The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

In a place that was not part of the material world, a white palace stretched beyond sight.

Its walls were not painted white, nor was its whiteness the reflection of some unseen light. The floor, the columns, the high ceiling, and even the still air between them all seemed to have been forged from whiteness itself. There was not a single window, a door, or even a shadow to confirm that those things possessed any true depth.

The only color breaking that endless expanse came from the golden throne standing at the heart of the hall.

Upon it sat a woman whose long white hair fell behind her shoulders and blended into the palace’s whiteness, while a soft blindfold of white silk covered her eyes. Her back remained straight, one hand resting upon the throne’s arm, with nothing in her bearing suggesting that she had sent a portion of her existence into the material world through a Descent several days earlier.

The woman did not move when the first fracture appeared in the whiteness before her.

It was not a fracture in space, but an impossibly thin black line running vertically through the air, as though something immense on the other side had split the palace open with a single glance.

The line slowly widened...

And a colossal serpentine eye opened.

Its pupil was a vertical black slit, deeper than any darkness that could exist within the world. Its iris, however, possessed no single color. It resembled a night sky imprisoned within an eye, with countless stars revolving through its depths in slow rings, joined by golden threads finer than hair that intertwined and separated whenever a possibility shifted somewhere in existence.

Dark scales surrounded the eye, scattered with points of light resembling miniature constellations. Nothing else of its owner appeared, yet merely seeing it was enough to know that beyond the slit lay a body impossible to measure...

The body of the Star-Coiling Serpent.

The Taboo of Fate.

The woman did not raise her head toward it. She had no need to—just as the blindfold covering her eyes did not prevent her from knowing who had arrived.

The stars within the eye continued moving for several moments before the voice came.

”Sending a portion of your existence into the material world through a Descent was reckless, even by your standards,” Fate said.

Its tone carried no accusation, yet neither was it an innocent question.

”I know.” The woman drew one finger along the arm of the golden throne.

Several of the golden threads within Fate’s eye came to a halt, as though the possibilities they represented had been suspended alongside them.

”And yet you did it,” it replied.

Silence reigned for a moment before the woman answered.

”Because I sensed it.”

”What did you sense?” The serpentine pupil narrowed by a fraction.

The woman’s expression did not change, nor did her voice rise when she said:

”The Nightmare of the Taboos.”

The stars within Fate’s eye stopped.

They did not slow or alter their courses... They all halted at once.

The golden threads connecting them went still, and the miniature universe inside the serpent’s eye became a frozen image for one brief moment. The eye did not widen in human shock, and the voice neither trembled nor rose, but for a being standing at the level of a Taboo, that stillness alone was more revealing than a terrified man stumbling several steps backward.

A long moment passed before the first star within the eye moved again.

”The Nightmare of the Taboos?” The Taboo of Fate repeated the words slowly, as though weighing something it had never expected to encounter in this age.

”It was present within the person I found,” the woman said.

”What was his true name?”

”I did not learn it before he annihilated himself completely.” The woman tilted her head by the slightest degree.

One of the starry rings within the iris widened, then returned to its original course.

The Taboo of Fate said nothing about the man’s demise. Instead, it posed another question.

”And the thing that was supposed to dwell within him... did you discover what it was?”

The woman’s fingers remained still upon the gold of the throne.

”I was not given the chance,” she said, a trace of bitterness touching her voice.

”You were not given the chance?”

”He detonated his soul core before I could reach what lay within him.”

For the second time, the eye changed.

This time, it was not merely the stars that stopped. Every golden thread within the iris drew taut at the same instant, as though countless possibilities had been forcibly dragged toward an event no human being should ever have been capable of choosing. The black pupil contracted until it became finer than a thread, while several constellations veered from their courses before reclaiming their former positions.

”He detonated his soul core?” the Taboo of Fate asked, its voice remaining calm despite a hidden layer of certainty having drained from it. ”Of his own free will?”

”Of his own free will—after realizing that I would reach what dwelled inside him,” the woman replied calmly.

The silence between them lengthened.

’This contradicts the prophecy.’

The thought passed slowly through Fate’s consciousness.

The slit surrounding the eye began to close, and the dark scales disappeared one after another behind the whiteness. The serpentine pupil lingered for a few final moments, fixed upon the blindfolded woman seated on her golden throne.

Before the eye closed completely, the Taboo of Fate spoke one final time:

”It seems he was worthy of that title.”

...

In a dark place without any discernible features, where no light could reach...

The golden thread was still moving.

But something had changed.

The gray and gold that had continued wrapping nothing around nothing with endless patience began to converge, thicken, and draw inward from every direction—in a place where directions did not exist—toward a single point: the final fragment of a soul, too small to be called a soul and too stubborn to be called dust.

The final anchor.

Around it, the gray Void began constructing the body.

This was no restoration. Restoration presumed that remains still existed...

And the remains had perished.

This was re-creation.

It began with the bones.

Bone was forged into existence, its interwoven tissue laid down layer upon layer, denser than steel and harder still—surpassing steel by a margin no blacksmith’s instruments could ever measure. The entire skeleton then settled into a balance no naturally born body could possess: shoulders in perfect alignment, a spine curved like a bow drawn to flawless tension, and a pelvis, knees, and ankles structured to distribute every burden with masterful precision.

Every bone was inscribed with strange, gleaming runes and symbols of gray.

Then came the muscles.

They were woven thread by thread, bundle beside bundle—muscles designed for strength, speed, flexibility, control, and explosive power, not the meaningless bulk that flattered mirrors. Tendons and ligaments spanned the joints like bridges capable of enduring tremendous force and carrying it from the ground to the fist without losing so much as a fraction along the way.

Then came the finest element of all:

Alignment.

Nerves, vessels, organs, muscles, and bones...

All were arranged like the strings of a single instrument tuned to the same note, without a flaw, a misplaced angle, or a single part working against its neighbor. Finally, the last layers of tissue and skin settled over everything in the healthiest state a human body could ever attain.

Human—and yet of the VOID.

That was what made it so striking. In outward form, it was a human body like any other. There was no excess bulk, no exaggerated beauty, no scales to absorb damage, and no monstrous deformity from which to draw strength.

It was the complete image of a human...

Yet an image that, had humanity ever witnessed it, would have made them realize that they had spent their entire history producing nothing but rough drafts of this original.

Sovereign Pride was not restoring Ravian’s former body.

It was crafting the ideal human vessel—one capable of carrying Ravian’s pride and ambition.