Absolute Cheater-Chapter 283: Fantasy Dunegon XXI

The fourth held.

Valeris landed before him.

"Asher!" she called.

He was already moving—channeling soul-energy into the gauntlets, slamming both fists into the ground.

A soulshock wave erupted, launching Kareth skyward.

Valeris rose with him—hovering mid-air, her cloak whipping in unseen wind.

"You forgot who I was."

She raised her hand.

Kareth's helm cracked.

"You forgot what I am."

She clenched her fist—

And the Sovereign Sigil burned itself into the air behind her.

A crown of flame. A mountain split by truth.

Kareth fell to his knees as the resonance struck him.

He did not scream. He bowed.

"You... are worthy," he said. "More than she was. More than I ever hoped."

The field trembled.

From the earth rose the second Key—this one shaped like a blade, not for war, but for declaration. It pulsed with the essence of command, of sovereignty not wielded, but recognized.

Valeris took it.

The Sovereign Path responded.

And just like before—

They were gone.

Elsewhere – The Accord Reacts

"She has two," whispered Lady Henera Seridahl.

Archduke Veren Nalore slammed his fist on the scrying table. "We can't keep pace. If she finds the third—"

"She'll remember the Dungeon Crown," Henera said grimly. "And once that's done..."

"The other Sovereigns will rise."

In the corners of the room, the shadows stirred.

The Pale Choir had arrived.

"Then we stop her now," intoned the priest in robes stitched from flayed names. "Or we sacrifice the world to her vision."

****

The Sovereign Path – Toward the Third Key

The void folded again.

With two Keys now bound to Valeris—Law and Command—the Sovereign Path reshaped itself. No longer a smooth spiral of memory, it became jagged and fractured, the air tasting of rust and forgotten prayers.

Asher and Valeris stood upon a black obsidian bridge that stretched across an ocean of dead stars. The Path beneath them pulsed faintly—like a heartbeat. But not hers.

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"The third key is the hardest," Valeris murmured. "It's not locked in war or guarded by memory. It's buried in shame."

Asher walked beside her, his expression grim. "Whose shame?"

Her voice lowered. "Mine."

A doorway appeared before them—a single slab of soul-glass standing alone in the dark. On its surface, images flickered and twisted: faces Valeris knew. A crown she once cast aside. A child's cradle. A burning city.

When she placed her hand on it, the doorway whimpered—as if it feared her.

And then opened.

The Fallen City of Kirevall

They stepped into ruin.

The skies here were gray with drifting ash. Buildings rose and leaned like dead fingers—spires of once-proud architecture now pitted and cracked. The streets of Kirevall, the first dungeon-city to ever kneel to the Sovereign Queen, were filled not with corpses…

…but reflections.

Asher stopped.

He saw himself.

Not truly—but a version. One where he wore a Sovereign crown, face hardened by power.

Valeris saw a hundred of herself—each bearing a different fate. One a tyrant. One a saint. One a corpse upon a broken throne.

"This place shows what could have been," she whispered. "What I might have become if I had chosen differently."

"And the key?"

"It's here. Buried beneath them."

The Trial of the Third Key – Truth

As they walked, the echoes began to speak.

One stepped forward—a version of Valeris draped in chains of gold, eyes hollow, crown fused to her skull.

"You walked away from us," she hissed. "From me. You could have ruled without weakness."

Another approached Asher—this one feral, clad in soul-iron, his left arm transformed into a blade.

"You keep holding her back," it growled. "You think love is an anchor. It's a leash."

Asher didn't flinch. "I'd rather be her tether than her ghost."

Valeris raised her hand, and Sovereign flame rippled around her—but it sputtered in this place.

Here, truth mattered more than power.

"We can't fight them," she said. "We have to face them."

So they listened.

To their worst selves.

To every doubt. Every mistake. Every terrible thing they could have become. The Sovereign Path demanded acceptance, not denial.

And when it was done—when the final echo, a child-Valeris clutching a crown far too large for her, whispered, "Please don't leave me again..."—

Valeris knelt.

She embraced her.

And the city exhaled.

All the buildings crumbled in silence.

From beneath the stone, light burst upward. A spiral of radiant thought and soul-energy, forming into a scepter of glimmering crystal, inscribed with a single word in the first tongue:

Truth.

The Third Key.

Valeris took it in silence.

And for a moment—just a moment—her form shifted.

Not visibly. Not dramatically.

But Asher saw it.

The air bent around her. The world bowed slightly inward.

She was becoming what the prophecy feared.

And he still took her hand.

Meanwhile – The Accord Strikes

In the skies above Mimir, storms of unbound magic roared.

The Accord had unleashed its first measure of defense:

The Pale Choir.

Not soldiers. Not mages.

But echoes made flesh—wraithlike beings of stitched memory, each one born from the betrayal of the Sovereign Queen. They floated above the palace like threads of weeping shadow, and wherever they passed, truth unraveled.

Their leader, Choirmaster Vellin, opened his arms.

"She has claimed the third," he sang, his voice a chime of broken glass. "The fourth lies in the Hollow Star. We will reach it before her."

Back on the Sovereign Path

Valeris turned toward Asher, now holding three Sovereign Keys. Her breath was slow. Controlled. But her fingers trembled slightly as she looked toward the next gate forming ahead.

"Three left," she whispered.

He nodded. "What's next?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"The Hollow Star. The place where Sovereigns go to die."

"What do you mean, die?" Asher asked, eyes narrowing.

Valeris looked at him, her gaze distant. "They go there to comprehend the Law of Death. And to do that… one must undergo the process of dying."

She paused, memories flickering in her eyes like old wounds reopening.

"That's where the unique environment of the Hollow Star comes in. There lies the Sepulchral Descent—a vast burial field once kissed by Death itself. To walk it is to feel your death. Not just physically, but truly—to experience the death you fear the most. It peels you down to your soul, forces you to face your end. You either die completely… or comprehend Death."

Asher exhaled slowly.

"Death Law… finally. That's a domain I could use," he muttered under his breath.

Valeris nodded. "If you survive it."