The fractured skies had barely begun to settle when the pulse hit.
A tremor rolled through the dimensions like a cannon blast made of raw authority. It wasn't physical—it was systemic. The Throne System itself reacted to it, warping his interface in static and flashing error codes he couldn't decipher.
❖ Warning: High-Level Intrusion Detected.
❖ Sync Attempt: BLOCKED.
❖ Origin: [Vanguard Designation - Oathbreaker Division]
The boy fell to one knee, clutching his head as the System fought back. His vision blurred with a flood of broken scripts, flickering symbols, and corrupted fragments of languages he didn't recognize—and yet somehow understood. Not with memory. With instinct.
This was not a natural threat. This was a message from something that had once been his.
A deep hum echoed from beyond the shattered battlefield, and the air split like glass, revealing a gate of pale silver light. Its frame was forged from oathsteel—metal that could only be created in the First Realm by binding divine promises to physical form.
Out of the gate stepped five figures.
Each one wore black and silver warplate etched in language that bled light. Helmets like halos, faceless and radiant. Their presence bent the rules of the realm just by standing there. They were too perfect. Too in-sync. Like reality had written code around them—and obeyed it.
The Oathbreakers had come.
The first of them stepped forward. His armor pulsed with sentient runes, and a broken crown floated above his head—cracked down the middle, bleeding a trail of suspended starlight.
"Designation confirmed," the leader said, his voice devoid of warmth. "Thronebearer signature identified. You are hereby classified as a rogue fragment. By decree of the Eternal Seat, your existence is a violation of multiversal continuity."
The boy stood slowly, blood running from his nose, eyes narrowed.
"You were my elite once," he whispered, the words tasting foreign yet familiar. "You swore fealty to me. To the First Realm."
The leader didn't hesitate. "Correction. We swore fealty to the Throne. Not to the one who abandoned it."
Something inside the boy cracked.
Flashes—more memories. These weren't dreams now. They were downloads, forced into him by the System's exposure to these former allies.
He remembered them.
Each one of these armored figures had once knelt to him—The Thronebearer. He'd trusted them to hold the outer barriers while he fought at the center. And yet… here they were, blades drawn, crowned in betrayal.
"I didn't abandon anything," he growled. "I was betrayed. I died trying to save what you chose to protect with your lies."
The Vanguard didn't flinch. "Then die again."
Without another word, they moved. No wasted steps. No dramatics. Just pure, divine-speed war.
The boy activated the Throne System with a thought, and energy screamed through his limbs.
**❖ Combat Interface Engaged
Authority: Thronebreaker [Level 2]
Combat Style Unlocked: Temporal Pulse/Disruption Variant
Skill Activated: [Backstep Phase]**
He vanished for a heartbeat—then reappeared twenty feet behind the nearest Oathbreaker, his hand already glowing with antimatter flux. The strike connected. The armor held.
Not even a dent.
The counterattack came fast. The air compressed, and a shockwave of kinetic memory slammed into his side, sending him hurtling across the field of broken timelines.
He crashed through the skeleton of a downed warship, tumbling across bones and rusted sigils. Pain flooded his body. But he got up.
Always, he got up.
From the smoke, one of the Oathbreakers approached—this one smaller, her steps more deliberate. Her helmet unfolded, revealing silver eyes and a scar down her cheek. A scar he'd given her, long ago, when they trained together in the Keep of Forgotten Stars.
"You were never supposed to wake," she said quietly. "The fracture protocol was meant to scatter your soul permanently. We didn't want to kill you. We just couldn't let you remember."
The boy stared at her.
She wasn't a stranger.
Her name came back like thunder in his skull.
"…Reika."
Her expression faltered, for the first time. "Don't say my name. It's better that you forget."
"No," he said. "It's better I remember."
With a cry, he surged forward, activating a stored system charge.
**❖ Authority Override: Forbidden Sequence Engaged
System Core Accessed
Limit Break Initiated: [Unbound Throne | State Alpha]
Time Remaining: 9 seconds**
Energy exploded around him, ripping the air apart. In those nine seconds, he became something else.
Not human.
Not king.
A convergence of will and vengeance.
He struck Reika with everything—compressed space, timeline reversal strikes, quantum dislocation—power that had once shaken entire pantheons.
Reika blocked the first strike. The second dented her armor. The third shattered her helm.
And when the timer ended, the boy collapsed to his knees, smoke rising from his body.
Reika stood across from him, bleeding, half her armor gone, but alive. Barely.
The other Oathbreakers had frozen. Shocked.
He had just broken through a class of warrior designed to counter gods.
The boy spat blood, eyes burning. "Tell the others. I'm not running. Not hiding. If they want the Throne, they'll have to step over my ashes."
Reika looked at him, silent for a long moment.
Then she nodded once—and vanished in a storm of particles, the others following behind her.
They were retreating.
For now.
The battlefield fell silent.
The Throne System reappeared in his vision.
**❖ Update: Fragment Recovered — [Memory of the Oath]
Progress: 2 / 7 Fragments
Class Evolution Unlocked — Vanguardbreaker Tier Pending
Next Location: Outer Domain: The Shard Wastes**
The boy wiped his mouth, trembling.
The war had come for him. His past was alive—and hunting.
And the only way out… was forward.