Chapter 89: The Church of the Stars (1)

His soul was back in front of the Crimson Throne, floating in nothingness.

It didn’t welcome him with applause or contempt, like it often did, only ominous silence. The darkness was tense, realizing that what had happened shouldn’t have been possible and that they had skirted close to disaster.

This is the fifteenth of your Hundred Reigns.

You have earned the Title of Simon the Timeless.

The Timeless: You have slipped through time to reach this present. You are now immune to the Stasis ailment.

Fifteenth? So whatever happened in that dimensional void had been counted as a full reign, but at least it appeared things would resume as they should… although the Title’s rather disappointing ability implied a rather worrying possibility.

“You previously used a Title to cover a weakness in the Overlord Class, but this one offers me little to no protection against the Mana Sword,” Simon pointed out. “You cannot negate that weapon, can you? Not fully, at least.”

The sheer wave of hostility he received in response was an answer in itself.

If the Mana Sword was so dangerous, then that begged the question of what it did to Balzam. Could his father have spent the deaths he couldn’t write down in that dreary dark place, except it cost him four reigns to get out rather than one?

No, no, he must have known it was his final reign, or else he wouldn’t have left those notes… although maybe the Oracle had been half-right. Being struck with the sword slightly disrupted the Overlord Class’ inheritance, but it found a new host in Simon instead of vanishing after failing to pass on to Louis.

It harmed the Class, but it could not destroy it.

Whatever the case, Simon woke up in his bed once more. He looked at his hands to find them normal again, and no longer permanently stuck in his Overlord armor. Seeing the distant lights of Marthrone in the night through his window put a balm on his heart.

He was back, but now with the knowledge that there were things out there that could truly impact the reigns. Titles couldn’t protect the Overlord from the Mana Sword for certain, or at least not at this point in time.

And Louis had it at the start of his reigns.

He will never surrender it, even if I am to impersonate our father again, Simon thought. I might be able to confiscate it from Lauriane once he gives it to her… if that’s what happened…

Simon decided against it. He wouldn’t tempt fate again, at least until he understood the danger that the Mana Sword represented better. He didn’t want to risk being trapped in that castle beyond time again.

And what was he supposed to make of all of this in the first place? Why was Gourmand stuck in that void with him, when everyone else seemed to have disappeared? Why was it so full of miasma? Because it was a dungeon of some sort?

When Simon opened his Inventory to find it utterly empty, with the Mana Sword’s hilt and Gourmand’s skull both missing, it just drove home just how little he understood about how the reigns functioned. He was a child fumbling in the dark, knowing nothing about his greatest strengths and weaknesses.

“I need to learn more,” Simon decided. “Keeper.”

The damn creature appeared this time. “Your Dark Majesty?”

Simon glanced at its hands, vividly recalling how it strangled Belzemine to death with them, before asking, “Why did you kill Firewand?”

“I have not killed Firewand.”

Right, it didn’t remember past reigns, though it was aware of their existence. Simon summoned his Abyssal Chronicle and opened it at the end of the ‘Error’ reign and the ‘Timeless’ one’s start.

“You should be able to read these entries,” he said. “Does it not jog your memory?”

The Keeper quickly read the chapters, confirming that it could indeed gather information from the Chronicle, but it provided few answers. “I have no memory of this event, though I may wager a guess,” it said. “While I lack offensive power, I am compelled to preserve and protect the Crimson Throne to the best of my ability. I must have registered the elf as a threat at the time and targeted her.”

Belzemine touching the Mana Sword did seem to strengthen its power, maybe because she was an elf or connected to whatever fate Mardok sought to prevent by targeting her… “How did you negate her magic then?”

“I have no information on the matter. It may be an ability I am unaware of.”

Come to think of it, the creature was called the Keeper of the Throne. It wouldn’t make much sense for an Overlord to give the title to a creature unable to defend its charge.

Could it have combat abilities that only showed themselves when the Crimson Throne itself faced a direct threat to its existence? The damage that the Mana Sword caused must have triggered a failsafe of some sort. A pity Simon didn’t see any way to test that hypothesis without risking catastrophic damage to the reigns.

“What of this dark castle, that… void outside of time?” Simon inquired. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I do not, Your Dark Majesty. I exist to serve, not to understand.”

What a useless creature. “What about Gourmand? Is he linked to the reigns somehow?”

“No,” the Keeper replied flatly. “The creature entered your predecessor’s service eleven years ago, after being summoned from the Abyss.”

According to the Keeper, Gourmand apparently belonged to a rare kind of undead called a Soul Devourer, which was the result of a demon spontaneously animating after death. These creatures became the reverse of a normal demon possession; instead of merging with a living creature the way the Zodiac Fiends did, they instead drew souls inside them and slowly assimilated them to fill the void in their hearts. Balzam had apparently summoned Gourmand for the purpose of using his ability to steal knowledge from dead souls, but then grew to enjoy his jester act enough to keep him in his service.

All in all, it seemed he was indeed unrelated to the Crimson Throne… which made Simon all the more curious as to why he alone managed to linger in the time-displaced Frightwall. Did all the souls he had accumulated in the last reign give him enough power to survive the time anomaly? Or was there something unique about him?

Or… could that dark realm full of miasma have been the infamous Abyss? Simon had failed to summon imps there, but he couldn’t totally exclude that possibility. Gourmand could have survived there for the simple reason that he came from that realm in the first place.

The Keeper lacked answers on the subject, but it did provide useful intel on other matters.

“Did my predecessors have their own Abyssal Chronicles, too?” Simon inquired. “Did they vanish after their deaths?”

“No,” the Keeper replied, “The Abyssal Chronicles linger after their holder’s death, to ensure future Overlords may use them.”

Simon’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. That could change everything. “Where are they then?”

“I do not know.”

Simon cursed in annoyance and considered possible leads. He was all but certain that Mardok’s Chronicle had fallen into Elios Magnos’ hands. The old lich was still loyal to the archdemon’s centuries after his death, and it would make sense for a Librarian to recover his master’s memoir. Gargauth’s chronicle was likely in his hidden hoard or in Vouivre’s possession.

Which left Balzam’s book unaccounted for. Either the old man had hidden it somewhere in his archives in Telluria or somewhere else… or Louis must have recovered the book if it was dropped by his corpse like Inventory items. Simon couldn’t exclude the possibility that the books were still somewhere in this castle, either.

At least only the Overlord and the Keeper could read the Chronicles, so nobody else should be able to use the secrets within.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I want you to search every nook and cranny in Frightwall for those missing Chronicles after you deliver my altered will,” Simon ordered. “I want you to report to Lady Shabram should you find anything.”

All possible leads on the Abyssal Chronicles led to foes beyond Simon’s ability to confront at the moment, so he would settle on easier targets for now. Approaching Elios Magnos to ask for answers on the reigns was suicide at this point in time, and interrogating the elves would be just as foolish, which only left a few leads.

The Church of the Light… or Eligos.

Justine Eligos claimed that she could help him unlock his Visionary and Darkblood precognitive gifts. Those might grant him insight into how the reigns worked, and she had proved amenable… but this meant tackling the elf conspiracy head-on and risk drawing the Oracle’s attention.

Mastemo already wanted to recruit Simon for his Templars, which would grant him access to their Lighthouse’s library. The Church’s chronomancy and astromancy research should provide certain clues on how the reigns functioned, or at least how they related to the comet Abraxas. They also had tremendous resources.

That sounded like his best lead so far.

Impersonating my father will throw the usual sequence of events out of sync, Simon thought. Infiltrating the Lighthouse might take time, so I’ll need stability… a longer reign.

Simon knew which stones to nudge to avoid the landslide falling on top of him.

After the meeting with the Keeper, Simon used the precious hour that preceded the discovery of his father’s corpse to contact Shabram and Belzemine, inform them of what would follow, and to take precautions to defang the elf conspiracy. This would ensure the civil war began many months later than usual, and hopefully in a way that would leave Louis on the backfoot.

He also took the occasion to show Shabram the Abyssal Chronicle to check what would happen if someone other than the Keeper or an Overlord tried to read it. She had one of her employees try to read it after being warned it might carry consequences, but instead her servant simply told her the book’s pages appeared to be blank. This reassured Simon, since it meant outsiders wouldn’t be able to learn the Overlord’s secrets and he wouldn’t have to fear an early restart should the Chronicle fall into the wrong hands.