CHAPTER 156: THE KING’S DEFIANCE

The silence on the summit was a heavy, oppressive thing. The swirling vortex of the dungeon entrance was a silent, arrogant challenge. Nox stood before it, the memory of the gatekeeper’s impossible power a fresh, burning wound in his pride.

"She is gone," Serian said, her voice a little shaky as she got to her feet. "Nox, we cannot enter. That woman... she is on a level we cannot yet comprehend."

"Yeah, I noticed," Nox grunted. He looked at his scepter, Regulus. A small, hairline crack had appeared in the obsidian shaft where the spatial wave had hit. ’She damaged a Mythical-grade weapon with one hit. What the hell is she?’

[Analysis: The entity designated ’Gatekeeper’ is operating on a different power scale,] Liona’s voice confirmed. [Her abilities are not based on the ’World’s Scripture’ as you know it. She is a variable from an external system. Direct confrontation is, at your current level, statistically equivalent to suicide.]

’So, I can’t win. Good to know.’ He looked at the vortex. ’But I don’t have to win. I just have to get in.’

"Her power is a key," he said, thinking out loud. "She used it to open and close the path. Which means the path is still here. It’s just... locked."

"A lock that we cannot break," Serian insisted. "Nox, this is foolish. We should regroup with the army. Vexia might be able to find a way to analyze the barrier."

"We don’t have time for that," Nox said, his gaze fixed on the swirling darkness. He could feel the power within the dungeon, the fragment of the Void God, calling to his own core. It was a siren song he couldn’t ignore.

He walked to the edge of the vortex, so close he could feel the faint, cold pull of the void. He held out his hand.

’Liona,’ he commanded. ’Show me the lock.’

His Void Gaze activated, but it was different this time. He pushed his own authority, the power of his Monarch’s Dominion, into the skill. The world didn’t just sharpen; it dissolved into a sea of pure data. He saw the threads of reality, the glowing lines of mana, the code of the World’s Scripture.

And he saw the gate.

It wasn’t a physical thing. It was a complex, multi-layered seal of pure spatial magic, woven into the very fabric of the dungeon’s entrance. It was a lock made of reality itself. And it was keyed to the Gatekeeper’s unique energy signature.

’So, I can’t break it,’ he thought, tracing the intricate lines of the seal with his mind. ’And I don’t have the key.’ A slow, reckless grin spread across his face. ’So I’ll just have to pick the lock.’

He didn’t have her power. But he had his own. The void. The absolute nothingness that could consume and erase. He couldn’t create a key, but maybe... maybe he could un-create the lock.

"What are you doing?" Serian asked, her voice tight with alarm as a faint, dark mist began to bleed from Nox’s skin.

"I’m knocking," Nox said.

He didn’t use a grand, flashy attack. He just reached out with his mind, with his will, and touched the seal with the purest, most concentrated essence of his void. It was not a punch; it was a needle of pure, absolute nothing, and he aimed it at the most complex, central point of the runic lock.

The seal reacted instantly. A wave of violent, spatial energy erupted from the vortex, a defensive backlash designed to annihilate anything that dared to touch it.

Nox was ready. The full might of his Infernal Monarch Armor materialized in an instant. He crossed his arms in front of his face, the void-forged plates glowing with a deep red light as the wave of distortion hit him.

He was thrown backward, skidding across the glassy black rock of the summit, his armored boots carving deep gouges in the stone. The backlash was immense, a raw, untamed force that rattled his very soul.

"Nox!"

He pushed himself to his feet, his armor smoking, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. "I’m fine," he grunted. He looked at the vortex. The seal was still there, but a tiny, almost invisible crack had appeared in its center.

’It worked.’

"You are a fool!" Serian yelled, running to his side. "You will be torn apart!"

"It’s just a door," Nox said, his voice a low growl. "And I’m going to kick it down."

He did it again. He touched the seal with his will, and another, more violent wave of spatial energy erupted. He took the hit, his armor groaning under the strain, and another crack appeared in the seal.

He did it a third time. A fourth.

It was a battle of attrition. The immovable object versus the unstoppable idiot. With every backlash, he was wounded, his mana and stamina draining, but with every hit, the seal grew weaker.

The god chat was a frantic, screaming mess.

[Zeus, King of Olympus] This is madness! He is attempting to brute-force a lock forged from the laws of reality itself! He will be erased!

[Odin, the All-Father] His will... it is a stubborn, unbreakable thing. He is not trying to overpower the seal. He is trying to annoy it to death.

[Auraelia, Goddess of Resilient Sparks] He’s going to die! He’s going to actually die this time! Someone please stop him! 😭

On the tenth hit, the seal shattered.

It did not explode. It just broke, like a pane of glass, with a sound that was not a sound, but a silent scream that echoed in their minds. The swirling vortex of the dungeon entrance wavered, its edges becoming unstable.

Nox stood before it, his armor cracked and smoking, his body battered and bleeding, but he was grinning.

"Told you," he panted. "I’m good at breaking things."

He took a step toward the now-unlocked dungeon, but his legs gave out from under him. He had spent everything, his mana, his stamina, his very life force, on that final, defiant act. He collapsed to the ground, his vision going black.

Serian caught him before he hit the ground, her own face a mask of terrified relief.

"You absolute, impossible fool," she whispered, her voice choked with tears.

The swirling vortex of the dungeon entrance, its lock broken, began to pulse violently. It was no longer a stable gateway; it was an open, bleeding wound in reality.

And from its dark, hungry heart, something began to emerge.

It was not a monster. It was a hand. A massive, skeletal hand, wreathed in shadows and cold, dead starlight. It gripped the edge of the vortex and began to pull its owner through.

A new screen, blood red and screaming with alarms, filled Serian’s vision.

[WARNING: DUNGEON SEAL BREACHED.]

[CONTAINMENT FAILURE IMMINENT.]

[THE VOID GOD’S FRAGMENT IS UNLEASHED.]

The true boss of the dungeon, the ancient, forgotten power that had been imprisoned within, was free. And it was very, very angry.

Serian looked from the unconscious boy in her arms to the skeletal god that was now climbing its way into their world.

’We are all going to die,’ she thought.

But then, she remembered Nox’s stubborn, impossible grin. She remembered the boy who had faced down an Elder, a berserker king, and a god-tier gatekeeper, and had refused to back down.

She laid him gently on the ground and stood up, her sword in her hand, her own body beginning to glow with a faint, golden light.

"No," she said to the emerging god, her voice a quiet, unwavering promise. "Not today."

She had a king to protect. And it was her turn to be the shield.

---

The skeletal god hauled itself out of the vortex. It was a colossal being, thirty feet tall, its bones the color of polished night, its empty eye sockets burning with a cold, dead starlight. A tattered, black shroud, woven from pure shadow, clung to its frame, and in its hand, it held a massive scythe whose blade seemed to be forged from a shard of the abyss itself.

This was no mere Lich King. This was a true god of the void, or at least a piece of one.

It looked at the unconscious boy on the ground, then at the golden-glowing elf who stood between them, and it let out a sound that was not a sound, but a wave of pure, soul-crushing despair that washed over the mountaintop.

Serian staggered, her golden aura flickering under the oppressive weight of the god’s presence. ’This power... it is beyond anything I have ever felt.’

The god raised its massive scythe. "You have broken my prison, mortals. As a reward, you will be the first to be unmade."

The scythe swung down. It did not move with physical speed; it simply erased the space between it and Serian.

She knew she couldn’t block it. She couldn’t dodge it. It was an absolute, final attack.

’I’m sorry, Nox,’ she thought. ’It seems I failed you after all.’

Just as the abyssal blade was about to touch her, a figure appeared in front of her.

It was not Nox.

It was a woman, clad in sleek, purple armor, her face hidden behind a featureless helmet. In her hand, she held a long, thin blade of her own.

The Gatekeeper.

She met the god’s scythe with her own blade. The impact was a silent explosion of pure, contradictory force. The Gatekeeper was thrown backward, skidding across the glassy black rock, but she had blocked the blow.

"You," the Void God’s voice echoed, full of a new, ancient hatred. "The jailer’s dog. You are still here?"

’The jailer’s dog?’ Serian thought, her mind reeling.

’Your time is over, fragment,’ the Gatekeeper’s voice echoed in their minds, cold and absolute. ’The age of gods is done. This world belongs to the players now.’

She charged, her blade a whisper of unmaking force. The battle of gods had begun on the summit of the broken mountain, and Serian could do nothing but watch.

But as the two titans clashed, a small, rhythmic pulse began to beat from within Nox’s chest.

’The egg,’ Serian realized. ’It’s reacting to the Void God’s power.’

The pulsing grew stronger, and a faint, golden light began to emanate from Nox’s unconscious form. The divine egg, the child of the Mother of Ashes, was finally beginning to stir. The broken world was holding its breath.