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

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

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

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

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