The Beast Monarch

CHAPTER 13: Deep Rift

Stepping into Grim's Void Maw wasn't falling.

It was being remembered.

The void didn't have color. It had memory. For a second I was five again, burning with Rift Fever, Mom's hand on my forehead, Dad saying "hold on, little Monarch." Then I was ten, getting stamped F-Rank while Grim, hidden in my backpack as a trash slime, pulsed against my back saying not trash.

Then I landed.

Not on ground. On water. Black water that held me up. An ocean of slime - Void ocean - stretching forever under a sky that was the inside of a rift, stars made of appraisal errors.

And in the middle of it, an island. Made of stasis pods. And tents. And a kitchen table with two mugs.

People looked up. Twenty, maybe thirty. All older, all in old Monarch crests, faded. Tamers who were supposed to be executed fifteen years ago.

In front of them, two people who I only knew from a holo.

Mom didn't look fifteen years older. She looked tired. Dad had a beard now, and a Void Slime - not Grim, bigger, scarred - on his shoulder.

They stared at me. At Grim, who stepped out of the void behind me - six feet, crown blazing, Abyss Sovereign Slime King, holding Gale who was trying not to fall into the Void ocean.

Mom's hand went to her mouth.

"Liam?"

Grim knelt. Really knelt. King to his original tamers.

I brought him, Grim said out loud, voice clearer here where void is everywhere. Little Monarch remembered.

Dad was already running, but not fast - his leg was bad, old rift injury. Mom beat him. She grabbed me, and she smelled like ozone and cheap coffee, like Evelyn's lab, like home.

"You evolved him to King," she whispered into my hair. "You did it without cores."

"Trash Tier," I said, and laughed wet. "You taught me."

Behind me, the void tunnel rippled and two more figures fell through - Zara, holding onto Jorm's horn because she refused to let a tunnel eat her without fighting it, and Marcus, who landed on his face in the void water and came up sputtering.

"Okay! Okay! Not dead! Still hate interdimensional travel!" Marcus shouted, Luna flaring to keep him afloat.

Zara stared at the island, at the thirty Monarch tamers, at my parents hugging me.

"This is the Monarch Guild," she said. "The real one."

Dad nodded at her dragon. "Winter Sovereign. You broke a Bloodline Contract. Good girl. Your father put one on you too, you know. Not on the beast. On you."

Zara flinched. "What?"

Mom pulled away from me, wiping her eyes, switching to Codex-voice - researcher voice. "Cole's Board doesn't just collar beasts. They collar heirs. Appraisal chips in the blood. Limits potential. That's why you never hit SS-Rank even though your bond is perfect. We refused the chips. That's why they hunted us."

She looked at the ocean. "The Deep Rift is the source. The first Rift. It doesn't produce monsters. It produces Monarch eggs - Void Slimes. Beasts that can be anything, because they're made of pure potential. Cole found it thirty years ago and built appraisal machines on top of it. Machines that tell you trash is trash, so you'll buy their S-Rank beasts. If people knew any slime could be a King -"

"The market collapses," Evelyn's voice finished.

We spun. Evelyn had come through too, holding the Sanctuary console hard drive, Reyes behind her with her Iron Falcon screaming at the void sky.

"So you sealed it," Reyes said to Dad. "You went inside and sealed it from inside to stop them siphoning."

"We couldn't leave," Dad said. "The Rift is hungry because they've been siphoning for thirty years. It needs a King to stabilize it. Our Void Lord is too old. He can't hold it much longer."

He looked at Grim.

Grim understood. He walked to the edge of the island and put both hands into the Void ocean.

The ocean shivered. The sky - the rift sky - stopped flickering.

[Skill Activated: Sovereign Pressure - Rift Stabilization]

[Energy Required: 100 Points - Grim Has 30 + Liam Has 30 + Monarch Guild Collective: 60 = 100]

[Deep Rift Stabilizing...]

The water glowed. For the first time in fifteen years, the Deep Rift wasn't hungry. It was calm.

And as it calmed, something rose from it. Not a beast. A platform. With 300 more eggs. Monarch eggs. Untouched.

Marcus whispered, "Liam... that's an army."

It was. An army of rejects. Of trash that could be Kings.

Codex - Mom's Codex - pinged in my head, but not as a system. As Mom.

You have 48 hours until Board votes to burn Old Tamer District. You have 300 eggs. You have a King who can stabilize the source. What does a Monarch do, little Monarch?

I looked at my parents, alive. At Grim, King, holding a sea. At Zara, heiress who chose us. At Marcus, Evelyn, Reyes, and thirty Monarch survivors who'd been called traitors for saying trash could be Mythic.

My B-Rank license was still wet in my pocket. MONARCH GUILD.

"We give them away," I said.

Zara blinked. "Give away? Those are worth -"

"Everything," I said. "We give them to every kid in Old Tamer District that the machines called F-Rank. For free. Tonight."

Dad grinned, first time in fifteen years.

"That's how you break a market."

Above us, through Grim's still-open void tunnel, we heard it - distant, but clear - the Sanctuary lockdown alarm failing.

And Vale's voice, amplified, echoing down the void tunnel into the Deep Rift itself.

"Board Army is here. Burn it all."

The tunnel started to collapse.