Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion
Chapter 200: An Absent King?

The Hollow Council had convened in silence.

Thalia Virex tapped her gloved fingers on the polished surface of the dark table. A map of the outlying regions was unfurled before her, marked in red and inked with tally lines—squads lost, villages emptied, sightings of strange silhouettes near the edges of the Blackblood.

Serel Vaunt, draped in a high-collared violet cloak, leaned against his cane of bonewood. "It's been nine days," he said without preamble. "No word. No signal. Not a whisper from the Sovereign."

Across the table, Velmira Saan raised a brow, her voice sharp. "You speak of him as though he were any other man."

"He bled once," Serel replied. "All men who bleed can fall."

"Maybe," said Caelen, arms crossed, voice as flat as stone. "But if he did fall, we'd have felt it. All of us."

Thalia glanced his way. "That kind of certainty is dangerous."

"And cowardice," Caelen returned, "is worse."

A hush settled across the table.

The Crucible was set to reopen the following day. Banners were already raised in the outer wards, and the lower districts buzzed with anticipation.

The scent of bloodlust, of tension ready to be broken, coiled like smoke above Esgard.

And yet... the king of Esgard had vanished into the Blackblood.

Eli hadn't spoken once during the meeting. He stood in the far shadow of the chamber, silent sentinel. His golden eyes unreadable.

Finally, Thalia broke the quiet. "The squads we sent after Ian—none returned. Their trackers blinked out an hour past the treeline."

"Same as before," murmured General Aenys Drael, voice tight with frustration. "As if something is erasing them."

"Which leaves us," said Serel slowly, "in the very place we feared—on the eve of the Crucible's grand return, without Ian. If word gets out, the noble houses will—"

CLANG.

A sound echoed from the far end of the hall.

Iron. Wood. Something groaned.

The great doors of the council chamber—doors carved from the remains of a grand Tree, sealed tight by layered enchantments—shuddered.

Then creaked open.

Bootsteps followed.

Not hurried.

Not faltering.

Deliberate.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

One by one, every head turned.

Ian stepped into the chamber.

His coat was torn at the shoulder, the hem trailing dark embers. Scorch marks dusted the sides. One glove was missing. His chest rose with steady breath. His face—hood drawn back now—was pale, stained with flecks of ash. But his eyes—

Cold. Gray. Sharp as broken glass.

He walked to the center of the room without a word. Behind him, the doors closed with a dull boom.

The council members rose.

Even Serel, who once served the Arcanum of the East, stood in silence.

Eli exhaled, his arms folding over his chest.

Ian glanced at them, then slowly lifted one hand. Just a single motion.

A finger.

Sit.

They obeyed without hesitation.

He passed behind them, circling the long black table like a slow-moving shadow.

And then—

He reached the head seat.

The one of dark steel and ancient bone.

The throne of the Sovereign.

He sat.

The flame behind him—ever-burning since his ascension—dimmed for a moment, as if bowing to his presence.

Then flared again.

He leaned forward.

And began.

"They're not beasts," Ian said.

His voice was low, but it filled the chamber like thunder wrapped in silk.

"Not in the way we think of them."

He placed a small object on the table. It was a shard — jagged and gleaming black, humming faintly with energy. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

"This came from one of them. One of the Oathbreakers."

A few council members shifted.

Ian continued, eyes unreadable.

"They were once human. Or something close. Altered. Bound. Warped by old power."

He turned slightly, watching them.

"They don't feed on blood. They feed on memory. On vows. They rot the world by unraveling the things that hold it together."

Thalia frowned. "Like faith?"

"Like truth," Ian replied.

Velmira, ever pragmatic, leaned in. "And they were in the Blackblood?"

Ian nodded. "Dozens. Hundreds maybe. Not scattered — summoned. Engineered. Part of something much larger and currently pushing all mana beasts toward us."

He looked toward the flame again.

Then back to them.

"There's something waking in that forest. Something old. Something that remembers the Sanctum's hold on this city."

A sharp intake of breath.

"Impossible," Serel whispered. "We destroyed the Sanctum. The archives. Their inner circle. Every High Anchor was—"

"Dead," Ian said. "Yes. But only in Esgard, those beyond weren't destroyed. Those outside of Esgard have angered something, and those things smell their devotion still lingering in this city."

Silence followed. Only the crackling of the flame behind him broke it.

Then Caelen asked the question quietly.

"So we won't just have to defend against beasts, but the entities chasing them?"

Ian didn't answer at first.

Then, finally, he said:

"There's also a guardian. One that's forgotten what it was meant to protect. A creature from the Age of Hollow Flame, tied to the fall of the Ar'kul. I spoke with it."

"You spoke with it?" General Drael echoed, skeptical.

Ian nodded. "It remembered. Everything. The Sanctuary. The migration. The betrayal. The Pale Ones. And now... it waits."

"For what?" Thalia asked.

Ian's eyes narrowed. "For us to fall again. It won't help us."

A beat of heavy silence passed. No one breathed.

Then Velmira spoke.

"The Crucible opens tomorrow. The people expect blood. Glory. Victory."

Ian didn't flinch. "Give it to them."

"But this threat—"

"I'll handle it."

Serel leaned forward. "You'll return to the forest?"

"Not yet," Ian said. "We will let the beasts come."

He rose from the throne.

"And we will slaughter every last one of them,"

His voice dropped.

"We will write a message on their blood."

The council adjourned not long after. Plans reshuffled. Eyes watched him leave the chamber.

Velrosa was not there.

But Ian could feel her waiting in the upper halls.

His path was set.

The Crucible would open.

And beneath it, a fire older than vengeance rose once more.

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