The Heart of Tiamat was a world of its own—a vast, leathery continent of frozen pulses and tectonic arteries. As Elias and Sarah climbed onto its surface, the "Mark of the Deicide" on Elias's palm began to hiss, the golden light reacting violently to the "Chaos-Soil" of the Mother's flesh.
"It's... it's cold," Sarah whispered, her breath coming out in white plumes. "I thought a heart would be warm."
"This heart hasn't felt warmth since the first star was lit," Elias replied. His voice was becoming a monotone vibration.
[Synchronization Rate: 9.8%]
[Identity Integrity: 70%]
[Identity Loss: Memory of the color of Sarah's eyes – DELETED.]
Elias froze. He looked at Sarah. He saw her face, her worry, her loyalty—but when he looked into her eyes, he felt nothing. The "Concept" of their color was gone. She was becoming a sketch in a book he was no longer reading.
"Elias? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing," he said, his heart (the human part) feeling a phantom pang of grief. "We're here."
They stood before a Vitreous Artery—a crystalline pipe the size of a skyscraper, cracked and leaking a thick, viscous liquid that looked like liquid starlight mixed with black bile. This was the Blood of the Mother.
"Drink... and... drown," Nyx's shadow-form whispered, swirling around the crystalline crack. "Wash the 'God-Stain' away, Little King. Become the 'Unseen.'"
Elias stepped into the pool of blood.
The moment the liquid touched his skin, he didn't feel wetness. He felt History.
[Event: Primordial Baptism]
[System Overload: Processing 13.8 Billion Years of 'Pre-Creation' Data...]
Elias's mind was torn open. He saw the "Before." He saw the Void when it was a sea of infinite potential, before the "Light-Gods" came with their hammers and their laws to cage the chaos into "Order." He saw Tiamat—not as a monster, but as a vast, beautiful dragon of mist and stars—being butchered by the younger gods to make the Seven Hangings.
"YOU... ARE... THE... LATE... ARRIVAL," a voice boomed from the blood. It wasn't a whisper like Nyx's; it was the voice of the Universe itself.
Elias submerged his hand—the one with the Golden Mark—into the dark ichor.
The golden light screamed. The "Mark of the Deicide" flickered, turned grey, and then smothered. The Blood of Tiamat acted like a universal solvent, erasing the "Tracking-Frequency" of the Seventh Hanging.
[Mark Status: OBSCURED]
[Alert: You are now invisible to the 'Eye of Argus'.]
But the blood didn't stop at his hand. It began to climb. It entered his obsidian veins, turning them from violet to a deep, abyssal crimson.
[Synchronization Rate: 10.0%]
[RANK UP: BEYOND THE AVATAR]
[NEW CLASS: THE VOID-SOVEREIGN (INCUBATING)]
"Elias! Your heart! It stopped!" Sarah screamed, kneeling beside the pool.
Elias lay in the blood, his eyes wide and fixed on the purple membrane of the sky. Inside his head, the Echo of Enkidu was changing. It was no longer a beast's roar. It was merging with the Sovereignty of Tiamat.
"The King... of... the... Wild... has... found... his... Throne," the combined voice resonated.
Elias stood up. He wasn't dripping with blood; the blood had been absorbed. His skin was no longer flaking or bruised; it was smooth, like dark, polished garnet. His eyes were no longer voids; they were two burning crimson suns.
He reached out his hand toward the sky. The air in the Zero Layer groaned.
"I don't just hear the Echoes anymore," Elias said. His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a mountain. "I hear the Fault-Lines. I can see the cracks in the Heptarchy."
[Skill Unlocked: Fracture-Sight]
(The ability to see the 'Conceptual Weakness' in any divine structure or being.)
Sarah backed away, her face pale. "Elias... you're not... you don't look like a human anymore. You look like a statue of a god that people would kill themselves to worship."
"The people don't need to worship me," Elias said, looking at his hand. The golden mark was gone, replaced by a single, crimson rune that looked like a closed eye. "They just need to watch as I tear their sky down."
Suddenly, the Heart of Tiamat gave a massive, violent Thud.
The "Zero Layer" was no longer silent. From the distance, the "Ghost-Echoes" of a thousand dead civilizations began to howl in unison. They felt the change. The "Void-Sovereign" had been born.
"We're leaving," Elias said, grabbing Sarah.
"To where? The Under-City?"
"No," Elias said, a cold, sharp smile touching his lips. "We're going to the Fourth Hanging—The Halls of Valhalla. It's time I took the 'Spear of the All-Father' for myself."