Theon awoke feeling as if he had been born anew, sunlight piercing his eyes through the attic's gaps like golden daggers. As he rose from the bed, a newfound crispness infused his every movement. His body felt faster, stronger, as if an invisible weight on him had disappeared. He felt more comfortable in this world, newfound rigor coursing through his veins.
After securing his scavenged armor, now reinforced with crystalline plates that caught the light beautifully, Theon prowled through the mansion's corpse-littered halls. He needed a test subject. A lone zombie shuffling near a broken china cabinet would do nicely.
The fight was... disappointing. Where before he'd needed three precise strikes to disable a zombie, now a single fluid motion severed its spine. Its decaying face almost looked surprised as it crumpled. Theon barely broke a sweat.
Then he heard the moaning.
From every shadowed doorway they came - a shambling tide drawn by the commotion. His chains, wielded with a grace born of necessity, became extensions of his own limbs. Writhing through the air, they lashed out, entwining the zombies in a deadly embrace. The onslaught was unrelenting, the undead falling like autumn leaves in a tempest, his Veritas training with whips translating beautifully to his chains as he now had a mid-range alternative.
Yet for all his enhanced skill, the numbers nearly overwhelmed him. A lucky grab here, a glancing bite there - each near-miss fueling his adrenaline. Only when the last zombie fell did he notice the strange phenomenon: faint violet wisps rising from the corpses, seeping into his skin like spectral IV drips. The same energy he'd absorbed from that first kill, just more... intentional now.
Wiping black ichor from his blades with a tattered curtain, Theon cast one final look at his temporary sanctuary and then directed his gaze toward the palace at the heart of the third ring.
Wandering the outer regions of the palace, the rooms within the palace revealed fragments of a forgotten grandeur—faded murals on the walls, remnants of chandeliers swaying in the non-existent breeze. An armory, devoid of any strength it once represented with its weapons and armor deteriorated. A once-elegant ballroom with its chandeliers now reduced to tarnished skeletons.
But the throne room... this was different.
The Throne Room, adorned with faded opulence, told tales of rulers long forgotten.
His fingers hovered over the grotesquely elongated throne - some primal instinct screaming at him to stay away. Not fear. Not caution. Something deeper, like his very DNA recoiling. It was vastly different from the gut sense that warned him of danger, it was less obvious, almost hidden. If Theon didn't always monitor and track his mental state closely he would have most probably avoided the throne without even noticing that he had avoided it.
So naturally, he sat.
After all he was quite sure that the throne itself held no danger and he wanted to test this new "feeling", whether it something natural that he had developed alongside all the inexplicable events he had experienced ever since being sucked into the rift or if it was something else...
The moment his back touched the cold stone, a wave of homesickness struck with physical force. Deep within Theon, within his very soul, waves of turmoil began to slowly stir as the once still sea began to palpitate.
Exhaling and a focus reclaiming his eyes, Theon stood up and noticed several oddities about the throne. Too long. Too light. Not anchored.
"Clever." he muttered, testing the weight distribution. With a grunt, he shoved against one armrest. The massive throne pivoted with eerie smoothness, revealing a hidden space descending into darkness.
Within the chamber lay a slick black coffin adorned with white accents. At the upper center of the coffin, where the head of the one in the coffin lay, there was a crest in white of a lion's head.
With caution, Theon opened the coffin.
There was no skeleton within the coffin, only a mound of dust, which the wind immediately blew away, leaving two objects inside of the coffin.
The first was a gold necklace shining with a bright luster even after the years underground. Its centrepiece: the largest blood diamond Theon had ever seen, it shimmered with a shine that pierced through the gloomy chamber.
Beside it lay an obsidian ring, its matte surface swallowing the light. Only when Theon tilted it did the inner inscription reveal itself—thin amethyst veins forming angular runes that seemed to shift under his gaze, as if resisting translation.
His breath hitched as he grabbed both. The pendant seared his palm with remembered sunlight, while the ring leached all warmth from his fingers. He leapt back, blades drawn, braced for triggered mechanisms or spectral vengeance.
Silence.
Only the faint drip of distant water answered his vigilance. He exhaled through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction.
"Hello, Traveler."
The voice struck like a physical blow. Theon spun, daggers crossing in a defensive X, knees bent to spring. Behind him hovered a spectral figure draped in royal vestments, its crown shimmering with unnatural solidity.
"Have no fear," the projection continued with that same impossible familiarity. "I am but an echo, triggered by the coffin's Lu mechanism. If functioning properly, you should comprehend me regardless of—"
Theon's stance relaxed marginally as recognition clicked, he knew who this was before he even introduced himself, it was King Lunfen.
"—your native tongue. I am Lunfen Ashford, last king of the very lands that you stand on, the Sylvan Empire. Those artifacts are my family's—"
"—heirlooms."
'Heirlooms?' Theon echoed in his head. Wasn't the [Momentus Flow Art] the heirloom worthy item responsible for the Sylvian Empire's power in the first place ?
Why would there be multiple inheritances each with different treasures ?
Surely if King Lunfen was trying to find a successor he would keep the heirlooms together so that the legacy would remain complete. But of course Theon got no response to his questions as even if King Lunfen could read minds, he was in no state to give an answer.
"The Scarlet Lifeblood Pendant," Lunfen's image continued, oblivious to Theon's racing thoughts. "Foundational rank, Halved Moon level. Enhances regeneration, Lu circulation, and grants blood Lu affinity. The ring is spatial storage, Null Moon level, one cubic meter capacity."
Then King Lunfen's face softened, "And in return for these treasures, and though you have no obligation to, I sincerely wish that you—"
"Carry on your legacy." Theon murmured.
"—carry on the legacy of the Sylvian Empire and resound our name throughout the entirety of existence."
"Resound your name throughout existence."Theon finished aloud, his voice overlapping with the recording.
Finishing his speech, King Lunfen's face looked worn as a gentle smile graced his features, the smile of a grandparent watching their grandchild, of a parent watching their child take their first steps and yet it also held an aura of somberness as a deep sadness penetrated through King Lunfen's eyes.
Then King Lunfen, or at least his hologram, smiled warmly and slowly dissipated, leaving an eerie silence and a confused Theon. Afterall, not only was this not the first time he had heard this exact sequence of words, from the same man no less, it was the exact same muscle movements and glances that the King Lunfen had made in the cave.
They were identical.
But now, especially now, Theon did not believe Lunfen's words for a second.
Firstly, for a family capable of controlling such a wide land for generations they had to have more than two or three treasures they considered heirlooms, especially if Theon's estimate of their strengths from the holes in the mountains and the small crevices on the land was accurate, or at least ones better a healing amulet, because even Spectra, which didn't even use Lu, had better healing technology.
Secondly, none of the "heirlooms" had their insignia on it nor were they named after the family indicating that they weren't at the heart of everything. Back on Spectra, Theon had learned that the weak liked to imprint themselves and exaggerate at whatever possibility for a mere shred of power. In a world with cultivation where beings on the level of omnipotence and omniscience existed in the higher planes, why wouldn't the Sylvain want to have a distinctive legacy left to carry their names on the premise that even if the inheritor failed, their items's names would prevail.
Third, the cowardly hiding. Kings facing extinction wield every weapon, damn the consequences. Even if it was futile, it was a basic survival instinct to use all resources available and history had proven this true, especially true for proud, arrogant and selfish figures such as kings and rulers. Even if Lunfen was selfless enough to not use them personally, why wouldn't he give them to his warriors. Was he just foolish? But that also didn't make sense given the size of his empire.
Fourthly, Theon had already come across a so-called 'inheritance.'
Regardless, he would welcome the treasures especially if they did what the phantom claimed they did. As for the wish for the legacy of the Ashford family to be carried on, what did it have to do with him? What did it have to do with any traveler, especially ones who were robbing their graves?
That was also a point of suspicion for Theon. Such a grand empire, leaving their entire legacy with a random traveler and just trusting them to continue their legacy? It was foolish to say the least, and well under normal circumstances a kingdom falling under the ruler who made such a design wouldn't have been too surprising.
Putting on the necklace he immediately felt an increase in his general abilities, his body felt more responsive. He still didn't know exactly whatever the hell this 'Lu' was but it sure was effective.
As for the ring, no matter how he concentrated or whichever key phrase he shouted the promised subspace within the ring would not reveal itself. Chalking its inactivation to his lack of understanding of 'Lu', Theon continued to delve further into the palace.
At the rear of the throne room, past the skeletal remains of opulent furnishings, he found the treasury—a cavernous chamber stripped of its former riches. Tattered banners hung like ghosts, and dust swirled in the dim light filtering through shattered stained glass. Then, beneath the torn carpets, his boot scraped against something unyielding.
A trapdoor.
Jet-black and seamless, it was made of the same otherworldly material as the ring and the coffin—impervious to his attempts to pry it open. Frustration gnawed at him, but as he turned to leave, a faint pulse thrummed beneath his feet. A current, subtle yet deliberate, flowing like hidden veins beneath the stone.
His instincts flared. He followed the sensation, tracing its path until it pooled—stagnant—in the northwest corner of the throne room. Here. Without hesitation, he drove his heel down. The marble fractured beneath the force, cracks spider webbing outward. Again. Again. On the third strike, the floor gave way, revealing a small, obsidian box fitted with handles.
Once open, the box revealed a complex and intertwined set of circuits within. After Theon organized the wires, and trying to connect the flow under the floor he previously felt to the wires in front of him, he narrowed down the circuit that opened the trapdoor to two.
Inside lay a tangled nest of circuits, their design archaic yet unmistakably deliberate. Theon's fingers moved almost on their own, untangling wires, aligning connections, chasing the faint hum of energy. Soon, only two circuits remained—the final keys to the trapdoor's lock.
'Everything here is already in ruins. What's the worst that could happen?'
A dry chuckle escaped him as he reached for the first wire.
Unseen, the same force that had whispered warnings to avoid the throne now coiled around his thoughts, urging him forward.