Zero to Overlord: The Forsaken God's Ascension

The War-Maiden’s Price

The air in the deep Rift didn't just feel cold; it felt heavy, like I was walking through thick, frozen oil. Valeriana walked ahead of me, her broken silver armor clinking with every step. She didn't look back to see if I was following. She knew I had nowhere else to go.

"Sit," she commanded, pointing to a flat rock surrounded by the bones of something massive.

"We don't have time to sit," I snapped. My chest was burning. The poison I had sucked out of her was fighting the Void energy in my gut. "I can feel the gate. It’s close."

"You feel the energy, but you don't know how to use it," Valeriana said, spinning her broken sword. "Right now, you’re a bucket with a hole in it. You eat energy, and it just sloshes around until it leaks out. If we fight the Gatekeeper like that, you’ll explode before you even touch him."

She stepped close, the tip of her jagged blade resting against my throat.

"The Thorne family taught you to glow like a sun," she hissed. "Bright, loud, and wasteful. The Ice-Sovereigns taught the opposite. We don't glow. We freeze. We condense. Give me your hand."

I reached out. She grabbed my wrist, and suddenly, a wave of absolute zero temperature surged into my arm. I tried to pull away, but she held firm.

"Don't fight the cold, Zero. Use the hunger to pull it in. Frame it. Shape it."

I gritted my teeth, my breath coming out in white clouds. I stopped pushing and started pulling. The freezing energy from her sword didn't hurt anymore—it settled. It turned the wild, chaotic black smoke in my veins into sharp, thin needles of power.

"Better," she whispered. "That is the Sovereign’s Breath. You don't create power; you steal the world's heat and make it your own."

"Why are you really doing this, Val?" I asked, looking her in the eye. "You’re an Ice-Sovereign. Your people were legends. Why are you rotting in a hole?"

Her eyes flashed with a momentary rage, a storm of blue ice. "For the same reason you’re here. Betrayal. My own generals decided they didn't want a Queen who wouldn't bow to the Divine Spear Empire. They sold me to your father. He couldn't kill me, so he dropped me here to fade away."

She let go of my wrist and turned toward a massive, pulsing wall of shadows at the end of the cavern.

"Now," she said, her voice turning grim. "The Gatekeeper is coming. He is a remnant of the Old Gods. He eats mana, just like you. But he’s had a ten-thousand-year head start."

The ground began to shake. From the wall of shadows, a hand emerged. It was thirty feet tall, made of grey, calcified bone and dripping with black ichor. Then came the head—a faceless skull with a crown of twisted horns.

The Abyssal Warden.

The pressure was immense. It felt like my lungs were being crushed. The Warden let out a silent roar that vibrated in my very teeth.

"Plan?" I shouted over the rumbling.

"I’ll freeze his joints!" Valeriana yelled, her broken sword suddenly erupting with a pillar of blue light. "You get to the center of his chest. That’s where his Spark is. Don't just hit it. Eat it."

Valeriana moved like a streak of lightning. She was a blur of silver and blue, jumping off the walls, her sword leaving trails of frost that locked the Warden’s massive arms in place.

"Now, Zero! Move!"

I didn't run. I used the new sensation she taught me. I pictured the space in front of me as empty. I fell into that emptiness.

[Skill Manifested: Void Step.]

In a blink, I was standing on the Warden’s massive shoulder. The beast roared, trying to shake me off, but I jammed my fingers into the gaps in its bone armor.

"You're just a bigger battery," I growled.

I scrambled toward its chest. The Warden’s hand came swinging toward me like a falling mountain.

"Zero! Look out!" Valeriana screamed.

I didn't dodge. I planted my feet and held out my left hand.

BOOM.

The Warden’s fist slammed into me. The rock beneath my feet shattered. But I didn't move. My hand was buried in its palm. The black energy in my arm flared, and I felt a massive rush of power. I wasn't blocking the hit; I was absorbing the kinetic energy of the blow.

"My turn," I hissed.

I leaped from its palm, flying straight at its ribs. I punched through the bone, my hand sinking deep into a pulsing, violet core of energy.

The Warden froze. A high-pitched screech filled the cavern.

"Consume," I commanded.

The violet energy didn't just flow—it roared into me. My vision turned purple. My skin felt like it was peeling off. The Warden began to wither, its massive bone structure turning to dust and being sucked into my chest.

[Entity Consumed: Abyssal Warden.] [Void Capacity: 5% -> 12%.] [Physical Reconstruction: Complete.]

I fell to the ground as the Warden vanished into nothingness. I stayed on my knees, gasping for air. My hair, once black, now had a single streak of pure white at the temple.

Valeriana walked over, sheathing her broken blade. She looked at the empty space where the God-remnant had been.

"You actually did it," she said, sounding almost impressed. "You didn't just kill it. You erased it."

Behind the spot where the Warden stood, a thin crack appeared in the air. It glowed with a faint, natural light. It wasn't the purple of the Rift. It was the white light of the surface world.

"The exit," I whispered.

"It shouldn't exist," Valeriana said, looking at the crack. "The Rift is supposed to be absolute. This means the world above is breaking. Your father and brother... they're messing with things they don't understand."

I stood up, wiping the black ichor from my face. I felt cold. Calm. The anger was still there, but it was no longer a fire—it was an engine.

"Let them mess with it," I said. "It’ll just make the Empire easier to burn."

"We'll need a disguise," Valeriana noted. "If you walk out looking like a Prince, you’ll have an army on your head in an hour."

"I'm not a Prince," I said, stepping toward the light. "I'm a mercenary. A ghost. A zero."

We stepped through the crack.

The light was blinding. For a moment, I couldn't see. Then, the smell hit me—pine trees, woodsmoke, and cheap ale.

We were standing on a ridge overlooking a small, dirty border town. Iron-Rock. It was the edge of the Empire, far from the capital.

"Welcome back to the world, Zero," Valeriana said, pulling her hood over her white hair. "Try not to kill everyone in the first five minutes."

"No promises," I said.

My stomach growled. Not for food. For the

stolen light I could see shimmering from the guards on the town walls.

The hunt had officially begun.