The Shattered Vortex

Chapter 23 The Ram of Heaven

The black ocean churned into a violent, frothing wake as the Iron Sovereign surged forward, completely propelled by the raw, manual direction of Lu Chen’s Golden-Crimson Cosmic Vortex.

Up on the primary command bridge, Lin Xue held tightly to the heavy brass railing, her emerald-green hair whipping wildly across her face. Through the thick, rain-slicked glass of the observation deck, she watched the two remaining imperial battleships close the gap. They were massive, iron-plated leviathans, their hulls etched with the glowing sapphire runes of the Northern Fleet.

"They’re forming a blockade line!" Lin Xue shouted down the brass communication tube. "Lu Chen! The Vanguard and the Eclipse are moving bow-to-bow! Their main cannons are locking onto our hull! They’re going to blow us to pieces before we can cross the channel!"

Down in the depths of the lower deck, Lu Chen didn't use the communication tube to reply. His voice echoed directly within her mind, flat, icy, and carrying the suffocating gravity of a collapsing star. “Let them lock on. A line is just a string waiting to be snapped.”

Lu Chen stood before the glowing Helmsman’s Core, his bare, scarred palms fused directly to the pulsing crystal [1.1]. The crystalline emerald needle at the absolute center of his foundation was vibrating at a frequency so extreme that the surrounding copper pipes were glowing a translucent, fiery red. He wasn't just fueling the ship; he had turned the entire five-thousand-ton iron warship into an extension of his own physical body.

BOOM! BOOM!

The twin battleships ahead opened fire. Two colossal torrents of blinding blue naval Qi tore through the purple twilight sky, ripping across the ocean surface and tearing the water into massive, hundred-foot geysers. The incoming strikes aimed straight for the Iron Sovereign's bow, carrying enough localized destructive force to vaporize an entire fortress wall.

"Lu Chen! Bracing!" Lin Xue shrieked, instantly throwing her arms forward to manifest her most powerful Jade Lotus Gale Shield around the steering platform.

But Lu Chen didn't activate the ship's defensive arrays. Instead, he executed the ultimate reverse-suction command of The Devouring Maw [1.1].

As the two massive blue energy beams slammed into the prow of the Iron Sovereign, the iron plating didn't buckle. Instead, Lu Chen opened his palms wide against the helmsman's core. A terrifying, localized black hole manifested directly at the ship's absolute front. The two incoming columns of naval Qi were violently bent, warped, and forcefully dragged straight into the iron hull, traveling down the copper conduits like liquid lightning and pouring directly into Lu Chen's open meridians.

"Gah!" Lu Chen gasped, his eyes flashing with a blinding gold-and-crimson lightning.

The sheer, planetary volume of the incoming naval strike was staggering, threatening to rip his newly evolved True Foundation pathways out of his flesh. But his self-shattered foundation thrived on the violence. The cosmic vortex inside his belly seized the massive, hostile blue energy, grinding it down, stripping its imperial signatures, and forcing it to fuse with his own peak-tier core.

Instead of slowing down, the Iron Sovereign accelerated. The stolen naval energy was redirected straight into the massive iron propellers at the stern. The warship lifted partially out of the water, roaring across the waves like a falling star, its speed crossing into a terrifying, supersonic realm.

"He's... he's ramming us!" a panicked voice echoed from the communication array of the enemy flagship, the Vanguard. "He absorbed the main battery! Turn the ship! Turn the—"

Too late.

CRASH!

The impact sounded like a continent fracturing. The heavily reinforced iron bow of the Iron Sovereign slammed directly into the midsection of the Vanguard at terminal velocity. The absolute, piercing solid force of Lu Chen’s needle Qi, traveling through the ship's hull, caused the enemy vessel's thick obsidian armor plates to instantly shatter like cheap porcelain.

The Iron Sovereign didn't stop. It plowed clean through the center of the Vanguard, tearing the five-thousand-ton battleship completely in half in a spectacular explosion of grinding metal, snapping gears, and exploding spirit-stone compartments. A massive wall of fire and black smoke erupted into the sky, illuminating the entire harbor.

The remaining battleship, the Eclipse, frantically tried to veer away, its helmsman backing the engines into a wild, uncoordinated retreat. But the massive tidal wave generated by the Vanguard’s destruction caught its hull, tilting the vessel dangerously onto its side.

Lin Xue stood on the command bridge, completely breathless, her jaw slack as she watched the burning remnants of the Northern Fleet sink into the black ocean behind them. The Iron Sovereign emerged from the wall of fire completely intact, its iron bow smoking lightly, entirely unyielding.

Lu Chen slowly pulled his hands away from the helmsman's core. The crystal dropped from a violent, blinding red back into a calm, stable emerald glow. He walked up the iron steps, stepping onto the command bridge beside her, his burlap hood falling back to reveal his pitch-black eyes.

The dark, twisting mouth of the Inland River Gates—the massive, canyon-like waterway carved into the continental cliffs—lay directly ahead. The path to the capital was open.

"The Northern Fleet is dead," Lin Xue whispered, looking at him with a profound, terrifying new reverence. "We've broken the border line."

Lu Chen looked toward the dark, winding river canyon stretching into the heart of the empire, his emerald needle humming fiercely within his chest.

"The border was just the fence," Lu Chen said, his voice a low, terrifying promise of absolute destruction. "Now, we go find the master of the house."