"Answer me, Empress. Show me that you still have teeth. Or will you accept being forgotten?"
And then he fell silent.
Waiting.
Breath held.
The provocation was fulfilled.
The board is ready.
For a moment, it seemed that silence would triumph once again.
But the Orb... pulsed.
Not as before—not with the ancestral, constant rhythm, but with something new. Profound. A primordial tremor, as if the core of the universe had contracted for an instant. As if something forgot to exist, only to remember with greater violence.
The ground shook beneath Vergil's feet. Not a physical tremor—it was the vibration of meaning. Reality itself frowned.
The sky lost its color.
The air lost its density.
And then, like a muffled roar from a buried world, came the voice.
Not audible. Not physical. It arose within him, like lightning that seeks not the sky, but the soul.
"You dare to shout before an empty throne, as if the dust were deaf. Provocative fool..."
