"I am not a perfect man," Leon said. "But I am the man who will finish this war."

The tomb screamed a soundless quake of memory and will. The stone kings turned to dust, their trials complete.

And at the center of the chamber, a shard of black crystal hovered, wrapped in flame and light.

Leon reached out.

The sixth shard merged with the others.

And with it, a scream tore through the planes of reality a warning from the seventh.

Something had awakened.

---

The Final Shard

The air trembled.

As the sixth shard fused with the others within Leon's Dominion Key, the tomb shook violently not just from collapsing stone, but from something far deeper. Ancient. Primordial. The very world shifted in response.

Juno gripped the wall, panting. "What... what was that?"

Leon didn't answer immediately. His mind was still echoing with the scream not a sound, but a presence. Cold, vengeful, and vast. As if something buried deeper than the tomb had felt the fusion and had opened one eye in the darkness.

The seventh shard… is not waiting.

Leon turned to the dust-covered map they had uncovered within the throne room's floor a celestial diagram written in a language even the Key struggled to decode. But the location was unmistakable.

"The last shard lies in the Hollow Star," he said grimly.

Juno paled. "That's not a place... That's a prison."

The Hollow Star

The Hollow Star floated above the Broken Sea a shattered expanse of water where reality twisted. No birds flew there. No ships returned. It was spoken of only in myths.

Getting there would not be easy.

Leon gathered his inner circle. Kael, the scarred tactician; Thorne, the Beast-Speaker; and Seraphine, the fire-sorceress who once tried to kill him. Each had seen things no mortal should. Each had followed him because they believed not in the Key, but in Leon himself.

"There's no turning back," Leon said. "When we step into the Hollow Star, we'll be walking into the mouth of the end."

Kael nodded. "Then let's break its teeth."

A Storm of Nations

But as Leon and his allies prepared to set sail, the world responded.

The Imperial Warlords of Varn had felt the shift in the shards and they moved their legions toward the Broken Sea, eager to claim the final piece for themselves.

The Southern Coalition raised a floating citadel to intercept Leon's ship mid-air, seeking to destroy the last threat to their dominion.

Even the Order of Null long thought extinct sent their Voidwalkers to poison the stars themselves, so the Hollow Star would never be found.

War erupted not just across the land, but in the skies and sea. A world trembling under the weight of prophecy.

Betrayal in the Wind

Two nights before their departure, Leon stood alone atop a cliff watching the crashing tides below. Juno approached, hesitant.

"You feel it too," she said softly.

He nodded. "Someone close to us will betray us before we reach the shard."

Juno didn't ask how he knew the Key had shown him flashes: blood in the water, a dagger between ribs, a name whispered like a curse. But it hadn't shown who.

Departure

At dawn, the crew boarded The Endbringer, a vessel carved from enchanted bone and ether-steel capable of sailing across not just sea, but air and shadow. Forged from the remains of a slain sky wyrm, it was the last of its kind.

As they launched into the storm-wracked skies, Leon looked back at the continent of Arvandor kingdoms still ablaze, empires falling, and the prophecy of the Key nearing its close.

"We leave behind a broken world," Kael murmured.

Leon's eyes narrowed. "Then we return with the power to rebuild it or not at all."

And high above them, veiled by the storm clouds, something enormous moved a shadow with wings the size of mountains.

The Hollow Star was watching.

---

The Sky Grave

The Endbringer soared through the storm-choked skies, lightning dancing around its reinforced hull like angry spirits. The winds screamed as if the world itself sought to keep Leon and his crew from reaching their destination. Below, the sea churned with unnatural tides, dark shapes slithering beneath the waves. Above, the stars had vanished.

No turning back.

Leon stood at the prow, cloak whipping in the wind, eyes fixed on the horizon. Beside him, Kael tightened the straps on his weapon harness, his face carved from iron.

"We're nearing the edge of the Sky Grave," he said. "Stormfronts are growing unnatural. No birds. No mana trails."

Thorne emerged from below deck, grim-faced. "Worse. Something's been following us since dusk. It's staying in the clouds, masking its presence."

Leon didn't speak. His fingers curled around the Dominion Key at his hip now blazing with six distinct shards, each pulsing with its own rhythm. Each vibrating with tension. The final one was calling.

Then the clouds parted.

The Ambush

From the maelstrom above, black-winged beasts dove with bone armor and riders clad in jagged obsidian armor the Varnian Deathriders.

Their leader, Commander Zerrak, bore the Mark of Binding a cursed sigil tattooed across his chest that let him harness the souls of his fallen soldiers. His mount screeched, and the air turned to ice.

The battle was immediate and brutal.

Firestorms erupted as Seraphine leapt onto the deck, casting wide arcs of flame to drive off the beasts. Arrows laced with runes of wind tore through the first wave. Kael held the forward defense, striking down boarders with twin axes.

Leon launched skyward with the Dominion Key drawn it now transformed into a gleaming spear of pure light. Each strike shattered enemy enchantments. He moved like a falling star.

But Zerrak was no ordinary foe.

He blocked Leon's spear with his cursed blade, the impact warping space itself. "You're too late, False Heir," he hissed. "The Hollow Star has already awakened. And it has chosen."

The Revelation

Their blades clashed mid-air as The Endbringer groaned below. Crew members fought desperately to hold the ship aloft. Juno tried to steer through the madness, while Thorne summoned beasts of wind and cloud to repel the attackers.

During a lull, Leon kicked Zerrak back and demanded, "Chosen who?"

Zerrak's smile was cruel. "Your shadow. The traitor among you."

And then he vanished in a burst of cursed light, the remaining Deathriders fleeing like ghosts at dawn.

Aftermath and Doubt

Silence fell over the battered ship. Leon landed on the deck, dripping with blood and ozone. Seraphine staggered over, smoke still rising from her hands.

"What did he mean?" she asked.

Leon didn't answer immediately. He turned to face his crew all of them bruised, bloodied, shaken.

Someone among them was the traitor. And the Hollow Star had chosen them.

Closing

That night, no one slept.

Above them, a blood-red moon broke through the storm, casting an eerie light over the endless expanse ahead. The Hollow Star loomed, closer now, visible as a hole in the sky a place where the stars bent inward and light was devoured.

And deep in the ship's lower decks, a figure moved in secret, fingers brushing over the seventh shard hidden in a sealed box not yet bound to the Key.

Not yet revealed.

But soon.