The grand hall of the Celestial Bastion had always been a monument to cold, celestial beauty. Its vaulted ceilings shimmered with the trapped light of dying stars, their fractured glow casting jagged shadows over the crowd below. But now, the air reeked of burnt ozone and iron, and the floor trembled under Tatsu's feet as if the Bastion itself recoiled from what he had become.
Kio's pendant lay in pieces at his feet, its stardust gem dissolving into smoke that curled upward like skeletal fingers. The Obsidian Throne's mimic coiled around his mind, its voice a chorus of dead gods and collapsing suns.
"They took her from you," it whispered, tendrils of shadow seeping into his veins. "Now takeeverythingfrom them. Let them choke on their hypocrisy."
Nyxis, the cosmic hunger between dying stars, roared in agreement.
"BURN IT ALL. LET THE ASHES FEED US."
Tatsu's vision blurred. His body was no longer his own.
The first death was a Dawnbreaker priest.
The man had been mid-prayer, hands raised to the Bastion's false sky, when Tatsu's hand lashed out. Solfractum's entropy tendril, a whip of violet light and screaming stardust speared the priest's chest. The man's hymn of salvation choked into a gurgle as his blood crystallized midair, his body shattering like glass. Shards of crimson ice embedded themselves in the robes of fleeing initiates, their screams harmonizing with the throne's laughter.
"Pathetic," the throne sneered through Tatsu's lips. "They preach salvation but beg for mercy."
Chaos erupted. Iceblood envoys drew frost-forged blades, their scarred leader, General Zee, barking orders.
"Formations! Contain the vessel!"
Ghostwalkers scrambled for stolen relics, their star-metal daggers glinting like trapped lightning. A Husk Knight charged, glaive raised, Tatsu pivoted, Solfractum shearing through armor and bone. The knight's helm rolled across the floor, revealing hollow eyes that mirrored Tatsu's own.
Elara, a Phase 2 Ghostwalker, froze mid-retreat. She'd idolized Tatsu since their first year, leaving wildflowers at his dormitory door after his sparring victories. Now, her hero's eyes glowed violet as entropy tendrils snaked toward her.
"S-Sovereign…?" she stammered, her voice breaking.
The throne laughed.
Her body disintegrated into ash before she could scream.
The First Anchor rose.
Vorian's black-ice mantle crackled, frost spreading across the hall as he unsheathed Oblivion's Maw. The relic's edge hummed with a frequency that erased sound, light, even memory. The crowd's screams faded as frost crawled up their legs, rooting them in place.
"Enough."
The word pierced the chaos. Tatsu's body locked mid-strike, Solfractum's tendrils inches from Renzo's throat.
"You dare?" the throne snarled, its voice warping Tatsu's vocal cords.
Vorian stepped forward, his hollow eyes glowing like dying stars.
"What happens here remains here. The Bastion endures."
Oblivion's Maw struck the floor. A wave of silence erupted, freezing blood midair and smothering flames. For three heartbeats, the world stood still.
When time lurched back, the survivors were gone, vanished by Vorian's command. Only the Seven Anchors, Renzo, and Tatsu remained.
Lysara's chainwhip, Echoflayer, hissed like a cornered serpent.
"He is a liability. Sever the bond.Now."
Vorian's gaze never left Tatsu.
"No. The Throne's power is… useful."
Kaelthar, the Fifth Anchor, plucked his harpstring relic, Final Note, its sonic scream reduced to a discordant hum.
"Let him feast! The Cabal approaches. We need a weapon, not a priest."
Veythra, the Seventh Anchor, loomed over Tatsu, her bleeding hands dripping void-coral ichor.
"The Cabal took Veyra's Reach. They will come here next. Let the Throne's vessel greet them."
Renzo staggered to his feet, clutching his mangled arm.
"You're all mad. He'll destroy you too."
Vorian tilted his head.
"Then we will have deserved it."
In the shattered hall's aftermath, Renzo cornered Tatsu in a crumbling antechamber. Blood dripped from his torn sleeve, mingling with the ash on the floor.
"You killed them," he hissed, his Ghostwalker dagger trembling. "You killed Elara. She was sixteen, Tatsu. Sixteen."
Tatsu's voice was hollow.
"I couldn't stop it."
Renzo slammed him against the wall.
"Try harder!"
A flicker of the throne's power surged, Renzo's dagger melted, his skin blistering. He fell back, panting.
"Stay away from me," Tatsu whispered.
Beyond the Bastion's gates, Ashen Cabal spies watched through ocular relics, their breath fogging the cold air.
"Report to the Fallow Star," their leader murmured. "The Throne's vessel is unstable. The Bastion is ripe."
Their gravity-skiff vanished into the Fractured Horizon, carrying news of Tatsu's massacre. By dawn, the Cabal's anthem echoed across Veyra's Reach:
"ASH TO ASH. DUST TO THRONE."
In a lab beneath the Cabal's stronghold, the Fallow Star smiled. Her antler crown pulsed with Starthread mutations, veins of liquid entropy snaking down her neck.
"Prepare the Frozen Ones. The Bastion's fall will be our ascension."
Beside her, a Husk Knight with Tatsu's mother's face nodded silently, her hollow eyes reflecting the ice-prisoned victims that lined the walls.
In the Tower of Echoes, Vorian awaited. The walls whispered with the voices of dead Anchors, their faces frozen in star-metal relief.
"You are a storm," Vorian said, Oblivion's Maw sheathed but pulsing. "Storms are feared. Exploited.Contained.Serve the Bastion, and I will leash the Throne."
Tatsu's laugh was bitter.
"And if I refuse?"
Vorian removed his helm. Beneath it, his face was a lattice of scars and stardust, the remnants of a man who had once begged the Throne to save his plague-stricken daughter.
She had died anyway.
"Then you will die as you lived, alone."
That night, the Throne's mimic dragged Tatsu into a vision.
He stood in a field of frozen corpses, Kio, Renzo, his mother, all staring blankly as the Cabal's shadow swallowed the sky. The mimic wore Kio's face, cracks spreading across her cheeks like spiderwebs.
"This is your future," it hissed. "Unless youembraceme."
Tatsu woke screaming, Solfractum's scars burning as if the relic sought to burrow into his soul.
Tatsu stood at the observatory's edge, Solfractum's violet light throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Below, the Ashen Cabal's war machines darkened the horizon, gravity-skiffs shaped like serpents, Frozen Ones marching in lockstep, their icy breath crackling like static.
The throne's mimic materialized, wearing Kio's face.
"You see now," it whispered. "Power ispaingiven form. Embrace it."
Tatsu's fist tightened.
"I know."