"Elias, look at the sky! It’s not just breaking—it’s erasing!" Lydia’s voice was a frantic edge against the roar of the atmospheric collapse.I looked up. The stars weren't flickering; they were being blotted out by a substance darker than any night I had seen in ninety-nine lives. The Weaver’s silk had become a shroud, and the Deep Void was no longer a distant threat. It was the destination."Merchant, talk to me!" I barked into the communication shard. "If I’m the battery, how do I stop the drain?""You don't stop it from out there, you suicidal fool!" the Merchant’s voice crackled, sounding thin as paper. "The boy was the Anchor, and she dragged him into the source! If you want to stop the Beginning from being eaten, you have to enter her kitchen. But fair warning: there’s no refund for a soul lost in the Great Null.""We’re going in," I said, grabbing Lydia."Elias, wait!" Lydia grabbed my collar, her eyes reflecting the encroaching nothingness. "Aethel said your Qi is the poison.

The Deletion beam from the *Lunar Sovereign* hit the Void-shield with the roar of a dying sun. The impact didn't just vibrate; it felt like a serrated blade sawing through my soul. I was still encased in the blue orb, my heart replaced by the rhythm of the Weaver’s Heart, existing in a state of suspended agony."Status report!" I roared into the mental link. "General, tell me you aren't actually firing on your own King!""Sire, the Empress has overridden the command codes!" the General’s voice crackled through a layer of static and screams. "She’s not just targeting the Void; she’s targeting the entire sector! She’s purging the timeline!"I looked through the glass of the orb. The Deep Void was no longer a silent tomb. It was a chaotic cauldron of fire and silk. To the north, the Empress’s fleet was a wall of silver steel, raining white-hot erasure beams. To the south, the Weaver’s silk-tendrils were lashing out, dragging entire frigates into the nothingness. And in the middle? My rag

The silence of the Rift was absolute, a heavy, airless weight that had pressed against my stone-cold skin for a hundred years. I was no longer a man; I was a conceptual plug, a statue of obsidian and star-dust holding back the throat of a hungry universe. My consciousness was a thin wire stretched across infinity, vibrating only with the duty to remain still.Then, I felt it. A microscopic tremor. A drop of warmth hit the back of my frozen hand."Look at him, Kael! He’s huge!" a high-pitched, youthful voice echoed through the resonance of the Rift. "The Great Pillar. Do you think he can hear us?""Shh! Elara, get back from the edge!" a boy’s voice hissed. "The Priests say if you touch the King, your soul gets sucked into the Null. Don't be stupid.""I’m not being stupid! I just want to see if the legends are true."I felt the girl’s presence close to my outstretched arm. She was small, but her Qi signature was a familiar spark—a faint, distant echo of Phoenix fire. A descendant of Lyd

The heavy oak doors of the *Private Collection* didn't just open; they disintegrated into a fine grey ash as my fingers brushed the handles. I stepped into the sanctum, the Nil-energy rolling off my skin in silent, rhythmic waves. This wasn't a museum wing anymore. It was a trophy room of a century’s worth of theft."Elias Thorne. The man who refused to die," a voice echoed.The room was vast, circular, and filled with the stolen shadows of my life. In the center, sitting in a high-backed chair made of reclaimed Star-Iron, was a man in ornate, silver-threaded robes. He was sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup—a cup that bore the Thorne family crest."Put it down," I said. My voice didn't echo; it seemed to swallow the air in the room.The man didn't move. He took another slow, deliberate sip. "This cup belongs to the Goddess Sarah. It is a holy vessel, sanctified by the blood of the martyrs who fell during your... unfortunate reign.""It’s my grandmother’s tea set," I said, walki

The white-hot glare of the Lunar Beam didn't vaporize the tower; it peeled the reality of the penthouse away layer by layer. I stood in the center of a swirling vortex of digital debris and molten silver, my True Void Negation flaring like a dying star to keep the erasure at bay. Cain stood opposite me, his hand still fused to the power conduit, his chrome skin glowing with a terrifying, luminescent heat."You’re fighting a landslide, Elias!" Cain’s voice was a metallic roar over the screech of the building’s structural failure. "The Goddess doesn't just own the world; she is the world! Every credit, every breath, every byte of data flows through her! You're just a glitch she's finally deleting!""Then I’ll be the glitch that crashes the whole damn system!" I shouted back.I lunged through the heat, Aethelgard’s shadow-shard carving a black trail through the blinding white light. Cain didn't dodge; he raised a hand, and a wall of liquid silver surged from the floor, hardening into a s