They saw him coming long before he arrived.
Not because of drums.
Not horns.
Not banners.
But because the Pale Bell, bound in chains of seared bone, was dragged behind him like a corpse refusing to die.
Each toll was not a sound
But an absence.
Each toll did not ring
It unmade.
And at its heart marched Nihil.
No longer veiled.
No longer hidden.
He walked the ash roads openly, cloaked not in shadow but in the silent reverence of those who followed behind.
Not an army.
A funeral procession.
Every Echo, eyes burned black with purpose, silence wrapped around them like devotion.
Children.
Old men.
Broken slaves.
They did not carry weapons.
They carried memory.
The gates of the Chainspire stood tall.
Once unbreakable.
Lined with towers carved of obsidian and gold.
Guarded by statues of chained angels.
Watched by a thousand of the Warden's sentinels.
Each one swore that the tower could not fall.
That silence could not breach stone.
That myths could not become real.
Until today.
He arrived before the gates at dusk.
And placed a single hand on the Pale Bell.
Then he spoke,
One word.
Not loud.
But true.
"Fall."
The Bell screamed.
Not outward.
Inward.
Every metal joint.
Every lock.
Every bolt.
Every oath ever made in this place
Shattered.
The gates crumbled inward like wet paper.
The statues cracked.
The obsidian wept gold.
The guards dropped their blades and dropped to their knees.
Nihil did not run.
He did not raise a weapon.
He walked.
Inside, the Chainspire spiraled like a fang into the heavens.
The heart of oppression.
The throne of generations.
The grave of gods.
And at its peak waiting
The Warden.
He had not fled.
He had not begged.
He stood in a hall of mirrors, draped in chains made from the names of those he'd broken.
His body glowed faintly with divine grafts, each one stolen from a fallen god.
Behind him floated relics, orbiting him like planets:
A sword that cut fate.
A crown that erased lineage.
A book that wrote laws in blood.
He turned as Nihil entered.
And smiled.
"So. The Hollow comes to wear a crown."
Nihil said nothing.
The Warden's smile widened.
"Do you think you've won?"
"That these followers of yours, these whispers, can stand before me?"
"I built this world."
"I crushed gods between my teeth and made laws from their screams."
"I am silence incarnate. Not born of pain, the author of it."
He spread his arms.
"Come then, 'Mock God.'"
"Come and be erased."
And Nihil moved.
No war cry.
No call.
Just motion.
Their battle was not seen.
It was felt.
Each clash bent time.
Each breath rewrote cause and effect.
Each strike destroyed not stone, but certainty.
The Warden wielded power from a dozen dead heavens.
Nihil wielded nothing.
And yet,
Nothing endured.
At last, the Warden bled.
From the mouth.
From the eyes.
He fell to one knee.
And laughed.
"Then kill me," he rasped.
"Be the tyrant they want.
Wear the Bone Crown.
Build your own throne.
Trade my chains for yours."
"Go on, Hollow.
Become me."
Nihil stood over him.
The Bone Crown flickered in the dim light.
Then
He did something no one expected.
He dropped his blade.
Walked past the Warden.
And whispered:
"I won't become you."
"I'll become what made you afraid in the first place."
He pressed his palm to the mirrored floor.
The Pale Bell tolled once.
Just once.
The Chainspire collapsed.
From root to spire, the entire tower folded inward.
Not in flame.
Not in ruin.
But in forgetting.
Everything the Warden built every doctrine, every relic, every law
Erased.
As if it never had the right to exist.
When the smoke cleared
Nihil stood alone in a field of ash.
No tower.
No throne.
No enemies.
Only followers, watching from afar.
Waiting.
Not to be led.
But to remember.
And as dawn broke
He turned, for the first time, and spoke to them.
"The world you knew is gone."
"Not because I took it."
"Because you refused to carry it anymore."
"I am not your savior."
"I am your memory. Your wrath. Your last silence."
> "If you must name me…"
He turned his back.
The Bone Crown cracked.
Ash blew into the wind.
"Then call me… Wardenfall."