Throneworld Broadcast — Council of Blood Oracles
"By ancient decree, the Ascendance Trials shall not be won through birthright, but by victory.Let the heirs of the Prime Worlds prepare.One will rise. The rest will bleed."
Across the galaxy, the Kargal Empire's Prime Worlds ignited.
No longer a ceremonial contest, the Trials had become war in miniature—a sanctioned purge between heirs, sanctioned by the Voidscarred Codex itself.
Duels. Invasions. Assassins wrapped in relic-fire.
Victory would forge the new Emperor.
Prime World – Odyssar
A colder world, veined with deep-blue ore and pulsing with dead gods' neural-tech. Here, Prince Ody, thin and veiled, stood before a projection of the others.
His voice was soft, almost bored.
"They chase each other like dogs with sharpened teeth.But there is another flame. A forbidden one."
He turned to his scribe.
"The boy from Nightfell. The one touched by the blood god and trained by a Naught."
"You think he's alive?" the scribe asked.
"No. I think he's changing."
Ody's gaze turned starward.
"He might survive. And if he does, none of us will rule long."
Nightfell – The Cradle of Dust and Memory
Kiro screamed as the Rite of Fractured Flame etched itself into his bones.
Fire licked through his skin—Viora lines fracturing, reforging into something deeper. Not just a weapon, not just a power.
A language.
A calling.
He stood within a ring of collapsing stars, cast through the Naught's dreamforge. His blood sang with every movement. The Naught watched from above, unmoving, expression unreadable.
Kiro was no longer mortal.
Not god.
Not voidling.
Something else.
When the trial ended, Kiro collapsed—his body raw, but alive. He awoke beneath the hollow sky of Nightfell, the Naught waiting beside a ship that looked like a dying comet carved into a blade.
"You lived," the Naught said. "Barely. That means I must keep my promise."
Kiro staggered to his feet, every breath slicing like lightning.
"Where... now?"
The Naught turned its gaze starward.
"Vevadexus. The Planet of War. There, the God-Spoken Archive still lives—buried beneath ten thousand battlefields. You will find what you need to become what must be."
Kiro looked back—at the black ash of Nightfell, at the dream temple where gods bled, and where he had become something unspoken.
Then he stepped into the Naught's ship.
And the stars shattered around him as he left.
Meanwhile – Vevadexus Orbit
The Planet of War.
A world forged in unending conflict—its continents scarred by divine artillery and ancient species long extinct. Here, machines prayed, soldiers never died, and the air tasted of gunmetal and burned time.
Above it, warships circled like vultures.
Among them, the Voidling Warlord's fracture began to widen.
Already, malformed creatures slipped through—scouts and stalkers made of glass-bone and black light.
And below, in the hidden Archive...
Something began to awaken.