The Shattered Vortex

Chapter 44 The Star-Strand Toll

‎The sensation of planar ascension did not feel like riding a gentle cloud; it felt as if a colossal iron hammer was continuously pounding Lu Chen’s physical vessel into a thin sheet of gold foil.

‎The colorless pillar of light from the Planar Nexus Gate shot through the atmospheric boundaries of his mortal world, dragging the Iron Sovereign upward into the deep, freezing void of the Greater Heavenly Domain. The ship’s iron hull violently buckled, its thick plates groaning and emitting high-pitched shriek-like sounds as the atmospheric pressure completely vanished, replaced by a harsh, suffocating vacuum.

‎CRACK.

‎The mechanical Helmsman’s Core on the primary bridge instantly imploded, unable to handle the alien, highly concentrated ambient Qi of the higher planes. The flagship gave a heavy, lifeless lurch, its massive iron propellers grinding to a complete halt as it drifted into the orbital ring of a colossal, glowing cosmic river-conduit known as the Star-Strand.

‎Lin Xue lay flat on the timber deck, her fingers dug tightly into the cracks between the wood-boards, her wind-affinity Qi flaring frantically to construct a small, fragile bubble of pressurized air around her nose and mouth. Beside her, Elder Song was entirely unconscious, his ancient meridians locked up from the sudden shock of the planar gravity.

‎"Lu Chen..." Lin Xue gasped, her green eyes wide with an absolute, defensive panic as she looked through the shattered observation windows. "The ship... the ship's core is dead. We're drifting into an imperial checkpoint."

‎Lu Chen stood perfectly still at the tip of the smoking prow. He didn't need a bubble of air.

‎Deep within his chest, the mutated Void Sun spun on a heavy, planetary axis. Having locked his anchor firmly at the First Layer of the Ascendant Divine Stage, his physical body had completely transcended human biology. He didn't breathe oxygen; his marble-hard metallic skin actively absorbed the raw, volatile cosmic radiation of the void, crushing the alien energy inside his widened meridians and turning it into pure, unyielding fuel.

‎He looked out at the massive structure floating in the void directly ahead.

‎It was the Star-Strand Customs Toll, a fortress built entirely from the hollowed-out skull of a primordial cosmic beast. The structure was nearly three miles wide, its eye sockets glowing with the cold, golden light of defensive siege arrays. Dozens of sleek, silver-hulled cosmic skiffs—each powered by refined starlight cores—paced the perimeter, their hulls etched with the runic sigils of the Ascendant Council of the True Void.

‎"Unregistered mortal vessel detected crossing the boundary line!" a voice boomed through the vacuum, transmitted directly into their minds via a telepathic array. "State your continental origin and present your divine passage jade, or be categorized as rogue cosmic fuel!"

‎A silver-hulled patrol skiff glided alongside the Iron Sovereign. Three soldiers wearing seamless, translucent armor made of solid light-Qi stepped onto the flagship's main deck. They carried thin, humming rapiers forged from crystallized space-crystals, and their visors whirred as they scanned the tattered burlap cloak and animal skins Lu Chen wore.

‎At the front of the boarding party stood Officer Jaro, a Second Layer master of the Ascendant Divine Stage, his presence radiating a cold, clinical arrogance typical of the higher planar bureaucracies.

‎"A lowborn savage from the southern rim," Jaro noted coldly, his telepathic voice dripping with smooth condescension as his whirring visor evaluated Lu Chen’s frame. "Your physical vessel has a high core density, yes. But your clothes are rags, your ship is a rusted iron box, and your background is completely empty on our ledger. Hand over your storage pouches and step into the compliance cage."

‎Lu Chen slowly took a step forward, his hide boots skittering across the frozen, splintered wood of the deck. His pitch-black eyes were twin pools of spinning cosmic void that didn't reflect the starlight; they actively drank it.

‎"I don't have a passage jade, Jaro," Lu Chen said, his flat, layered voice echoing directly within the officer's skull like a collapsing mountain. "And I don't step into cages."

‎"Arrogant scum! Subjugate him!" Jaro commanded.

‎The two solid-light soldiers lunged forward simultaneously, their space-crystal rapiers slicing through the physical dimension to sever Lu Chen's limbs from his torso.

‎Lu Chen didn't dodge or parry.

‎The Devouring Maw detonated on a celestial scale.

‎Instead of shielding his flesh, he forced the Void Sun inside his chest to expand its gravitational law to ten yards. Space itself around his silhouette violently caved inward, turning into a light-drinking, absolute black hole. The two incoming spatial rapiers didn't cut his skin; the moment the space-crystals touched his gravity field, their structural laws were forcefully seized, ground down, and violently dragged straight into his open palms.

‎CRUNCH.

‎The two soldiers were violently yanked forward, their seamless light-Qi armor violently buckling inward before exploding into worthless glittering sparks. Their refined Ascendant life forces were forcefully vacuumed down the dark channel into Lu Chen's chest, their physical bodies withering into hollow, brittle husks within three seconds.

‎Officer Jaro’s translucent face violently contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated panic. He frantically tried to leap backward into his patrol skiff, his hand slapping a distress talisman on his belt to sound the fortress alarm.

‎"Too late," Lu Chen whispered, his voice carrying the terrifying resonance of a dying star closing its teeth on reality.

‎He closed the ten-yard gap in a fraction of a millisecond, moving like a flash of black lightning. His bare, marble-hard hand clamped directly onto the officer's neck, slamming his frame hard against the iron railing of the flagship.

‎The Devouring Maw opened to its absolute, insatiable limit.

‎"AAAAAAH!"

‎Jaro’s eyes rolled back as a thick, violent torrent of his Second Layer Ascendant Divine energy was forcefully ripped from his body, flowing visibly down Lu Chen's arm. The cosmic vortex inside his belly roared with a predatory delight, seizing the high-planar energy, grinding its bureaucratic signatures to pieces, and forcing it to fuse with his Void Sun.

‎Lu Chen casually let the withered, empty husk of the officer slide over the railing, tumbling limply into the infinite void of space.

‎He reached down, picked up Jaro’s dropped communication device—a smooth, hexagonal piece of dark emerald crystal—and tucked it inside his tunic. He turned his dead eyes toward the massive skull-fortress floating in the distance, where the golden eye-sockets were already beginning to frantically flash a sharp, alarm-red light.

‎He looked back at Lin Xue, who was staring at the empty space where the soldiers had been with her jaw completely slack.

‎"The ship needs a new core, Lin Xue," Lu Chen growled, a cold, predatory smile breaking across his metallic face as his internal Void Sun hummed with a terrifying new volume. "The neighbors have a lot of starlight in that fortress. Let's go take it."

‎The small gate of his mortal world was far behind him. The boundless, cutthroat heavens of the Greater Heavenly Domain lay wide open, and the cosmic harvest had officially begun.

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