Chương 368: A Parlay of Paranoia

The subjective duration of Phase 3's conclusion was a study in managed escalation. In the wake of my diplomatic "handshake" in the Hub, Bastion hadn't returned to the rowdy festival atmosphere of the previous month. The news that the Void Star had chosen the Verdict of Peers — a high-tier leadership elimination match — had trickled down to the other cities. The citizens understood the reasoning. We were essentially betting the entire Crucible on a single room filled with five vengeful emperors.

Jeeves didn't let a single hour of the preparation week go to waste. Our office in the citadel had been converted into a tactical nexus, dominated by star-maps and frequency-logs. Irys, the representative from the Lament of Leaves, was invited after more security checks and Soul contracts. He was sitting in the high-backed visitor's chair, looking out of place in our basalt and starlight aesthetics. The lithe, many-fingered biped didn't waste essence on decorative magic.

They reached into a satchel of woven mercury and pulled out a series of uncalibrated data-slates.

"My master offers these not as a bribe, Lord Kai, but as a map through the dark," Irys spoke into the resonance, avoiding the audible air entirely. Jeeves leaned over the slates, his shadow-fingers flickering as he engaged the decoding subroutines. Beside him, Kasian manifested from the wall, his spectral eyes widening as the data-streams began to project onto the room's main hologram.

"Master Eren," Kasian whispered, his voice vibrating with a rare, hushed surprise.

"The Akashic records for this node, even while being heavily restricted, are an unparalleled source of information... but the depth of these dossiers exceeds any metadata I can currently scrape. They have captured the signatures of the Sponsors' primary agents." I leaned forward, my eyes tracking the text. The slates contained precise mana-geometric layouts for the Radiant Saint and his coalition.

They detailed the specific frequencies of the Hollow-Suns' defensive arrays and the elemental weakness of the Titan's Rest Sovereign — apparently, the giant king suffered from a harmonic instability whenever his Domain was matched with a high-intensity antigravity pulse.

"You've been thorough, Irys," I noted, eyeing the representative.

"This information is impressive. But I do wonder, where does a middle-seed Faction get the keys to the Arch-Judge's servants' records?"

"We are survivors, as I mentioned," Irys replied smoothly.

"And we are loyal to the Silence. My people have spent six ages recording the patterns of the 'Saintly' factions. We know that the artifact carried by the leader of the Radiant Echoes is not a simple weapon." I watched as a red schematic flickered onto the screen: [Eye of the Celestial].

"It possesses a desire of its own," Irys continued.

"It craves imitation. When faced with a Sovereign Authority it finds worthy, it attempts to overwrite the wielder's Domain with a reflection of the enemy's power. It isn't a weapon of deletion or aggression; it is a weapon of theft."

"An artifact of desire, huh… One that steals another's power… Interesting," I muttered, the word tasting of burnt ozone. I touched the Ring of Wrath and the Black Bracelet. If the coalition possessed a Fragment of Envy, which seems to be the case based on the schematic, then the 'Holy One' really wasn't playing within their own "rules" anymore. They were gathering the "despicably evil" Curses, just like I was.

"Kasian, confirm the resonance signatures for this artifact," I commanded.

"Matched, Master," Kasian reported, his ethereal face grave.

"It carries the same archaic weight as the Ring on your finger. Though distorted. Tainted by a lighter frequency." I thanked Irys and sent them to the residential tiers to rest under Joyce's guard. I had much to think about. The remaining five days were dedicated to the forge. But I didn't spend them with hammers and tongs. I spent them with the Crown. The weight of the leaden circlet on my brow was entirely conceptual, yet every time I engaged it, the cellar of the Sanctum physically warped.

To test the threshold of its expansion, I retrieved the containment crystal holding Kharonus from my desk. The Demonic Sovereign inside the crystal looked like a raging storm of compressed violet fire. As I sat him on the meditation floor and expanded my [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix], bolstered by the Crown, I offered a test of Sovereignty.

"Bow," I dictated, channeling the authority of Pride through my star-core. The gravity in the room didn't just increase; it fundamentally replaced the room's air. The obsidian walls turned to molten ash, then froze into statues of screaming gargoyles. Kharonus, an entity whose mass could previously flatten cities, didn't just stagger. The Demonic Lord hit the floor, his violet-core crackling with a terrifying sound like glass being crushed in a hydraulic press. He couldn't even summon his own Domain.

In the presence of the Crown's amplified Authority, he was merely furniture.

"By the seventh stage of... Lord," Kharonus wheezed from within the stone-shattering pressure, his form flickering frantically.

"I knew your appetite was excessive... but this presence... You are reaching into the Third Stage registers already. How have you done this…?" A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Just got lucky," I said, barely breaking a sweat.

"This power is significant, but other than the exorbitant mana cost, do you detect any drawbacks?"

"You are a void in logic, Lord, Kharonus rasped, looking up with one cracked violet eye.

"But you cannot win this war from behind a wall. Tell me... would you be interested in meeting the Original? He has probably already Ascended centuries ago. Seated in a Court that must not know the weight of your lineage." I stared at the demonic star, the Liquid Flame behind my ribs flaring in a display of icy dismissal.

"Why would I want an audience with the person who wanted to siphon my home planet, Kharonus? So I can thank him for the practice? I haven't forgotten how you acted when you were the one with power you know…"

"He has information regarding the Arch-Architecture that your Chronicle lacks," the demon promised, ignoring my hostility.

"A parlay between equals. With your permission, and after swearing any oath or contract you need me to, I can initiate the signal. Once you finish your war, of course."

"Maybe, we'll talk about it later," I noted, crushing the demon back into his crystal stasis with a micro-flicker of intent. I didn't have room in my ledger for parlays with untrustworthy demons. I spent the next forty-eight hours training with Bennu and Kaelen. I needed the Phoenix and the Star-Fox to act as my external resonance dampeners. Every time the Crown blazed at its peak, the mana cost threatened to exhaust even my Void-Star's multi-billion QS worth of Essence reserves within a dozen subjective hours.

I attempted to "throttle" the crown — asking it to function at fifty percent capacity so I could maintain a wider field for longer without emptying the silos. The [Symphony] screamed. A spike of literal mental irritation slammed into my temples. The Crown of Pride was genuinely offended by the concept of Mediocrity. A pulse of conceptual thought vibrated through my soul, shaking my very foundation. The crown refused the limitation.

It insisted on being the loudest light in the room, effectively throwing a tantrum that drained three hours' worth of my mana generation in a single heartbeat before I could silence it. I sighed, leaning against a basalt pillar, my forehead beaded with sweat.

"Well, it definitely earned its name," I whispered. Gluttony and Wrath were watching the interaction from their positions on my hands, both pulsing with a quiet, observant resonance. I could feel their amusement — two ancient siblings watching their brother show his true colors. Suddenly, the Ring of Wrath gave a violent, heated tug. I closed my eyes and sank into my Inner Geode. Something was moving near the central Pulsar. Standing at the edge of the liquid fire pool was a manifestation I hadn't summoned.

It was small — barely the size of a kitten — a sprite made of dancing black-red sparks and wisps of arterial fire. It had tiny, obsidian horns and eyes of pure crimson vacuum.

"Wrath?" I mused, manifesting my mental form beside the creature. The fire-sprite turned and chirped, a sound like a tiny forest fire starting in a gale. It was cute, looking almost harmless as it hovered over my shoulder.

"You're a bit small for being the representative of an ancient, eternal Curse, aren't you?" I chuckled, reaching out to pat its head. The air in the internal Geode immediately ignited. The sprite fury immediately unleashed. One micro-second it was a fluttering fire-moth; the next, the entire northern horizon of my soul exploded. The sprite expanded until it blotted out the Pulsar star itself, transforming into a towering, cataclysmic winged creature composed of screaming magma and void-ash.

The roar it let out buckled the walls of my [Silent Sanctuaries], and I had to utilize my reinforcement skills just to keep my mental form from being atomized by its proximity. I stared up at the mountain-sized inferno of the manifestation, and then looked down at the cute fire-fly it shrunk back into once its "Fury" had been proven.

"Duly noted," I muttered, shaking the soot off my spirit.

"No making fun of your manifested avatar's size..." The days of preparation concluded as the hub's countdown struck its final 24-hour mark. Ferra had solidified into an obsidian fortress, its skies filled with the humming shield-drones Silas had tuned and the leaching-relays of the Dweorg engineers. We had prepared every possible medical ward. On the dawn of the final engagement, the city of Bastion stood hushed. I led my core squad toward the primary Spire node — Anna, Lucas, Silas, Freja, and Rexxar.

I would have preferred to go in alone but they insisted on coming along, which I finally agreed to after promising that they would not take more than they could handle and prioritize their safety. Each of them was draped in the Reflux plate Leoric had crafted using materials from both Aegis and Bir-Z. They looked like characters of legends, their auras resonating with a unified stability that had been forged in a hundred brawls.

"This is the final floor, guys," I told them as we stood before the swirling portal. The Gateway to the Seventh Abyss wasn't a blue ripple. It was an extraction event. As we stepped through, the world of Ferra simply withdrew. We were launched into a dimension of high-frequency white noise that smoothed out into a spectacular and haunting vision. The Seventh Abyss was a colossal cathedral made of uncalibrated spatial glass. It floated in a starless, infinite dark.

The floor was a single, reflective plane that showed every timeline of your own past stretching behind you. Spaced across the chamber were six ornate, empty Thrones. Five for the Coalition leaders. One for the Crowned Vanguard. A few hundred miles away, I saw them. The five world-shaping monarchs stood together, their light illuminating the distant dark. The Radiant Saint was in the center, his three eyes burning with a zealotry that outshone the distant suns.

They were arriving not as competitors, but as the executors of an escaped convict. Through the [Void Perception], I mapped the arena. The Seventh Abyss possessed its own legislative grid. Zero connection to the outside world. No siphons or external tethers. Only the strength of the Lords and their five elite chosen units. I stepped onto the reflective glass, my boots creating ripples in my own reflection. Behind me, the silhouettes of my five companions stood like monolithic shards of shadow.

The Black-Red liquid of the [Voidflame] hissed against the Crown of pride wreathed in the subspace above my hair. I could feel the trinity of Curses purring as they recognized the scent of five fresh altars to feed upon. I adjusted my grip on my blades, looking across the white-noise chasm.

"Let's see if their heaven can handle a little smoke," I whispered to the team. The seventh bell began its toll, and for the first time since the day of the integration, my universe went truly, absolutely quiet. The Culling of the Sovereigns had begun.