Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything!

Chapter 507: Begining Of All The World

“Where did you find him?” Asher whispered, his voice barely a breath against the swirling silence of the hall as he stood beside his wife. His sharp eyes remained fixed on the short figure moving through the vast chamber, every glance precise.

The Kingmaker strolled with mild curiosity, his fingers occasionally brushing the backs of the metal workings and exquisite murals made of metal and wood, nodding only when something met his unseen standard.

“Here,” Sapphira replied with the ghost of a smile, her voice a soft murmur meant for Asher alone. “I sensed his presence in Adamos County… so I went to fetch him myself.”

Her voice shimmered with pride, and when she looked at Asher, her heart stirred at the rare gleam of wonder flashing across his stern expression, an expression usually carved from granite.

Yet the wonder quickly returned to focus as both gazes settled on the enigmatic man approaching the dais.

Unnoticed, or perhaps uncaring, Katarina tilted her head slightly, her arched brow raised as she watched the pair whisper to one another. Her hearing, enhanced beyond mortal limits, caught every word. “Could that even be called a whisper?” she mused silently.

Asher turned to her with a question already on his tongue. “Did you see him in your dream?”

Katarina’s gaze grew still, and she shook her head slowly.

Sapphira’s brows drew together. “What dream?” she asked, her voice tinged with sudden tension.

But before Asher could answer, Katarina’s voice cut through the chamber with quiet finality. “We lost to the Abyss King and his army,” she said, her voice painted with the hues of dread. “Our king was the first to die. I watched as they stabbed him again and again… and then severed his head before the united army of all Tenaria.”

Sapphira’s face, which only moments ago had glowed with the satisfaction of pleasing Asher, crumbled into pale horror. The shift was so swift, Katarina almost pitied her. Almost.

She had made her point. That was enough.

If there was anyone who could make Asher second-guess his decisions, it was the woman beside him, his anchor, his other half.

But Asher’s voice was resolute, almost defiant. “It is a matter of the future. We are in the present, we can still change it.”

He turned his gaze forward again. Death might have visited him in a dream, but he was not preparing for a funeral.

He was preparing for war.

Sapphira’s shoulders sank slightly as she lowered her head, but her voice held firm as steel hidden beneath silk. “Then you shall dream again,” she murmured, her eyes now locking with Katarina’s in a silent clash of will, “after the Kingmaker forges a worthy Kingsword for him.”

Just then, the Kingmaker reached the foot of the dais and climbed its steps with the calm of one accustomed to the company of rulers. His presence weighed heavy in the room.

He stood before the empty throne, eyes fixed upon it with deep gravity. Then, slowly, he turned to Asher.

“So…” he said, his voice like the grinding of ancient gears. “You were the one to finally wear this.”

With slow reverence, he reached out and lifted the crown-helm from its velvet stand. His calloused fingers caressed its edges as though he were touching memory itself.

“Such a fine piece of art,” he murmured, his tone tinged with nostalgia. “Crafted by my brother… the Forgefather.”

Turning to face them fully, the Kingmaker lifted the crown-helm high into the golden light, examining it with eyes that saw deeper than most.

“You’ve been wearing the door to the Abyss realm all this time.”

Asher’s eyes narrowed. A silence like a held breath filled the chamber. Katarina took a sharp step backward, her pupils dilating in disbelief. Sapphira stood still, but the creases lining her temple deepened, and a cold tingle traced her spine. The weight of Kingmaker’s words echoed like a bell tolling through each of their bones.

“What?!” Asher’s voice thundered, a roar laced with disbelief and fury. His eyes burned into the crown-helm with confusion. “That helm… that cannot be the Gate of the Abyss Realm, it is the helm of the Warfather created to counter Kingswords.”

The Kingmaker’s lips curled in faint amusement, his eyes half-lidded like a man long tired of correcting fools. “How hopelessly ignorant,” he murmured. “You speak of things you do not understand. There is no such being as the ’Abyss King’. That name… is merely a myth conjured by those too afraid. The helm you boast of, the one you wear so proudly, was not forged to honour him. It was forged by my brother, forced to kneel and shape it with his own two hands… for Malrath.”

He stepped forward, his voice calm yet cutting, each word a blade. “You cannot defeat him. None of you can. Malrath was not just a warrior—he was war incarnate. The greatest swordsman to ever walk the Boundless. The Old Ones, immortals as ancient as the concept of time, trembled before him. They fell, one by one, kneeling not in worship, but in bitter defeat. That is why he earned the name: the Warfather.”

With eerie serenity, the Kingmaker turned and gently lowered the jagged helm onto its stand.

“Do you even know the true tale?” he asked, tilting his head, eyes glowing faintly. “The Godbloods you so revere were not the firstborn of the Creator. We were. The Old Ones.”

Sapphira stiffened. A silence fell, heavy and unshakable. Even she, scholar of secrets and bearer of ancient flames, hadn’t known this.

Kingmaker slowly descended the dais, every step echoing like a bell toll across history. “I have seen the fall of empires, the turning of stars. I have lived longer than memory allows. I am the last created Primordial. And before your world became small, fractured, and clothed in lies, our world was truly Boundless. A world with three ever-expanding continents.”

He raised his eyes, distant with recollection. “The first was Eden, a land teeming with abundance, forged by the Creator’s hand as a sanctuary for His earliest children. A garden of wonders. The birthplace of the Old Ones.”

His voice softened, like a storyteller remembering his first tale. “The second… was Tenaria. But unlike Eden, it was not made. She was born. A living, breathing land, a continent who was an Old One. You may think this poetic metaphor, but it is no myth. If you looked upon the tapestry of creation from the skies above, you would see her true form: the slumbering shape of a woman. Her.”

The Kingmaker turned to Sapphira. Their eyes locked.

“You,” he said, almost in reverence.

Katarina staggered backward, her breath caught in her throat. “W-What…?”

The Kingmaker nodded slowly. “She had no thoughts. No dreams. Yet she was called ’Mother’. The Creator, with a whisper of His will, imbued her with the ability to give birth, not to mortals, but to us. She bore the first wave of Old Ones, seeded into her valleys, mountains, and oceans. Her body was Tenaria… and her children were us.”

“And the third?” Asher asked, already seeing where this went.

A shadow passed over the Kingmaker’s expression. “The third was Yoma.”