Chapter 5: Crown of Neverborn

Elsewhere, a Sovereign arose: Ilthaea, Crown of the Neverborn, a being composed of dreams that never came true.

She wandered realms, feeding on "what could have been"—creating paradox armies made from versions of people who never existed.

One of them was Wang Chung—but smiling, normal, powerless.

> "We all die," the Neverborn Wang said. "But some of us were never even real."

Wang fought his own unreal self—and won, not with power, but with pain.

> "You were peace. But I chose war. And I will carry that weight."

Ilthaea fled—wounded.

But she whispered:

> "Even Sovereigns fall."