Chapter 95: Gravity of Ambition
The deck of The Spear of Dawn groaned under the conflicting conceptual weights of the two titans.
To Dominus Valerius, the Abyssal Emperor was not just a Heretic; he was a localized black hole. The sheer, suffocating gravity radiating from Kaelen’s Level 109 Primordial Sovereign core warped the falling black hail, causing the frozen acid to orbit him like a miniature, lethal asteroid belt.
Valerius did not yield. He was a Warlord of the First Choir, bred for absolute kinetic dominance.
"You are nothing but a thief wearing stolen dark!" Valerius bellowed.
The Warlord gripped his massive solar halberd with both hands. The celestial bronze of his armor flared to a blinding, radioactive gold as he channeled the pure, unadulterated kinetic force of a dying star directly into his weapon. He didn’t just swing at Kaelen; he attempted to conceptually sever the space Kaelen occupied.
"Solar Axiom: Sun-Splitter!"
A crescent wave of hyper-condensed golden plasma violently erupted from the halberd, moving so fast it actively ignited the oxygen on the deck.
Kaelen didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t step back. He simply raised his left hand, his palm open, his pitch-black eyes entirely devoid of concern.
"I am not a thief, Valerius," he rumbled, the heavy, multi-tonal resonance of his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the plasma. "I am the consequence."
The golden wave of plasma hit Kaelen’s bare palm—and instantly shattered.
It didn’t explode. It didn’t burn him. The God-Eater authority aggressively devoured the kinetic intent behind the strike, violently ripping the holy mana apart and pulling it directly into Kaelen’s core. The Warlord’s ultimate attack dissipated into a harmless shower of warm golden sparks.
Valerius’s eyes widened in pure, uncalculated shock. "Impossible. That was raw celestial mass!"
"It was an appetizer," he smirked.
Before Valerius could recoil, Kaelen aggressively closed the distance. He bypassed the physical space entirely, stepping directly into the Warlord’s guard. Kaelen reached out and clamped his hand directly onto the thick celestial bronze breastplate of the Exalted-tier angel.
He didn’t punch. He simply let the raw, unfiltered weight of the Original Sin bleed through his fingertips.
"Black Genesis: Localized Event Horizon."
The celestial bronze didn’t just break; it violently folded inward. Valerius let out a harrowing, blood-curdling scream as the gravity directly surrounding his chest forcefully multiplied by ten thousand. The hyper-dense armor crumpled like tinfoil, instantly crushing the Warlord’s ribs and aggressively pulling his own golden plasma back into his lungs.
He effortlessly lifted the twenty-foot-tall, heavily armored Warlord off the deck with one hand, holding him suspended by his crushed breastplate.
Behind them, the slaughter was a masterpiece of visceral fantasy violence.
Seraphina was an unstoppable force of nature. The Eclipse Vanguard danced through the surviving heavy infantry, laughing with unadulterated, intoxicating euphoria. Her Eclipse Breaker sheared through shields and limbs with equal indifference, painting the bronze deck in boiling golden blood.
"Yes! Bleed for me!" Seraphina roared, her corrupted golden eyes glowing through the acid storm as she effortlessly decapitated two legionnaires in a single, devastating backhand sweep.
[Hostile Entities Eliminated: Celestial Legionnaire (Level 105) x 24.]
[Continuous Area-of-Effect EXP Share: Active. +4,800,000 EXP.]
Below the flagship, the true scale of the Abyssal Court’s planetary defense was actively tearing the armada apart.
Ariel stood at the apex of the Zenith Spire, her six void-metal wings flared to their absolute limit. The Legion’s Authority she wielded synchronized perfectly with the ten thousand Void-iron Brutes manning the siege engines.
"Reel them into the meat grinder!" Ariel’s telepathic command echoed across the dimension.
The massive winches in the Tartarus Vaults violently engaged. The thick, void-metal chains that had harpooned the first fifty solar galleons actively tightened, shrieking against the gears. Slowly, agonizingly, the colossal golden ships were aggressively dragged out of the sky.
The celestial fleet desperately fired their solar thrusters, trying to break the chains, but the hyper-dense Void-iron simply absorbed the heat. The galleons were pulled down into the churning, alchemical smog, where thousands of Abyssal Brutes were waiting with jagged cleavers and heavy siege axes.
"Look at your fleet, Dominus," he whispered, holding the dying Warlord over the railing of his own flagship.
Valerius choked on his own golden blood, his eyes frantically tracking the fifty galleons being actively pulled into the black foundries below, the screams of his legionnaires echoing up through the toxic storm.
"The... the Goddess... will unmake you..." Valerius spat, defiant to his last breath.
"She is welcome to try," he replied coldly.
Kaelen tightened his grip and violently violently ripped the Warlord’s celestial core directly out of his chest.
The Dominus of the First Choir convulsed once before his massive, broken body went entirely limp. Kaelen casually tossed the corpse over the railing, letting it plummet into the heavy smog below.
[Hostile Entity Eliminated: Dominus Valerius (Level 130). +55,000,000 EXP.]
[Level Up! Host is now Level 110.]
[Milestone Reached: Ascendant Authority Unlocked.]
He crushed the glowing golden core in his fist, instantly devouring its raw kinetic energy. He turned back to the center of the deck, where Seraphina was kicking the last severed head into the acid storm.
"The flagship is secured, Master," Seraphina purred, resting her heavy blade over her shoulder. Her skin was flushed, radiating intense heat from the slaughter.
Lyriel abruptly dropped from the shadows cast by the mainmast, her daggers dripping with the golden blood of the ship’s navigators.
"The helm is dead, Emperor," she reported seamlessly. "But there are two hundred and fifty galleons remaining in formation. They are pulling back to maximum artillery range. They realize close combat is a death sentence."
He looked up through the violently churning black clouds. The remaining celestial galleons were glowing brightly, aggressively charging a synchronized, fleet-wide orbital bombardment. They intended to glass the entire Sphere of Judgment from afar.
"They think distance will save them," he smirked, walking toward the prow of the flagship.
"Elara," he broadcasted over the Abyssal Trinity link, his voice laced with absolute, world-ending anticipation. "The solar shields on this flagship are down. Can you invert the gravitational tether of our anchors?"
Down in the courtyard, Elara’s manic giggle crackled over the link. "Oh, Master... you want to use the flagship as a bowling ball, don’t you? I can mathematically invert the chains to launch this vessel straight back up into their formation!"
"Do it," he ordered, drawing his Void-Steel longsword for the first time. "Seraphina. Lyriel. Brace yourselves. We are going to board the rest of the fleet."