Sol Palace, Heartfire Plateau
Apollo, Sol star system
Regulus galaxy
Pleiades star sector
16th Krios cycle, Solaris prime
The chamber was quiet now.
Long after the music faded and the automatons slipped into stasis, Leon remained awake—alone in the sanctum of his private quarters, wrapped in a subtle warmth that came not from passion, but from reflection.
He reclined on a cushioned platform hovering above a shallow basin of molten goldlight, the room dim except for the pulsing amber veins running through the starlaced obsidian walls. Gentle arcs of solar current glided along the ceiling like floating embers, casting a slow, ambient glow across the space.
In one hand, he held a delicate glass of Celestine Nectar, a rare solar-infused liquor aged in gravity-forged crystal barrels. In the other, an Aethertech inhaler, sleek and matte-black, humming softly as it prepped a measured vapor dose of euphoric stimulants and light-end energy stabilizers. He brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply.
The vapor entered his lungs like liquid starlight—cool at first, then igniting gently across his nervous system, opening his senses, sharpening thought. A quiet exhale followed. His eyes, heavy-lidded but alert, stared into nothing.
The feast tray before him still shimmered—half-eaten dreamfruit, seared solarflesh, and crystallized syrup berries resting on thin starlight plates. The kind of food that once meant nothing to him.
His thumb slowly traced the rim of the glass.
"I couldn't taste anything back then..." he murmured to the quiet. His voice was low, grounded with a tone only those who had danced with death could carry. Decades ago, his body had withered under a curse that not even the advanced medicine of the Divine Federation could fully cure. His immune system had decayed. His senses dulled. Food had become ash. Wine had been water. His once insatiable appetite for life had eroded to dust.
He remembered the way his hands had trembled just to use his sword.
The laughter of his fellow nobles echoed in his mind—boisterous, golden, dripping with pride and wine. As he got sicker, it had become nothing more than a hollow echo, a cruel symphony of ghosts. Their revelry had mocked him. Their joy had become unbearable. And even the warmth of a lover's embrace, once intoxicating, had felt like cold marble against decaying flesh.
Pleasure had become a myth—something spoken of but no longer reachable. The world still shimmered with color, yet to him, it might as well have been painted in ash and silence. Food had no taste. Wine had no bite. The sky had no beauty.
He had faded.
Then came the Twilight Crown.
A relic that was said to be the symbol of the Divine federation's might. An artifact forged before the Federation's time. Older than many galactic empire in the known universe, wrapped in paradox and myth, the Twilight Crown had been used to save his life. By the actions of one single person. Memories of Sam swelled up in Leon's mind. He remembered how she made the crown bond to his soul, how it had poured divine radiance and starlight essence into the core of his being. His ruined cells were overwritten by celestial code. Broken bones were realigned by cosmic threads. His weakened bloodline, the noble flame of the Haravok, roared back to life. What had once been a man tethered to mortality was now something far more—Reforged. Rewritten. Reborn. But what did he do after he was healed?
He vanished.
Not out of fear of the world—but because he understood the cost of power without mastery. He knew his foundation had been cracked, and if he dared to stand upon it too soon, it would collapse under the weight of what he had become. The Twilight Crown hadn't just repaired him—it had remade him.
Made him more.
And so, Leon had disappeared into the temporal ghostlands of Delos, into the ruined city of Lyre where time moved like a whisper and the past lived beside the present. Fifty years passed in the outer world while he unraveled the mystery of what he had become.
And now—now he understood.
The dam had broken.
His hunger was no longer dulled. It surged now—wild, brilliant, unrelenting—burning through his veins with a radiance that rivaled the sun itself. Desire, once a faint ember barely clinging to life, had become a roaring solar flare within him. Every sense that had once withered in the cold hollows of illness now returned in full force—sharper, deeper, consuming.
Flavors burst across his tongue like edible memories, vivid and impossible.Wine no longer slid down his throat unnoticed—it carried weight, complexity, purpose.Each sip was a solar baptism, a reminder that he was no longer dying.The vapor he inhaled curled through his lungs like lightning spun into silk, igniting his thoughts with euphoric clarity.
And then there was touch. The heat of skin, the press of lips, the sweetness of starlaced nectar upon a lover's mouth—these weren't simply pleasures. They were revelations. Each moment a hymn to the senses. Each indulgence a rediscovery of what it meant to feel alive.
Pleasure wasn't just real again. It was transcendent. And he craved it. All of it. But then—Sam. She flickered across his mind like a comet trailing memory. Her smile, her voice, the way she looked at him not as a king, but as a man. He had thought of many things during his fifty years in seclusion, but he had thought of her the most.
His longing for her outshone all other desires. Brighter. Hotter. Untouched.
And yet—he buried it. He trampled it beneath layers of discipline and guilt. Because Sam was not like the others. She was not a fleeting comfort, not a programmed illusion of intimacy. She was real. She was the promise he had made and the promise he had broken.
Fifty years.
Fifty years, and he had not returned. He had sworn he would. Sworn it with the steadiness of a man who believed time would bend to his will. But time had not bent. It had passed him by like a silent river.
And he?
He had drifted away in his seclusion.
"I'm a bastard," he whispered into the silence, the words barely audible, yet heavy enough to crack stone.
But there were still things that needed doing—tasks left undone, dangers unresolved, truths left buried. He couldn't face her. Not yet. Not until the weight of what he had become, and what he had to do, had settled. Only when those debts were paid could he dare to look her in the eyes again.
Leon raised the glass once more and took another slow sip of Celestine Nectar, letting it sit on his tongue before swallowing. The taste unfolded—warm, bold, layered like sunlight breaking through morning mist. His eyes fluttered shut as the flavor bloomed across his senses, blooming like starlight behind closed eyelids.
A slow smile curled across Leon's lips—not born of joy, nor satisfaction. But of cold, burning cruelty. The kind of smile that came from the knowledge of power unquestioned, from the quiet triumph of a predator watching prey writhe beneath his gaze. His eyes, glowing faintly with sovereign light, flicked toward the far end of the room—where three figures lay prostrate on the obsidian floor, their bodies trembling in involuntary submission. They wore matte-black stealth suits, designed to blur their presence against shadows, faces hidden beneath refractive masks. But their postures betrayed everything—spines bowed, knees shattered against the stone, arms limp like puppets with cut strings.
They had come to kill him. But now they were caged. To any untrained eye, they might've appeared as mere shadows beneath the soft glow of the chamber. But Leon saw what others couldn't—the chains. Glimmering ethereal bindings, invisible to mortals, wrapped around their throats and wrists, pulsing with golden runes that flickered in and out of the visible spectrum.
Those chains connected back to Leon, resting casually against his solar-draped bed, lounging in a haze of luxury. He plucked a syrupberry, rich and soaked in starlight nectar, from a nearby tray and popped it between his lips. The juice burst across his tongue—sweet, thick, spiced with mana. He didn't even look at them when he spoke.
"Is this what the Houses send now? Whisper-blades and poison-dogs?"
These weren't just spies. These were Sage Realm assassins, elite killers trained by the Twelve Houses of the Divine Federation—sent to erase threats before they could rise. Sent to kill Leon Haravok, just as they had tried to do countless times before. Even before he had ascended. Even before he had awakened. He remembered.
After the death of his father, Jonathan Haravok, the Hero, the Federation's wolves had circled his bloodline like carrion. Leon had been a child, alone, the last lion cub without a pride. They had whispered oaths of peace while stabbing in the dark. Even the sickness that had almost killed him... he suspected them. No. He knew it. He just didn't yet know how they had done it.
Now, after all these years, even on the night of his return—after his indulgence in synthetic passion and solar spirits—they dared try again. They sent assassins into his den. And now? They bowed before him. They trembled not from pain, but from a deeper fear, one they could not name. A terror not born of technique, but of presence.
King's Authority.
That was the name of the Ability Factor that had awakened in him the moment he was healed—when the Twilight Crown embedded itself into his soul and restructured his essence. It was no mere energy manipulation or elemental affinity. It was dominion. The birthright of a ruler, encoded into his spirit.
With it, he had access to a Unique Technique: Chains of Incarceration—a metaphysical manifestation of his King's Will, capable of binding any who submitted to his superiority. It was not just power—it was hierarchy, written into the world. When the assassins had first revealed themselves, cloaked in void and silence, Leon hadn't even moved. He had simply breathed—releasing the full weight of his killing intent.
At least, that was what he had believed it was. But it wasn't merely murderous instinct. It was sovereignty. His intent was not that of a man. It was that of a King. And they had felt it. In that moment, every fiber of their being had screamed the truth: they were lesser. Their will cracked, their resistance shattered, and they submitted, not out of choice, but by instinct.
Their hearts had acknowledged his throne long before their knees hit the floor. And the moment they did, the chains manifested—binding them not just in body, but in spirit. Now, they were his. Not dead. Not free.
Conquered.
Leon exhaled slowly, setting down the crystal chalice of Celestine Nectar. He rose from the bed, bare-chested, the golden tattoos across his bronze colored body, glowed faintly like a solar constellation etched into flesh. His gaze settled on the three figures still groveling at the foot of his chamber.
"Tell me everything," Leon said, his voice low and cold.
The three assassins remained kneeling, the ethereal chains still anchored to their necks—binding them not just physically, but mentally. He could have forced the information from their minds using intrusive willcraft, but he knew the risk. Their mental stability had already frayed under the weight of his presence. Any more pressure might leave them broken, beyond use. So he chose the direct route.
"Speak," he commanded.
The lead assassin trembled, then began to talk. Words spilled from their mouth in uneven gasps. Names. Locations. Routes of infiltration. House insignias. Code signals used within the Twelve House communication networks. Leon listened in silence, expression unreadable. As the details unfolded, his eyes grew colder—flat, analytic, focused entirely on pattern and intent. He was categorizing it all—processing the threat. When the last word left the assassin's mouth, silence settled into the room again.
Leon said nothing.
His Hyperion Eyes flared faintly, golden irises overlaid with fine geometric rings. He activated multiple layers of perception, scanning for microexpressions, spiritual residue, and latent energy patterns. He looked beneath the surface of their speech—searching not just for truth, but intentions hidden even from the assassins themselves. He saw more than words. He saw fear. Regret. Conditioning. After several minutes, the glow faded from his gaze. He shut it off. His decision had been made. He issued a set of instructions—concise and final. The assassins nodded in silent obedience, their heads still bowed. Leon's voice carried weight, not from volume, but from certainty. When the last word was spoken, the assassins rose slowly and departed, still bound to his will. The moment they crossed beyond the threshold of his inner chamber, there was a knock at the door.
Leon's internal senses swept out instinctively. A familiar presence—calm, focused, loyal—stood just beyond. His mouth lifted into a brief grin.
"Enter."
The door slid open with a muted hiss. A woman stepped inside—tall, composed, skin a deep earthen bronze. Her reddish-orange hair fell in fiery curls past her shoulders, and golden runes shimmered faintly across her collarbone and wrists, markers of internalized mana grafting. She wore a white administrative coat with high-cut shoulders, fastened neatly over a black long skirt and matte boots. Her eyes, glowing yellow with encoded enchantments, scanned the room, pausing at the scattered trays of food and emptied drinkware.
"Your Majesty," she said, bowing at the waist.
Leon rose from the bed, bare-chested, then slipped into a long-sleeved crimson tunic resting on a nearby chair. He turned to the window, watching the glow of Apollo's volcanic horizon.
"How was the purge?"
"It has been carried out," Eleanor Dawnshade replied. "Forgive me, your Majesty. In your absence, we grew weak. Complacent. We allowed enemies to root themselves in our own ranks."
Leon nodded once. "It isn't your fault," he said quietly. "It's mine. As your liege, I wasn't here to stop it." He spoke the truth. Though born on Apollo, Leon had spent most of his youth far from it. After the death of his father, Jonathan Haravok, his mother, Julia, had brought him back to their ancestral world. But only briefly. Once he awakened, she sent him offworld again—training across different martial sects, preparing him to survive the political wilderness of the Divine Federation. After graduating from Ascension Academy and joining Starlight, he rarely returned to Apollo at all. Despite his absence, there were still those who remained faithful to the Haravok bloodline. Eleanor was one of them.
His King's Authority allowed him to sense disloyalty—to feel the falsehoods and fractures in a person's spirit. With Eleanor, he felt none. Her loyalty ran deep, rooted in belief, not ambition. She had served the Haravok family since before Leon had even entered adolescence. Despite having seen him only a handful of times, her dedication had never faltered.
"I appreciate your devotion, Eleanor," he said, eyes still on the horizon.
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Have we heard anything from my mother?"
"No," she said, tone shifting. "She has not responded to any messages. Nor have the warriors assigned to her escort."
Leon's jaw tightened. Julia Haravok—witch, seer, matriarch of a forgotten coven. Her connection to fate and probability went beyond standard arcana. She saw possible futures the way others read maps. And from what he had gathered—mostly through Sam and Vuelo Vysileaf—Julia had been one of the hidden architects behind his binding to the Twilight Crown.
He had expected her to be waiting for him. But she wasn't. She wasn't even on the planet. And that worried him.
"I need to speak with her," Leon muttered. "Soon."
There was a pause before he turned from the window, facing Eleanor again.
"So then—what brings you here, Eleanor?" he asked. "You wouldn't have come just to deliver silence."
She nodded, stepping forward. "There are guests. Waiting at the base of the Sun Throne."
Leon raised an eyebrow. "Guests?"
"From Terra," she said.