Chương 341: Bir-Z

Choosing Scenario A would have turned Phase 2 into a prolonged defense, a static meat-grinder where we traded resources to hold ground we didn't actually want. Scenario B — the Labyrinth — played into the shadows, but I was done lurking. The first week of the Great Crucible had been a calculated performance of "Instructor Kai" directing his students from a stone chair.

But as I stood in the Bastion War Room three days later, surrounded by the holographic projections of the Sector hub, I could feel the Voidflame in my lungs starting to crave a legitimate release.

"We are choosing the Frontier because it is the only scenario that offers total acquisition," I told the council.

"The winner doesn't just get a scoreboard bonus. The System says the winning world absorbs the contest's battlefield — permanently. A planet rich in unmapped resources and primal Essence to provide more opportunities for our people and further the war effort."

"That world could sustain Ferra for the next five centuries," Lucas noted, leaning over the strategic map. He had traded his diplomatic robes for the heavy Mythic armor set Leoric had crafted.

"But Eren, the limit is 100 units. The other nine factions have survivors, but they'll probably be bringing their heavy hitters with this kind of reward. This won't be a Capture-the-Flag game for veterans in iron mail. This will be a war of high-end Sovereigns."

"Which is why no one below Tier 6 is going to be doing any fighting," I stated flatly. There were protests. I heard Jared's and Vesk's names being whispered by several officers, but I didn't even turn around.

"One Tier 6 warrior possesses a conceptual authority that can buckle ten Tier 5s without even swinging a blade," I explained, tapping the desk.

"A Tier 5's mana conduits, regardless of how well-fed they were during Masha's feasts, cannot handle the environmental backwash of a fight of higher Domains. If I take the students into an Open Frontier, I'm not bringing soldiers; I'm bringing targets. I am the only target this team needs." The roster was carved from the very top of Ferra's hierarchy. Myself. Anna — sitting at the peak of Tier 6, humming with chronos-stability. Lucas and Silas.

From the Noren lines, we had Freja, Bjorn, and Astrid — the three provided a powerful frontline addition, storms that could blank out a battlefield with local hurricanes, and illusions that could easily convince perception focused Sovereigns. Rexxar, Nyx, Zareth, and Arthur, manifesting in his newest Stealth Golem chassis. I also reached out to the alliance partners. I wasn't just a powerful hidden figure anymore; I was the pillar of a unified world.

General Joyce led a contingent of three Iron Covenant specialists — high-Tier 6 infantry led by a man named General Kalt, a frost-weaver who had survived the fall of Korg's Stronghold. The Azure Syndicate sent two representatives: Thane and an elemental-specialist named Klaver. Both were battle-hardened Tier 6s who viewed the Integrated economy with a professional's cold logic. Combined with our elite Dweorg engineering squad and our finest Elven scouts, we hit precisely ninety-two.

The remaining eight slots I left open for whatever the situation called for.

"One week to get the blood moving," I ordered.

"Eat everything Masha produces. Practice your resonance drills with Lucas. If your armor has a scratch, see Leoric before Friday." The week of preparation was a strange, vibrating calm. It didn't feel like a world preparing for an apocalypse but more like a world sharpening its blade. Ferra's economy was pushed to full capacity. In Bastion, Leoric had moved his forge directly onto the central plaza, fueled by the localized gravity well of a Rift Core we'd extracted.

He spent twenty-two hours a day hammer-typing runes onto Tier 6 plating. I saw Marcus — whose iron mallet from the first event had been reduced to slag — crying tears of genuine joy as Leoric handed him a heavy star-steel warhammer that literally pulled ambient oxygen toward it to stoke its own kinetic flames. The meals were a spectacle. Masha had organized a continuous Spirit Roast. Entire sides of Void-Mantis and Abyssal-Mammoth were marinated in Eliza's custom elixirs before being roasted over open flames.

The soldiers ate until their pores leaked gold-tinged mana, their internal structures hardening to match the environment we were entering. Between drills, the atmosphere was thick with a heavy, human melancholy. I saw Silas spending his afternoons by the docks with Rin and several of the younger wyvern-handlers, sharing tips he usually hoarded. Rexxar sat with the Noren warriors, teaching them rowdy drinking songs from worlds they'd never heard of.

Anna spent a lot of her time in the city's libraries, talking to Kasian about chronos-string-theory as if she were trying to memorize every word of the history she had helped write. They were making peace with the fact that for many of them, this could be the final goodbye. On the fourth night, I retreated to the lowest level of the Sanctum. I needed to finish my meditation on the "Aeonic Medium." The Stem-Mana foundation was almost complete.

It hummed in my core like an engine with its governor removed, an endless white-noise vibration that could harmonize with anything — even the Black-Red liquid fire sitting in the Ring of Wrath. [PROCOCOL RECALIBRATION: OPEN FRONTIER RULES MODIFIED.] [Notice: Faction interaction will be under Absolute System Veil.] [Outside Observation and Divine Scrying will not be allowed.] [OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE. The victor takes all. Only one Faction departs Bir-Z with their souls intact.] Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I stood in the darkness, the blue screen reflecting in my black-and-red eyes.

"Winner takes all," I whispered. The weight of the mission shifted. In the first phase, if you lost your flag, you can simply let it go and not risk your warriors, losing seeding and potentially suffering injuries. Here, the System was dropping the facade. This was a war of extermination. But that Absolute Veil — the fact that the Silver Horizon, the Viceroy, and whoever else is out there couldn't watch — was the most beautiful gift the System had ever given me.

"I can go all out," I realized. I wouldn't have to hide the Flame. I wouldn't have to disguise the Hunger or play the part of a gravity mage. On Bir-Z, I could use everything I had to ensure my people survived. I shared the notification with the roster. The tension spiked instantly, but the hesitation didn't last. I had explained to everyone that they could opt out of the mission and that there would be no consequences whatsoever. Nobody took me up on the offer.

The soldiers of the Void Star didn't cower; they went into a clinical state of predatory focus. If only one world survived, we decided then and there that it would be ours. On the final dawn, the air of Bastion smelled like petrichor and ozone. The gateway had changed. It had curdled into a heavy, swirling storm of silver-grey and electric violet — the doorway to the Frontier.

"Get ready," I commanded, my voice booming across the plaza without mana assistance. I was wearing my full Sovereign's Carapace, the black Null-steel reflecting nothing, wreathed in my Sylvaris [Nullifying Veil] only by habit now. The hundred warriors stood in a column of ten rows. Anna stood to my right, her hand on [Final Word], her eyes glowing with a calm, clinical silver-light. Rexxar stood to my left, the Lion's tooth slung across his back, his boisterous laughter replaced by a low, predatory growl.

Lucas held his Aegis, his armor looking like a portable bunker.

"No capture-points today," I told them.

"No point-multipliers or scoreboards. Just an open Frontier. We go in together. We come out together. No one from our world bows to anyone, and no one answers to a contract they were forced into signing. Follow the commands and fulfill your duty, and we shall come out victorious. Our people depend on us."

"Victory for the Void Star!" Jared and the students yelled from the sidelines, their voices cracking with emotion. They agreed to stay behind and to maintain the city's shielding and defense. I turned and stepped into the storm. The transition felt like stepping off a cliff into an ocean of cold mercury. Space compressed and then expanded with a soundless roar. When my boots finally met solid ground, my equilibrium instantly screamed. I landed in a forest. But "forest" was a poor word for what sprawled around us.

The trees were miles tall, with trunks of deep crystalline copper and leaves made of thin, oscillating glass that hummed as they caught the wind. The "Soil" wasn't dirt; it was a pulverized concentrate of high-tier mineral crystals that felt soft as sand under my boots. But it was the air that was truly shocking. It was thick — viscous with enough ambient mana and raw essence to make my [Void Star] purr in absolute ecstasy.

The mana density here was roughly twenty times higher than Bastion, nearing the saturation levels of the Crystal City's deep meditation wards. Simply breathing in this atmosphere was a physical tonic for the Spirit that could potentially evolve a person into Sovereignty. I engaged my [Void Emperor's Omnipresence] immediately, casting my senses outward across the planet-scale map.

"The rewards aren't just item caches or more Ruins and Dungeons," I realized, my perception sweeping over localized ripples in the Lattice. A few miles to our North, I sensed a fluctuation of pure 'Rebirth' essence — a literal oasis of life-giving mana bubbling out of the crystalline ground. To the East, a mountain made of 'Gravity-Slate' sent rhythmic shockwaves through the air. This world — Bir-Z — wasn't an arena filled with depots of resources. It was a biological jackpot.

A world born of concentrated conceptual material. If the winner absorbed this world into their home world, their average could jump two or three Tiers in a single decade. Beside me, the 92 elites were adjusting. Lucas had slammed his shield into the ground to anchor the group, while Freja and her party were taking long, greedy breaths of the mana-rich air.

"Eren," Silas whispered, materializing out of the shadow of a copper-tree trunk. He pointed toward a shimmering distortion on the horizon.

"We aren't alone. I've spotted heat signatures six hundred miles out. They're heavy — Peak Tier 6 at minimum." I looked at the distortion. I saw the threads. Through the [Void-Lattice Perception], I could see three separate factions descending onto the map in the Northern quadrant. Many times the distance away, I recognized the ashen flame of Malacor's demons, the rhythmic thrum of the Machinist drones, and the biting, kinetic cold of the Silver Hearth. But they were staying away. For now.

Everyone was taking the time to taste the air, realizing that in a world where the dirt itself produced rich Essence, a single bush could be a Sovereign catalyst. My gaze settled on a nearby spring where the mana-water reflected the starless, aurora sky. Through the Void, I noticed something flickering at the bottom of the basin — a fluctuation of essence that felt entirely too ancient to be part of a System simulation.

"The whole planet is the reward," I murmured to Anna, who was standing beside me with her eyes narrowed.

"But this prize has a few teeth we weren't told about." I looked at my hand, the Ring of Wrath flaring a deep, satisfying crimson. I was finally in a place where I could speak with my full voice.

"Let's see how many neighbors want to fight for a planet," I grinned, feeling the Voidflame starting to move through my mana-veins with the grace of liquid death.

"First we claim the strongholds. Then we eliminate the enemy." I signaled Silas and the elven trackers to push forward into the crystalline brush.

"Phase Two is live," I spoke, my voice settling into a cold, clinical sovereign command.

"We move out together towards a location that should serve as a good stronghold for now. Be careful and if you see something that seems strange do not hesitate to speak up." The warriors of the Void Star moved in a silent, professional wedge, their silhouettes disappearing into the glass-hued forest as the Great Crucible's war of extermination finally bared its teeth. The auroras above Bir-Z shifted, casting a long, black-and-red shadow across the rich ground — the first shadow of many. We weren't pioneers anymore.

We were moving like predators. And in this world, everything was a meal. I could already detect another sovereign-level signature beginning a high-speed burn towards our location. One that didn't belong to Malacor.

"Some of them who didn't even show last event brought in some real teeth this time," I whispered to the dark.

"Let's see what happens when we pull them."