Chapter 38 – Rotten Thrones

The air in the throne hall was thick with an oppressive, unyielding silence. A silence borne of centuries of tyranny, of power held and discarded like the withered husks of rulers who had long since fallen into death's embrace. The walls, once adorned with the grandeur of immortal reign, now lay covered in a thin, slick layer of dust, each brick crumbling under the weight of time. The hall itself seemed to groan with the accumulated sorrow of ages, the bones of past kings lying dormant in the stones, their regal influence forever diminished.

Rin walked into the hall uninvited, his steps echoing across the cavernous expanse. His eyes scanned the empty thrones—giant, petrified structures, each one holding the lifeless remains of an immortal who had once sat upon them, ruling with the arrogance of eternity. These were not thrones of power, not places of glory. They were tombs—tombs of the foolish who had believed they could rule death, but instead had been consumed by it.

At the far end of the hall, a throne stood out from the others. It was grander, more intricate, the seat of the last king. Unlike the others, this one had not crumbled. It had fused with the decayed body of its former occupant, as though the throne had claimed the king for itself. The once regal figure was now a grotesque mockery of a ruler: skin fused to the throne's armrests, eyes empty and hollow, yet still possessing a flicker of consciousness. It was as though the throne had made the king one with itself, locking him into an eternal state of half-life.

Rin did not flinch, though there was a palpable weight to the air. The presence of the dead kings, the hollow memory of their dominion, was suffocating. These were no mere corpses. They were the remnants of an era that had tried, and failed, to conquer death. They were the fools who had sought immortality and, in doing so, had locked themselves into eternal stagnation.

The last king's hollow gaze fixed upon Rin as he approached. There was an unnatural stillness to the way he regarded him, as though he had been waiting for this moment for an eternity.

"You are the Endborne," the king's voice rasped, distant and filled with a hollow echo. "I can feel it in you—the same hunger, the same refusal to kneel before death. You have come seeking the end. But what if I offer you something else? A throne. Power. Immortality."

Rin's eyes narrowed as he drew closer, his every step deliberate. He could hear the creak of the throne's ancient wood as the king attempted to shift in his seat, but it was a futile gesture—he was bound, trapped in that seat, part of the very throne he had once ruled.

"I offer you a place beside me," the king continued, his voice growing stronger with each word, though it was laced with the stench of decay. "Rule this realm as I did. You can become its master. No more running from death. No more fear. You will sit here, in this hall, and you will forget the pain of mortality. You will become death itself."

Rin's lips curled into a grim smile, but there was no warmth in it. His eyes glowed with the cold, relentless light of death's clarity. He stepped forward, his every movement precise and unhurried, as though the throne were not even worthy of his attention.

"Power?" Rin repeated, his voice low, carrying the weight of a thousand dead. "I am no fool. Power without purpose is a prison. A throne like yours is no seat of authority. It is a cage—a way to rot slowly until you are nothing but dust. You do not rule from a throne, you die into it. Your soul is trapped here, bound to these decayed bones."

The king's hollow gaze seemed to flicker, a dim recognition crossing the empty void behind his eyes. He had once ruled, yes, but now he was a puppet, a remnant of his former self. Power had not granted him freedom; it had only ensnared him further.

Rin stepped closer, his footsteps echoing louder in the silence of the throne room. He could feel the weight of the king's gaze on him, the heavy pull of the throne's temptation, but he did not falter. His mind was clear, unwavering.

"What is your name, king?" Rin asked, his voice carrying the sharp edge of finality.

The king's voice rasped once more, struggling to push through the fog of his existence. "I… I was known as Kairn, the Eternal King. The one who defied the heavens themselves."

Rin's lips parted in a silent exhale. The name did not matter, nor would it ever matter again. The name had been swallowed by time, by the curse of immortality that bound Kairn to this place. A name was a fleeting thing. It could be erased, forgotten, swallowed by the abyss.

"I will not sit upon your throne, Kairn," Rin said, his voice unwavering. "I do not seek immortality. I seek the end. I seek the truth of death, not the lie of eternity."

The king's face twisted in what could have been either fury or sorrow, but his voice was steady, as if he had resigned himself to his fate long ago.

"You are wrong," the king murmured, his eyes clouding with a strange, ancient wisdom. "You do not understand. The throne is not a prison. It is freedom. It is the escape from death. I can give it to you—immortality, power beyond comprehension. You will transcend all things, be more than you have ever dreamed."

Rin's eyes hardened. He stepped forward and stood before the king, looking down at the hollow shell of what had once been a ruler.

"I do not fear death," Rin said, his voice cold as ice. "And I will not become like you. You think you offer freedom, but all you offer is a slow, agonizing decay. Power without purpose is no freedom. It is nothing more than a slow death that stretches on for eternity."

Without another word, Rin reached into his robe and pulled forth Ny'xuan, the sentient dagger. It hummed with a quiet power, its blade singing with the resonance of death. He held it high for a moment, the gleam of the blade catching the faint light in the hall, and then, with a single, fluid motion, he swung the dagger down.

The king's body shuddered, a dark pulse of energy rippling through the room. But Rin did not stop there. He did not need to kill Kairn with a physical strike. He needed to erase him, to strip away his very existence.

Rin spoke a single incantation—Void Eulogy. The words left his lips like a whisper of wind, but they carried the weight of an entire world's end. The king's form convulsed, his body twisting in agony, but Rin did not relent. The name Kairn, the eternal king, began to fade. It slipped into the void, as though it had never been.

The throne shuddered, cracking as the king's body began to disintegrate into dust. The soul of the king, once bound to his throne, was now gone—erased from existence, stripped of meaning, of identity. The throne itself cracked and crumbled, falling apart as the last remnants of the king's rule dissolved into the air.

And then there was silence.

Rin stood alone in the throne hall, his eyes cold and unyielding. The throne was nothing now but a broken relic. The ghosts of the past kings were gone, their names swallowed by the void.

Rin turned away, his back to the decaying remnants of power, and walked out of the hall. He did not need the throne. He did not need the empty promise of immortality. His path was clear. It was not one of eternal rule, but of eternal truth. He would remain hated, feared, and free.

The power of death lay not in dominion, but in its acceptance. And Rin, the Endborne, would walk his path alone, forever rejecting the rotten thrones of the immortal kings.

To be continued…