Chapter 103: Mythic Item: The Celestial Edict

[Notification: Warden’s Mandate activated against Epic-tier boss Hollow Emissary. Bond progress: 20%... Contract failed.]

The bar climbed to a full fifth, trembled, and collapsed. It was Kael’s first real attempt, and it fell just short.

He didn’t let it slow him.

Warden’s Mandate normally carried a ten-second cooldown.

The Skyborn Bloodline’s passive cut that in half, which meant the true number was five, and as long as he stayed alive, the attempts could keep coming almost without pause.

He cracked a red potion and a blue one back to back, topping off health and mana in a single breath.

Then he raised a hand and laid a fresh round of buffs over Thunder Roc, all the while steering the rest of the roster through the fight with short, clipped commands.

The chamber rang with steel and thunder. Cold wind snapped at his coat.The moment the Reaver drops to a sliver, steal the kill before the Emissary gets there first.

Kills inside the Astral Spire granted no experience and no equipment, nothing tangible on their own.

But every one of them still fed the treasure chest waiting at the end of the run, and a Legendary-tier kill was never worth letting slip away for free.

Even restored to full strength, the Bloodscale Reaver stood no real chance against something a full tier above it. A little over a minute of fighting ground its health down to a bare sliver.

The great red-scaled body staggered, one knee striking the stone, and the Hollow Emissary raised its scythe, already committing to *Soulreap* for the killing blow.

A sharp whistle cut through the air first.

A single starlit arrow tore across the chamber and buried itself in the Reaver’s chest.

Starpiercer.

The burst of light punched a clean hole straight through the boss, and the kill landed on Lyra’s account a breath before the Emissary’s scythe ever connected.

Robbed of its prize, the Emissary’s fury turned in an instant. It crossed the distance to Lyra in a blink, and the scythe was already falling.

The dark blade opened a deep, brutal gash across her frame. Her health, already at half, plunged toward empty.

She held her composure through the pain. Her bow was already rising. Starlight gathered between string and limb, condensing into one arrow of pure, concentrated power, and she drove it into the Emissary’s chest at point-blank range.

Starbreaker.

The detonation swallowed the Emissary whole. The S-rank stun locked it in place for a brief, precious window, and Lyra used every second of it. She bent low and vaulted backward several times in quick succession, putting distance between herself and the threat while her health still clung to a sliver.

When the stun broke, the first thing the Emissary registered was the Void Colossus, jaws already splitting wide.

Hollowscream rolled out in a warped, distorting wave, and the Emissary’s cloak whipped violently under the pressure.

It answered with a furious swing of its own, and the two titans crashed back into open combat, shaking dust from the vaulted ceiling.

Kael kept his roster cycling through coordinated attacks while he stayed hidden at range, firing off Warden’s Mandate attempt after attempt between exchanges.

Fail. Fail. Fail. Each one cost him a breath and a sliver of hope, and each one made the next feel a little heavier.

Several more minutes passed that way.

At last, the Emissary’s health dropped below the halfway mark. Kael’s side paid for every inch of that progress.

Elara, the least durable of the group, went down first, her body dissolving into pale light and reforming back in the Rest Sanctum, out of the fight for the foreseeable stretch.

Every other companion sat critically low. Thunder Roc had already fallen once, revived on the spot through the Threshold Seal and thrown straight back into the grind.

Only three companions currently carried that seal: Thunder Roc, the Void Colossus, and Lyra. The skill was too newly learned to have spread any further, and its lengthy reformation window left no room to rebind it mid-fight.

Thunder Roc had already burned its one use. The Colossus and Lyra still had theirs. Past that, there was nothing left to fall back on.

A Level 40 challenge, gated behind a Level 55 Epic boss. Kael’s jaw tightened. Whoever had designed this map clearly didn’t care how many people it broke on the way through.

For the first time in longer than he cared to admit, real pressure settled over him, heavy and unwelcome.

Then, cutting cleanly through the tension, a chime he’d been chasing for the better part of an hour finally rang out.

[Notification: Bond successfully established with Epic-tier boss Hollow Emissary. Epic-tier companion acquired.]

"Finally."

Relief broke across Kael’s face, raw and unguarded, before he could stop it.

A heartbeat later, a sound rolled out that dwarfed every server-wide chime he had ever triggered. It was deep and resonant, and it carried across every server on the planet at once, broadcast in a dozen languages at the same moment.

[World Announcement: Congratulations to player Unrivaled for completing the 108th floor of the Astral Spire, the first player on any server, worldwide, to clear the tower in full.] Rewards: Reputation +30,000, Luck +10, and the Celestial Edict (Mythic)."

The reaction was instant and global.

"Wait, that wasn’t a server announcement. That was a world announcement."

First time I’ve ever heard one of those fire since launch, if I’m not mistaken.

"What even is the Astral Spire, that clearing it triggers something on that scale?"

"And on top of everything else, a Mythic-grade reward? That’s not even a rarity tier most people have seen confirmed to exist yet."

Whatever’s coming next, it’s about to be a problem for literally everyone else on the leaderboard.

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable that it happened this fast."Unrivaled. Noting that name properly now. I’d like to meet him myself, someday, assuming he’s even half of what the footage suggests."

None of the noise reached Kael.

His whole attention had already narrowed to a single point: a small, gleaming token, drifting slowly down out of the dissolving light above him.