Reader's POV
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We fell.
But not in the way gravity commands.
We fell like ink spilling from a shattered quill —
slow, surreal, inevitable.
Not through sky.
Through pages.
Reality peeled back like parchment turning under invisible fingers. Each breath tasted of burnt vellum and ash-charred scripture. Light warped and folded like an unfinished sentence.
We weren't just dropping.
We were being rewritten.
By the time the fall ended, I wasn't even sure if we had landed…
or just been placed.
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The surface wasn't earth.
It was stone — but not made. Grown.
Formed from fossilized giants — a hand of massive bone and scorched marble, curled in death or prayer, cradling us like a forgotten offering.
Above, dozens — maybe hundreds — of thrones floated like fractured constellations.
Each one broken. Gold-flaked. Ancient.
Yet alive.
Beating.
Like they had hearts.
Like they remembered every person who'd ever sat upon them — and every one who didn't survive.
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> "Where the hell are we?" Jiwoon muttered. His voice echoed like it didn't belong here. He dusted bone-ash from his coat, eyes sweeping the vast ruin with a growing frown.
> Ereze was already kneeling, blade drawn, reading the space like scripture. "This isn't a trial field," she said quietly. "This is… an ossuary of worlds. A graveyard of forgotten thrones."
She was right.
The sky above wasn't a sky.
It was a dome of stitched realities.
A franken-realm of collapsed timelines. Cities dangled sideways in the clouds. Torn rivers of memory floated in slow spirals. One skyline dripped molten statues. Another held a tree made of lightning — blooming in reverse.
The air shimmered, and across the firmament, four words scorched themselves in divine fire:
> SELECTION BEGINS AGAIN.
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> [NEW WORLD RULE SET LOADED]
Zone: Throneworld Root — Skystitched Ruins
Type: Open Narrative Combat Realm
You Are: FOREIGN CANDIDATE
Rank: 0
Threat Level: Unclassified
> You are being watched.
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The message vanished.
My interface glitched — violently. For a second, it looked like my own reflection had blinked backward.
Then new metrics scrawled across the edge of my screen:
> Throne Sync: 0%
Bloodworthiness: Unproven
Scriptburn Access: Locked
No HP bar. No mini-map. No allies detected.
Just the thrones watching us.
Waiting.
---
A voice whispered — not from around us, but inside us.
> "A throne for every soul. A crown for only one."
The thrones pulsed once. Then one lowered.
A new contender appeared — a figure dressed in deep crimson, half his face torn open in a scream. He looked like he had only just died.
The throne above him glowed.
Lifted.
Judged.
Then devoured.
The corpse evaporated in silence — not ashes, not blood.
Just... erasure.
The throne dimmed.
Another space opened in the sky.
---
> Ereze whispered, "These thrones… they kill."
> "No," I said. "They judge."
And we had been seen.
---
The sound came first — footsteps stepping from shattered air.
Twelve figures emerged from broken doorways that cracked open like glass under pressure.
Some were cloaked in swirling flags from long-dead nations. Others wore power armor.
One looked like he was made of exposed nerves and ink.
Another floated without legs, eyes orbiting his skull like planets.
But one…
one looked human.
Plain. Clean. Casual. Like he'd just stepped out of a coffee shop and into cosmic horror.
He raised a hand in greeting. Smiled like a serpent.
> "You're not from here, are you?" he said.
I didn't answer. Not yet.
> "And you are?" I finally asked, hand near my sword.
> "Just another thronewalker," he said with a chuckle, tapping a metal badge on his chest — an emblem shaped like a crown split down the center.
"You'll figure it out fast — the longer you survive, the higher you climb."
> "And if we don't want the throne?" Jiwoon asked, flat.
The man just grinned.
> "Then you'll die first. The throne doesn't reward apathy. It punishes insignificance."
---
No quest popped up.
No glowing trail.
Just coordinates seared into our UI like a brand:
> First Seat Activated:
Trial of the Hollow Bell
And beneath it, scrawled like a prophecy:
> "You must walk.
You must bleed.
You must be seen."
---
We didn't even get time to plan.
The Bell rang.
Not a chime. Not a toll.
A moan of pure echo — like the soul of a forgotten god screaming into metal.
Above us, the clouds parted.
And from them — not angels, not demons — but combatants began to fall.
Not all human.
Not all whole.
But all armed.
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> "Combatants inbound," Ereze snapped, eyes scanning. Her blade hummed.
> Jiwoon cursed, spinning his staff into a defensive form. "Not even one day of peace, huh?"
> "No," I muttered, activating Memory Blink, stepping out of phase just as a glaive cleaved the ground beside me. "This is the throne's world now."
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And then — we ran.
Not away.
Into it.
Into the storm. Into the test. Into the hollow bell's scream.
Because whatever else this place was —
it was watching.
And it wanted blood.
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