Chapter 97: Battlefield Scavenge Complete
The Abyssal Court was no longer just a conquered dimension. It was a cosmic slaughterhouse.
The radioactive violet smog that choked the sky was slowly beginning to thin, leaving behind a bruised, heavy twilight. Scattered across the sprawling obsidian courtyards and jutting from the jagged spires of the Tartarus Vaults were the broken remains of two hundred and fifty solar galleons. The once-blinding celestial bronze hulls were currently hissing, violently melting under the residual acid rain, their golden sails reduced to torn, necrotic violet rags.
It was a graveyard of heaven’s pride.
"Sector Four is clear, move the wreckage to the foundries!" Ariel’s voice echoed across the courtyard, amplified by the heavy shadows of her Legion’s Authority.
The Abyssal Valkyrie stood atop the severed prow of a dreadnought, her six void-metal wings folded sharply behind her. Below, ten thousand Void-iron Brutes moved with terrifying, mechanical efficiency. They wielded massive obsidian saws and heavy chains, actively dismantling the celestial warships. Whenever a surviving legionnaire of the First Choir was found trapped in the rubble, they were not taken prisoner. They were summarily executed, their glowing celestial cores ripped out and tossed into massive iron vats to be processed for EXP and raw mana.
Kaelen stood on the high balcony of the Zenith Spire, looking down at his expanding empire.
The heavy, intoxicating gravity of his Level 110 Primordial Sovereign core pulsed in a slow, rhythmic heartbeat that synchronized with the entire dimension. He could physically feel the hyper-dense, chaotic weight of the Original Sin settling into his bones.
[System Notification: Battlefield Scavenge Complete.]
[Resources Acquired: 250,000 Tons of Celestial Bronze. 1,400 Solar Plasma Batteries. 85,000 Celestial Cores (Various Grades).]
[Empire Status: Resource Overflow.]
"It is almost too much meat for the grinder, Master."
He didn’t turn around as Lyriel materialized from his shadow. The Void-Stalker stepped up beside him, wiping the residual golden blood from her hyper-dense daggers. Her glowing purple eyes looked down at the industrial butchery below. "The Brutes will take weeks to break down this much celestial bronze. The foundries are bottlenecked."
"Let them work, Stalker," he rumbled smoothly, resting his large hands on the obsidian railing. "We are no longer fighting a guerrilla war. We are building an industrial military complex. Every ounce of that bronze will be weaponized."
Suddenly, a localized explosion of violent violet light erupted from the base of the spire.
"I solved it! I mathematically solved it!"
Elara bounded up the spiraling staircase of the Zenith Spire, completely bypassing the physical stairs by using small, localized alchemical explosions under her boots. The Forge-Master landed heavily on the balcony, completely covered in soot, grease, and streaks of golden blood. Her emerald eyes were whited out, spinning with frantic, manic calculations.
She was carrying a massive, ripped-out solar engine in one hand, dragging it across the pristine stone, and a jagged sheet of celestial bronze in the other.
"Solved what, Elara?" he asked, turning to face his manic alchemist, a dark smirk touching his lips.
"The structural paradox!" she shrieked in absolute delight. She dropped the heavy bronze sheet with a deafening clang and practically vibrated with excitement. "Master, I have been analyzing the hull composition of their dreadnoughts. Celestial bronze isn’t just metal. It is hyper-condensed faith mathematically bound to kinetic trauma!"
She hoisted the massive solar engine up. It was currently sputtering, its holy light dying.
"The Tartarus Vaults have been forging Void-iron, which is incredibly dense and perfect for our Brutes," she explained rapidly, her words blurring together. "But Void-iron is too heavy for large-scale aviation. The galleons we pulled out of the sky were buoyant because the Goddess’s magic inherently rejects gravity. But look!"
She slammed her soot-stained hand against the solar engine. "Alchemical Override: Abyssal Rot!"
The dark mana violently injected into the engine. The holy gold instantly flashed to a deep, radioactive violet. But instead of exploding, the engine began to hum with a terrifying, low-frequency vibration. It didn’t reject gravity—it conceptually crushed it. The engine began to float, actively warping the air around it with heavy, entropic weight.
"If I melt down these two hundred and fifty galleons," she giggled, her smile stretching from ear to ear, "and re-forge the celestial bronze using the unfiltered dark mana of the Original Sin... we won’t just have floating ships, Master. We will have Abyssal Dreadnoughts."
Seraphina stalked onto the balcony, her dragon-glass armor still radiating the immense heat of her slaughter. She leaned against the doorway, her corrupted golden eyes locking onto the floating, corrupted engine.
"Dreadnoughts," Seraphina purred, licking her lips. "How big, alchemist?"
"Massive," Elara promised, her eyes flashing. "Bigger than the Solar Vanguard’s flagships. Plated in void-metal, powered by corrupted holy cores, and armed with kinetic entropy cannons. I can build you a naval fleet that will conceptually devour the gray static of the Fold."
He stepped forward. The sheer density of his aura caused the floating engine to shudder, bowing to his absolute authority. He reached out and placed his hand on Elara’s soot-stained cheek, his thumb brushing away a smudge of ash.
"You are a terrifying genius, Elara," he whispered, the multi-tonal resonance of his voice dripping with dark praise.
Elara’s breath hitched, her manic energy instantly melting into trembling, submissive devotion under his heavy touch. "Anything to pave your path, my Demigod."
He looked out over the burning courtyards. The heavens were fracturing. By now, the survivors of the fleet were arriving at the higher Spheres, spreading the horrifying truth of the Original Sin. The Goddess’s perfect, infallible pantheon was about to tear itself apart in paranoia and zealotry.
"Draw up the blueprints, Grand Architect," he commanded, officially bestowing the title. "Let the Brutes break down the fleet. For the next week, the Abyssal Court will close its dimensional gates. Let heaven panic. Let them bleed each other over the secrets we unburied."
He turned back to his Harem—to Ariel organizing the armies below, to Elara with her world-ending blueprints, to Lyriel guarding his shadow, and to Seraphina, who was looking at him with a starvation that mere violence could no longer satisfy.
"We have broken their Vanguard," he declared softly, his pitch-black eyes settling on Seraphina’s flushed face. "We have earned a moment to breathe. And to feast."