“So this is the final floor, huh?” I said, squinting up at the darkened canopy of Floor 15.

  No sun, no stars—just the deep glow of bioluminescent moss and the skeletal outline of the World Tree’s roots stretching above like the fingers of a dead god. The capital of the Elven Kingdom sat in eerie silence, veiled in the kind of twilight that made even footsteps feel like crimes.

  Princess Sylvaria stood ahead, arms crossed, armor glinting with regal threat. Her student council fnked her—battle-hardened, solemn, and, for once, not rolling their eyes at us.

  Because this wasn’t some academy mock trial. This was regicide.

  “This is no longer a test,” she began, her voice like silk over bdes. “This is a coordinated execution.”

  Rielle, Eli, Gram, and I exchanged looks. We’d heard her tone before. It meant blood.

  But this time, it wasn’t just Squad 7 on the menu. The entire student council was involved.

  “Veyna will support with her summons,” Sylvaria continued. “She now commands three.”

  Beside her, Veyna flexed her gloved fingers, the air crackling as a winged serpent, a scaled panther, and a two-headed wolf shimmered beside her.

  “Cassandra, your artifacts?” Sylvaria asked, almost indulgently.

  “Primed,” Cassandra said, not looking up from the intricate device in her hands. “Two are prototypes. You gave them to me, remember? If they explode, it’s your name on the tombstone.”

  Sylvaria smiled faintly. “Good.”

  And then she turned to us.

  “Rielle Slywin, Eli Kaedwen, Endor Rynhart… If you complete this mission, you will be knighted. Formally, under the crown of Welliston.”

  I saw Eli’s eyes widen. Rielle actually straightened her back. Even Endor, wherever he was hiding behind Gram’s cloak, made a surprised grunt.

  “And Lucien,” she added, now facing me. “Your request…”

  I raised a brow. “Still valid?”

  “If you make it out,” she said, lowering her voice, “it will be granted.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. I rolled my shoulders, called Ember to my side. Her scales flickered as she hissed, tail snapping like a whip of heat. She was ready.

  So was I.

  The Pn: One Shot, One ThroneStudent Council would move stealthily into the pace’s lower levels, rescue the imprisoned Elven Princess, and deliver her to the waiting alliance outside.

  Squad 7 and Sylvaria? We were on assassination duty.

  Kill the King.

  Simple.

  The problem?

  He didn’t sleep.

  Didn’t speak.

  He sat on his throne in silence, all night, every night, meditating—drawing power from the World Tree like a twisted leech.

  So why hadn’t he become a god yet?

  No one knew.

  Not even Sylvaria.

  “Stay sharp,” she muttered as we approached the towering gates of the pace. “We kill him, and the crown shifts. If we fail…”

  She didn’t finish.

  Didn’t need to.

  We’d seen what he did to dissenters in the surveilnce orb. Just watching it made my teeth itch.

  We breached the front silently—Princess Sylvaria, Squad 7, and death hanging over us like perfume.

  Inside the Pace – The Sleepless ThroneThe throne room was carved from obsidian roots, glowing faintly with green veins pulsing in time with a heart none of us could locate.

  There he sat.

  The Elven King.

  Crown forged from a living branch, robes stitched with spirit-threads, skin like wax-stretched bark.

  Eyes closed.

  Meditating.

  For a heartbeat, we paused.

  Was he even alive?

  Then Ember hissed. My instincts snapped.

  “He’s awake,” I whispered.

  Sylvaria didn’t wait. “Go.”

  It was an assault in silence.

  Gram threw two concoctions that burst into clouds of paralyzing mist.

  Cassandra triggered a spatial warp to unch Rielle and Eli at his fnks.

  I raised my wand, gathered fme, wind, lightning—

  And then I felt it.

  A pulse.

  Not from him.

  Not from the World Tree.

  From beneath.

  POV Shift – The Watcher in the DarkSo… he’s dead, huh?

  The voice rippled through the hollow void beneath the throne. Shadows pooled like ink, shifting around the dead shell of the Elven King’s body—still in meditation posture, yet his eyes now wide open.

  Unseeing.

  Burnt.

  Hollow.

  His soul wasn’t here anymore.

  Not since I took it.

  I slithered around the roots, unseen, coiled in silence. They thought they were fighting a king?

  He was never the king.

  He was just a vessel. A convenient puppet I fed through the roots of the tree, growing stronger with every heartbeat of delusion above.

  The humans came.

  One was special. A boy with chaos in his veins and that little serpent. He brought fire, entropy, hunger.

  He’s close.

  I like that.

  I want to see what happens when a summoner breaks his own soul open to evolve his beast.

  When the princess’s pact is tested.

  When the cage splits open.

  I smile, though I have no mouth.

  The King’s body crumples on the throne.

  Let the storm begin.

  Back to Lucien – The Empty ThroneThe King dropped.

  One second he was sitting there, glowing.

  The next?

  Ash.

  No fsh. No scream. Just disintegration.

  We stood frozen.

  Even Sylvaria.

  “What the hell just happened?” I said, stepping back.

  “He… he didn’t resist,” Rielle said, blinking.

  “No, he was already dead,” Cassandra muttered, her fingers crackling with artifact scans. “He’s been… hollow for some time.”

  “Then what the hell have we been pnning to kill?”

  Sylvaria didn’t answer.

  Instead, she turned to the throne—and behind it, the roots began to tremble.

  Something moved.

  Not a king.

  Not a spirit.

  Something worse.