Inside the "Throne Hall," once a symbol of the sovereignty of the kings of "Ocasia," the air had grown thick with the smell of old incense and dried blood. Alaric stood in the center of the marble dais, surrounded by a cocoon of white ash that had begun to harden around him, as if it were armor refusing to allow even death to approach. Breath was held captive in the hall; nothing could be heard except the hum of the purple vortex still spinning above the palace roof, threatening to swallow what little silence remained.
Eleanor stepped aside for a moment, wiping her tired face with cold water from the well, while Azrael spread his protective incantations around the open doors. Suddenly, Eleanor felt a strange shiver race up her spine—not a shiver of fear, but a shiver of "realization." She turned toward the dark corners of the hall, where the shadows she had assumed were merely remnants of the purple twilight had vanished.
"There's someone else here," Eleanor whispered, placing her hand on the hilt of her bloodstained dagger.
Azrael stopped his muttering, his eyes widening behind his mask. "Impossible... We sealed the doors with the Void Seal."
From behind one of the massive marble columns, a shadow emerged that belonged neither to the Forgotten's army nor to Merlock's deformed followers. It was a man wearing a robe of black silk embroidered with dull gold threads, his face hidden beneath a deep hood. He carried no visible weapon, yet his presence was chilling; he possessed the calm of an executioner before passing judgment.
"Certainty is the prison of minds, and nothingness is the graveyard of souls," the stranger spoke in a melodious voice that seemed to emanate from every wall of the hall at once. "But 'betrayal' is the nerve that connects them."
Eleanor rushed toward him but suddenly stopped when she felt her body become as heavy as lead. The stranger uttered:
"No need for violence, daughter of truth. I am not here to kill him... Merlock already undertook that mission and failed brilliantly. I am here because the 'crown' that Alaric carries is a possession whose value he cannot appreciate."
The stranger revealed his face; it was an elderly man whose features were etched with wrinkles that looked like ancient magical inscriptions. This was "Minister Scepter," the man who was said to have committed suicide when the palace fell to the Wardens of the Covenant, yet now he stood alive, his eyes gleaming with a suspicious yellow glint.
"The stripped crown is not a weapon, Eleanor," Scepter continued, approaching Alaric's cocoon with confident steps. "It is the 'memory of the world' that the angels cast out. And Alaric, with his spilled human blood, has opened the final breach for that memory to return to a body capable of bearing it... My body."
Azrael shouted: "Traitor! You were working with the Wardens of the Covenant to pave the way for Merlock, then you betrayed Merlock to get here!"
Scepter laughed a dry laugh: "Loyalty is the currency of the weak. Merlock was merely a pawn, and Alaric was merely a tool to break the heavenly seals. Now, the king sleeps, the wardens have fled, and the crown awaits one who possesses the audacity to place it."
Scepter reached his hand toward the cocoon and began weaving a black magic unlike any Azrael had seen before—magic aimed at "extracting" the core from Alaric's chest while he lay in his coma. The cocoon began to groan, and Alaric began to tremble violently inside it, while the purple vortex above grew turbulent and plunged toward the ground.
Eleanor, with a willpower that overcame the weight on her body, hurled her blue sash toward Scepter. The sash, saturated with Alaric's blood, reacted with the traitor minister's magic, causing an explosion of light mingled with shadows that flung Scepter backward.
At that moment, the cocoon completely split open. Alaric did not wake, but his petrified hand emerged from the debris and seized Scepter's wrist, which was close by. A terrifying sound of sizzling erupted as the Void energy in Alaric's hand began to devour the traitor's arm.
"You cannot... touch him..." Alaric spoke from the depths of his coma, his voice like the rumble of mountains.
Scepter recoiled, screaming, his arm turned to scattering ash, and he vanished into the shadows with lightning speed, vowing to return. Silence once again prevailed, and Alaric's hand fell limp, but the cocoon was now open, and his void-pulsing heart was exposed to all, declaring that the royal palace was no longer a fortress, but had become an arena for every aspirant to the "Sovereignty of the Haze."