All Chapters of THE THRONE OF THE NINE HEAVENS : Chapter 31
- Chapter 40
199 chapters
CHAPTER 31: THE MATRIARCH GAMBIT
The hangar floor didn't just vibrate; it groaned under the weight of a 4D holographic projection that tore through the laws of physics. Gravity vanished, then slammed back with tenfold force, pinning my broken body to the deck plates. A woman materialized in the center of the bay, her form composed of shimmering starlight and obsidian mist."Get up, Elias," she said. The voice was a haunting melody that bypassed my ears and spoke directly to my marrow. "A Sovereign does not crawl in the dust of his own making.""Mother," I wheezed, the gold blood in my throat tasting of copper and failure. I forced my arms to move, the Anchor in my chest screaming as I pushed against the artificial gravity. "Or should I call you the architect of my execution?""Call me Empress Selene," she replied, her projection leaning down until her translucent face was inches from mine. "And don't be so dramatic. The river, the betrayal, the 'painful' breaking of your seals—it was all a clinical necessity. Do you
CHAPTER 32: THE FORGE IF STARS
The *Aegis-Sovereign* was screaming. Not the engines—the actual hull was howling as it began to melt. We were no longer in the vacuum of space; we were in the corona of the red giant Sol-Primus, a dying sun that looked like a wall of angry, weeping fire."Elias, the external temperature is hitting two million degrees!" Master Haku roared, his hands trembling over the heat-shield controls. "The Void reservoir is full! If you don't dive now, the ship will vaporize, and we’ll be part of the solar wind!""I’m going," I said, my voice vibrating with a metallic hum. My skin had moved past gold; it was now a translucent, shimmering diamond. "Haku, stay in the orbit of the gravity well. If I don't come out in ten minutes, take the crew and jump for the Frozen Heart. Don't look back.""You’re diving into a collapsing star for a legend?" an Aegis executive screamed, clutching his seat. "This is suicide! No True Immortal can survive the core pressure of a sun!""Then it’s a good thing I’m not ju
CHAPTER 33: THE SWORD OF THE FIRST KING
The core of the dying sun should have been my tomb, but the hilt of the star-iron blade sat in my palm like a cold anchor in a sea of white-hot chaos. The obsidian metal pulsed. It didn’t just vibrate; it spoke into the marrow of my bones.**"You have the blood, child, but do you have the weight?"** The voice wasn't just my father’s anymore. It was a layered, booming chorus—a thousand kings speaking through a single throat."Aethelgard," I rasped, my diamond-hard skin cracking under the pressure of the collapsing star. "The Sword of the First King. My father said you were a myth."**"I am the archive of every Overlord who failed to hold the void,"** the blade roared. **"I am the soul-fragments of the Thorne lineage. And you? You are a boy who fell off a balcony."**Suddenly, the solar fire vanished. The pressure of the sun was replaced by the terrifying whistle of wind. I wasn't in the forge anymore. I was back on the Thorne Tower, the rain slicking the marble under my feet. I saw Mar
CHAPTER 34: THE INTERGALACTIC COURT
The sensation of disappearing stopped abruptly, replaced by a crushing weight that felt like being flattened between two tectonic plates. I wasn't fading into non-existence; I was being forcibly pulled through a localized wormhole. The obsidian blade, Aethelgard, pulsed in my hand, its starlight humming a warning that resonated in my teeth."Target secured," a voice boomed, sounding like grinding tectonic plates. "Vessel Elias Thorne has been apprehended."I opened my eyes and didn't see the sun or the rift. I was standing on a floating platform of translucent jade, suspended in a void so vast it made the solar system look like a marble. Surrounding me were three figures—Peacekeepers. They stood twelve feet tall, encased in armor that flowed like liquid mercury, holding staves that crackled with the energy of captured lightning."Drop the star-iron, harvester," the lead Peacekeeper commanded, the pressure of his voice forcing me to my knees."Harvesting?" I spat, pushing back against
CHAPTER 35: JAILBREAK FROM THE VOID
The rift didn’t just swallow me; it shredded the concept of direction. One second I was witnessing the assassination of cosmic judges, and the next, I slammed into a floor of solidified shadow. The air was gone, replaced by a crushing density that made my Solar Stage skin groan."Where is the light?" I rasped, but my voice didn't travel. It was pulled back into my throat by the gravity.**[Warning: Dimensional Displacement Detected.]****[Location: Singularity Cell – The Event Horizon Prison.]****[Time Dilation: 100:1. One hour outside equals one hundred years within.]**"A black hole?" I struggled to sit up. The star-iron blade, Aethelgard, lay beside me, its starlight muffled as if a heavy blanket had been thrown over it. "Selene... you really did it. You locked me in the basement of the universe.""It’t not a basement, Elias. It’s a cocoon."The voice didn't come from a ghost or a hologram. It was a remnant of my father’s consciousness within the blade, pulsing with a faint, stead
CHAPTER 36: THR RETURN TO EARTH
The *Aegis-Sovereign* didn’t just drop from orbit; it screamed through the thermosphere, shedding molten hull plates like scales of a dying dragon. To my eyes, the world was no longer a blur of fire. Ten thousand years of mental cultivation had turned the chaos into a slow-motion tapestry of energy."Hull integrity at thirty percent! The descent angle is too steep!" Chen shrieked, his fingers dancing across a console that was literally melting. "Elias, we’re going to pancake into the Atlantic!""No, we aren't," I said. My voice was a tectonic rumble, steady and hollow. "Target the center of the anomaly. Manhattan.""Sire, look at the sensors!" Haku pointed a trembling finger at the main visual. "The city... it's gone."It wasn't gone. Manhattan was encased in a colossal, shimmering dome of obsidian glass. Above the dome, three Void Eye mother-ships hovered, casting long, necrotic shadows over the borough. They weren't just blockading the city; they were "Harvesting." Thick, translucen
CHAPTER 37: THE GENERAL'S END
The ground didn’t just shake; it groaned as the Star-Iron blade, Aethelgard, bit into the bedrock of Manhattan. The white light of the impact receded, leaving a city gasping in a vacuum of its own making. Above, the three mother-ships adjusted their siphons, but they weren't firing yet. Instead, the sky turned black as a swarm of ten thousand "Void-Wasps"—high-velocity combat drones—spilled from the hangars like a cloud of obsidian locusts."Sire, we’re surrounded!" the General yelled, his voice barely audible over the mechanical drone-thrum. "They’re ignoring the perimeter. They’re coming straight for the fountain!""Let them come," I said. My silver hair was deathly still in the eye of the storm. "Lydia, get the survivors behind the fountain's base. General, tell your men to holster their weapons. Bullets are just paperweights now.""But Sire, there are thousands of them!" Chen’s voice crackled through the comms. "Even at the Divine Void Stage, you can't hit ten thousand targets at
CHAPTER 38: THE GENETIC CIPHER
The air in the Citadel’s main laboratory tasted like ozone and desperation. Outside the obsidian dome, the world was screaming, but inside, the only sound was the frantic hum of the Thorne-level servers. I stood in the center of the scanning bay, my skin still crawling with the liquid shadows of the Void-King’s resonance."Director Chen, initiate the deep-tissue scan. Now!" I commanded. My voice carried a double-tone that made the tempered glass of the lab-ware vibrate."Sire, your cellular structure is highly unstable," Chen said, his hands flying across a holographic interface. "If we push the Thorne scanner to 100% capacity, we might trigger a total genetic collapse. Your DNA is literally trying to rewrite itself.""The General said the map is in the junk DNA," I growled, stepping into the light-bath of the scanner. "If I don't find those coordinates before the 'Rebirth' sequence completes, I won't be the one holding the wheel. Do it, Chen!""Elias, wait!" Lydia stepped into the la
CHAPTER 39: BLOOD IN THE SANCTUM
The air in the lab was a suffocating soup of ozone and copper. Director Chen lay slumped against the main console, his blood pooling into the circuitry, while the "Lawyer" stood by the shattered doorway, adjusting his spectacles with a nauseating calm."You’re too late to kill the boy, Elias," the Lawyer said, gesturing to the sky where Kael had vanished. "The decoy data he took was enough to bait the Empress, but the real stream? The one you think you hid in the girl?" He chuckled, a dry, papery sound. "It didn't go to the Sanctum. It went to the Client.""I’ll rip the Client’s throat out after I’m done with you," I growled. My shadow-claws scraped against the floor, sparks flying. I blurred across the room, catching Kael’s trail—a lingering scent of Void-poison."Sire! Forget the traitor!" the General yelled, his hands pressed against Chen’s gushing wound. "Chen is fading! The Void-toxin is eating his core. If you don't anchor his soul now, he’s gone!"I skidded to a halt. My heart
CHAPTER 40: THE CONTRACT OF REBIRTH
The Citadel’s laboratory didn't just feel cold; it felt transactional. As the golden chains of the Merchant of Worlds tightened around Lydia, the very air crystallized into ledger lines. I stood there, weakened by the life-transfer to Chen, my Qi flickering like a dying candle against the Merchant’s nebula-glow."You’re making a mistake," I croaked, leaning on Aethelgard. "The Thorne fortune is the only thing keeping the planetary economy from a total collapse. You seize it, you seize a graveyard.""Economy? Stocks? Elias, you’re still thinking like a mortal businessman," the Merchant chuckled, tapping his cane against the jade floor. "I don’t care about your paper money. I care about the investment. Specifically, the one I made in your soul ninety-nine lifetimes ago.""Ninety-nine?" Lydia’s voice was a strained whisper from within the golden cage."Oh, did he not tell you?" The Merchant swept his hand through the air, and a hundred holographic screens flickered into existence. Each o