From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 117: The Ones Still Above

The stairwell groaned beneath their feet.

Not with age.

With anticipation.

Leon led them upward through the spiral, each step heavier than the last. The warmth of the forest chamber had faded, replaced now by a cold that came not from wind—but from memory. The kind that pressed against your ribs and whispered things you’d rather forget.

Mira walked just behind him, eyes on his back. She hadn’t said much since they’d left the book behind. Neither had Tomas. But both of them knew the silence wasn’t peace.

It was warning.

When they breached the top, they emerged not into tunnels—but a clearing.

Open sky.

Twilight hung like a veil above them, the last light of day bleeding through clouds tinged with ember and smoke. The cliffs had curved, bringing them to a basin on the ridge’s far side—just above the Ashbound camp.

Tents below.

Fires lit.

But something was wrong.

The camp was... still.

Too still.

Leon crouched behind a jagged boulder and scanned the scene. "Where are the guards?"

Tomas joined him, blades out. "I don’t like this. There were at least thirty men down there when we passed the cliffs. Now? Nothing."

Mira frowned. "Maybe they moved."

Leon looked beyond the camp.

A thin plume of smoke drifted higher—darker than the others. Controlled. Focused.

From a smaller ridge just opposite their position.

He reached for the shard—only to find the motion unfamiliar now.

The shard wasn’t separate anymore.

It was part of him.

Embedded somewhere beneath skin and blood. Sleeping. Watching.

He exhaled. "There’s a ritual happening. Or a rite. Something binding."

Tomas cursed. "You think they’re trying to claim the throne?"

Mira shook her head. "They wouldn’t know how."

Leon stood. "They don’t need to know. They just need to get close enough."

A voice rang out below.

Not loud. Not shouted.

Carried by spell, clear and flat.

"We know you’re watching, Leon Thorne."

Mira stiffened.

Tomas swore again.

The voice continued.

"You took what does not belong to you. The Order does not forget. Nor do we forgive."

Leon stepped to the ledge, unconcerned with being seen now.

He looked down.

A figure stood at the edge of the Ashbound camp—tall, robed in pale grey, a hood shadowing their face.

But Leon didn’t need to see the face.

He recognised the voice.

"Arden Vale," he muttered.

Mira blinked. "You know him?"

Leon’s hands curled into fists. "He was once First Flame of the Ash Court. Betrayed the Oath and left to found the Ashbound."

Tomas stared. "He’s that Arden?"

Leon nodded once. "He’s not just a defector. He was the one who tried to break the first seal a decade ago."

Arden raised a hand.

A signal.

Below him, the tents shifted.

Not men.

Not soldiers.

Figures cloaked in silver root and blackened steel stepped from the shadows.

Eyes glowing faintly beneath their helms.

"Boundlings," Leon said grimly. "Failed hosts."

Mira stepped to his side. "Then we do what we always do."

Leon glanced at her.

Mira smiled faintly. "We survive."

He drew his sword.

Not glowing.

Not humming.

But when he gripped the hilt, the veins in his arm lit up—just once.

Ash. Red. Threaded like fate.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t announce himself.

He simply stepped off the ridge—and fell.

Wind roared past.

Then the ground.

And with it—

War. Leon hit the earth with a roll, rising to his feet as the dust flared around him. The moment he stood, three Boundlings broke from the shadows—fast, inhumanly so, their metal-twined limbs groaning with the strain of containment.

He met the first with a parry and step-through slash, shearing its helm clean off. A face writhed underneath—flesh long dead but bound to will. The creature twitched, then collapsed as the flame in its eyes guttered out.

Mira dropped beside him a heartbeat later, blades out, cloak snapping behind her as she landed low. Tomas came with less grace but twice the fury, landing shoulder-first into a charging Boundling and burying his blade into the base of its neck.

The camp erupted.

Tents scattered like paper under the weight of fleeing cultists and surging Boundlings. Spells lit the air—some wild, some aimed. Sigils flared beneath their boots as runes long buried activated beneath the dirt.

Leon pushed forward, not for the kill—but the ridge. Arden stood there still, calm, untouched, watching it all with the patience of a man who’d already read the ending.

"Hold the edge!" Leon shouted to Mira. "Don’t let them swarm the cliff!"

Mira nodded once and whirled into a spinning slash, disarming one of the larger creatures before Tomas drove a boot into its spine.

Leon didn’t wait.

He moved like a shadow, weaving between lines, sword flashing, cloak soaked in ash.

Each strike he landed seemed to burn hotter than before.

Not fire.

Something older.

Something inside him.

The closer he got to Arden, the heavier the pull became.

The air rippled.

Arden raised a single hand—and the world around him bent. Roots burst from the soil, blackened and hollow, slamming down in front of Leon like the fingers of a buried god. The ground cracked, revealing veins of red crystal that pulsed in time with Leon’s heartbeat.

Then came the pressure.

Leon fell to one knee, gripping the hilt of his sword to stay upright. His chest seared. Not from a wound. From inside.

The shard.

It was awake again.

But not alone.

"You feel it now," Arden’s voice drifted down like dust. "It’s not just yours anymore. You are a vessel. As I was."

Leon forced himself to his feet. "You lost your right to speak my name the day you lit the first flame."

Arden’s expression didn’t change. "And yet the fire chose you."

He stepped forward—and the air split behind him. A rift. Thin. Shimmering.

Beyond it, a glimpse of a throne room not made for mortals. Twisting architecture, impossible stone. A throne of roots and shadow. And something sitting on it.

Watching.

Leon staggered back.

The shard in his chest pulsed in time with the figure’s stare.

Arden pointed toward it. "You think you carry power. But it carries you. Every step you take forward, you feed it."

Leon said nothing.

He couldn’t.

Not when the thing beyond the veil was smiling.

Arden raised both arms now.

The Boundlings froze.

And then—

—they knelt.

The entire battlefield stilled.

Even the ash seemed to stop falling.

Mira’s voice cut through the silence. "Leon! Something’s wrong—"

Leon raised a hand, stopping her.

Not out of command.

Out of instinct.

He felt something change.

Inside him.

Shift.

The shard wasn’t pulsing anymore.

It was calling.

Not out.

Inward.

And then the sky cracked.

Literally.

A line of light—thin, gold, brilliant—tore across the clouds like a sword slash.

And from it fell—

—not fire.

Not roots.

But a girl.

A single figure.

Spinning through the air.

Wreathed in silver light.

Hair white as frost, eyes blazing with golden fury.

She landed between Leon and Arden with the sound of bells striking metal.

And the pressure broke.

Leon gasped, breath flooding back into his chest.

Arden’s head tilted. "Ah," he murmured. "So she answered after all."

The girl turned slowly.

Her voice rang like wind across glass.

"You should not be here, Thorne."

Leon stared.

Because the girl wasn’t human.

And she wasn’t Bound.

But somehow...

He knew her.

Not by name.

By memory.

A memory that wasn’t his.

She raised one hand—and the rift behind Arden snapped shut like a door slammed in anger.

And every Boundling screamed. The sound of their screams wasn’t pain.

It was loss.

The rift had fed them. Whatever sat behind it—the throne, the will, the watcher—it had been their anchor. And now it was gone.

Mira clutched her ears, staggering as the howls tore through the air like metal against bone. Tomas dropped to a knee, gritting his teeth, bleeding from his nose.

Only Leon remained upright, and only because the pressure in his chest had flipped.

The shard wasn’t calling inward anymore.

It was reaching out.

Toward her.

The girl turned to face him fully, her silver glow softening. "You bear more than you understand."

Leon opened his mouth. "Who—" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

She cut him off. "Not yet. Names have power. And yours already burns loud enough."

Arden took a step forward. "So this is what the old ones sent? A veilborn?"

The girl didn’t look at him. "I wasn’t sent. I was released."

Arden’s eye twitched. "Impossible. The Thresholds were sealed. The Fifth Root was never—"

She lifted a hand again.

And Arden choked.

Not from a visible force.

From presence.

His knees hit the ground. The roots beneath him recoiled. The Boundlings collapsed entirely—lifeless.

Leon took a step forward, stunned. "What did you do?"

"I unmade the tether," the girl said simply. "Their flame was borrowed. Not earned."

Mira limped forward, blade still drawn. "Are you with us or them?"

The girl tilted her head. "That depends. What are you with?"

Leon stepped in. "We’re trying to stop what’s coming. Seal or destroy it. Before it spreads."

She studied him for a long moment. "You opened it. The Fifth. The final."

"I didn’t have a choice."

"You always have a choice."

Silence.

Then:

Leon whispered, "I chose to live."

That gave her pause.

She looked at him differently now. Not as a vessel.

But as something more.

"You carry it," she said. "But you haven’t submitted to it. That matters."

Arden coughed behind them, rising to one elbow, blood trickling from his lips. "You think this changes the ending?" he rasped. "You delay. That’s all you’ve ever done. You fear the flame—but the flame is freedom."

The girl turned to him. "No. It’s hunger."

And with a single motion—

—she banished him.

No light. No blast.

He simply vanished.

A ripple in the air.

Gone.

Mira stared, stunned. "Where did you—"

"He’s not dead," the girl said. "Not yet. But he won’t return until the final bell sounds."

Tomas stood fully now, wiping blood from his chin. "Okay, so what now?"

Leon looked at the girl. "You said I shouldn’t be here."

"I did."

"Then why save me?"

She didn’t answer at first.

Then, gently: "Because I remember what it was like... to not know."

Leon’s pulse slowed.

She approached him, her feet never quite touching the ground.

"You carry a crown no king should wear. A fire no soul should feed. But you have not been consumed."

Her fingers brushed his chest.

And he saw—

—not just visions.

But memories.

Cities buried under ash. Towers of root and iron. People kneeling before a figure with no face, chanting in tongues that made the sky crack.

He saw himself.

Standing at the centre.

Wearing a mask of ash.

Leading them.

Leon fell back, heart racing.

The girl caught him before he hit the dirt.

"You are not that version," she said. "But every path leads there if you let it."

Leon’s eyes widened.

Mira grabbed his shoulder. "Enough. He’s still him."

The girl gave her a small, tired smile. "Then hold him close. Because others... will try to take him."

She turned her gaze upward.

Far, far above—the clouds parted.

Not from weather.

But from something descending.

Not a rift.

A gate.

And from that gate...

Came wings.

Dozens.

All grey.

All broken.

All falling."