Ascension Of the Divine Sovereign

CHAPTER ONE: CHASE BALTIMORE

The world was never the same after the war.

Although the demons and the Devil had been locked away, their memory lingered like a wound that refused to close. You could still smell it, that foul, sulphurous rot riding the ocean breeze at dusk. You could taste the rust in the rainwater, the metallic taste.

The skies were cleaner now, the streets rebuilt, daily life resumed but that didn’t mean the scars were gone, humanity just learned the art of healing.

In the aftermath, six great powers rose from the ruins, each claiming dominion over vast stretches of the reborn world. They called themselves Thrones, the Silver Throne, the Golden Throne, the Diamond Throne, the Ruby Throne, the Obsidian Throne, and the Galactic Throne.

Each owning large vast of land, cities, towns, this was how new countries were label. In the Galactic Throne, at the far corner of the mansion's eastern wall, where the ivy grew thickest and the torchlight never quite reached, a boy pressed himself flat against the stone.

He was small for his age, five foot three, slender, with white hair that caught the moonlight. He wore a loose white shirt and brown trousers, both slightly too large, the kind of clothes chosen for comfort rather than appearance. His eyes moved fast: left, right, back over his shoulder, then forward again. He had done this before. Maybe not exactly this, but the watching, the waiting, the careful counting of seconds that came naturally to him.

He reached down and worked his fingers around a loose brick near the base of the wall. It shifted with a familiar give, and behind it, a gap just wide enough to squeeze through revealed itself. He exhaled slowly, tucked the bundle of stolen garden flowers under his arm, and slipped out into the cool night beyond the mansion grounds.

The open air met him like a reward.

He checked his watch, a new one, silver-faced and simple, the only gift he had received that day. A quarter past eight. He calculated quickly. His father and the senior household would already be asleep by now, and his older brother Aiden wasn't due back for nearly an hour. He had memorised the guard rotation weeks ago: the eastern patrol turned at eight, the western at half past, and the gap between was more than enough.

"Right," Chase Baltimore murmured to himself, already walking. "Better hurry."

He moved west through the long coastal grass, away from the mansion's glow and toward the Valley Garden. It sat some distance from the ocean's edge, a cemetery, though few called it that anymore. Most simply said the Garden, as though the word cemetery carried too much weight to speak aloud. It had been established two years ago, built for those who fell during what the authorities now formally called the First Wave: the day the monsters came pouring out from somewhere beneath the world's skin, tearing through coastal cities.

It was also the day Chase lost his mother.

And, in the strange arithmetic of grief, the day he met his father.

He found her tombstone without needing to look. He laid the flowers carefully at the base of the stone, then sat down beside it, drawing his knees up, looking up at the stars scattered thick and careless overhead.

"Mom," he said quietly. "Today I turned twelve."

He paused, as though giving her a moment to respond.

"Dad and the others forgot, I think. Or maybe they were busy. It's fine." He turned the watch over on his wrist, studying it. "Big sister Noelle remembered though. She got me this before she left for the Royal Academy in Macademia. I promised her I'd visit once I've awakened." He smiled at the stone, a bright, unguarded smile that looked out of place on a boy sitting alone in a cemetery at night. "She believed me. She always does."

He shifted, resting his chin in his hand.

"I keep thinking about what my ability will be," he admitted. "And my Guardian Angel. I've been reading everything I can find. I don't need an Archangel — I know that's too much to ask. I just want a powerful Angel. A lady angel," His face reddened faintly in the dark. "Someone like Noelle, maybe. Strong and a little terrifying." He laughed at himself, soft and quick. "Don't tell her I said that."

He talked for a while longer, small things, the kind you only share with someone who cannot judge you for them. Time passed, he knew it was time, he hated when they discovered he had sneaked out.

Then the ground moved.

Just slightly at first, a tremor beneath his feet, subtle enough that he might have imagined it. Then again, stronger. The ocean responded, its surface fracturing into nervous ripples. Down along the beachfront, he could hear it: voices rising, music cutting off mid-note, the sudden collective confusion of people realising something was wrong.

Then the alarm split the night open.

"Warning. Dread-class Tidal Breach detected. All civilians in coastal perimeter proceed immediately to designated Vault shelters. This is not a drill."

Chaos erupted along the promenade, bodies surging, bottles shattering, children crying as the tremors deepened into something rhythmic, something settled, more than a simple earth tremor.

Chase ran. The crowd swallowed him instantly, shoulders crashing into him, knocking him sideways. He stumbled, lost his footing, rolled and the ground gave way at the cliff's edge, sending him tumbling down the slope toward the dark water below.

He hit the sand hard and looked up.

The ocean split apart.

It rose from the deep like a god waking, a Myrathon, shaped like a leviathan sea-serpent but scaled in black iron plates, its body the length of a warship. Glowing bright white eyes. It opened its maw, a ground breaking roar tore through followed by, a concussive wall of thunder that cracked the cliff face and turned the sea to white foam.

“ALL PERSON RETREAT TO NEARBY VALT SHELTERS!!!!”