Chapter 106: Anvil of Heaven
The dimensional barrier of the Fourth Choir did not shatter like glass. It melted.
As The Eater of Dawn tore through the final layer of the celestial static, the Abyssal Dreadnought was instantly engulfed in a wave of ambient heat so absolute it conceptually burned the concept of cold out of existence.
This was the Sun-Forge.
Through the massive forward viewport, Kaelen looked out over a hyper-volcanic hellscape that stretched into infinity. There were no white marble cathedrals or floating crystal platforms here. The ground was made of jagged, indestructible star-metal, carved into colossal trenches and mountainous anvils. Flowing through these trenches were wide, roaring rivers of liquid gold—the harvested, hyper-condensed plasma of dying suns.
It was a dimension of raw, suffocating industry, bathed in a permanent, blinding orange glare.
[Warning: Extreme Environmental Hazard.]
[Ambient Temperature: Incalculable. Unshielded entities will suffer localized atomization.]
"Oh, it’s spicy!" Elara shrieked from the command console, her alchemical brands flaring with a violent, radioactive violet light as she desperately synced with the ship’s logic core. "The hull is holding, Master! The Event Horizon passive is actively drinking the thermal radiation! We are conceptually heavier than the heat!"
"Keep the shields anchored, Elara," he rumbled, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the horizon. "Because the heat is not the only thing waiting for us."
Hovering above the sprawling rivers of golden plasma, arrayed in a massive, mathematically perfect blockade, were the Second and Third Solar Fleets.
Two hundred pristine solar galleons and dreadnoughts, their sails burning with blinding holy light, had formed a defensive wall across the primary airspace. But the fleets were only the secondary defense.
Wading waist-deep in the rivers of liquid solar plasma below were the true guardians of the Fourth Choir.
They were Celestial Golems—towering, Exalted-tier constructs standing fifty feet tall, forged from shifting, molten gold and heavy celestial bronze. They had no wings, only massive, hyper-dense kinetic hammers that rested on their shoulders.
"They brought a lot of meat to the grinder," Seraphina purred, stepping up to the viewport. The Demigoddess of Entropic War was practically salivating, her Eclipse Aura hissing violently against the thermal pressure of the dimension.
"They are protecting their armory, Seraphina," Ariel stated coldly, stepping up beside Kaelen, her six void-metal wings fully unfurled. "If we take this forge, we cut off the Pantheon’s supply of celestial weapons. Grand Purifier Malachai knows this is a choke point."
A telepathic broadcast, heavy with Exalted-tier authority, violently pierced the bridge.
"Heretic. You have breached the holy forge. Your corrupted metal will be melted down, and your soul will be cast into the dross."
He didn’t bother responding with words. He tapped into the heavy, intoxicating gravity of his Level 110 Primordial Sovereign core and projected his aura directly outward, actively suppressing the blinding light of the entire enemy fleet for a fraction of a second. It was a localized eclipse, a promise of absolute consequence.
"Ariel," he commanded, drawing his Void-Steel longsword. "I want that ground. I want those trenches. We are not going to trade artillery fire in the sky."
"Yes, my Emperor!" she saluted, her corrupted blue eyes burning with tactical precision. She spun around, broadcasting her voice down to the lower decks. "Ascendant Legions! Brace for planetary drop!"
The Eater of Dawn didn’t slow down. It violently accelerated.
The massive, three-hundred-yard Abyssal Dreadnought plunged directly toward the hyper-volcanic surface, aggressively bypassing the firing arcs of the Second Solar Fleet.
"Open fire! Eradicate the anomaly!" the celestial admirals panicked, realizing the dreadnought was not engaging in traditional naval warfare.
Thousands of concentrated solar plasma beams erupted from the golden galleons, raining down on the black ship. But Elara’s Event Horizon devoured the strikes, violently pulling the holy light into the necrotic violet runes of the hull and converting the kinetic trauma directly into speed.
With a deafening, seismic crash that actively shook the entire dimension, The Eater of Dawn slammed its heavy Void-Steel ram directly into the star-metal plains, grinding to a halt right at the edge of a massive trench filled with liquid gold.
The sheer kinetic impact sent a localized shockwave of displaced plasma violently crashing over the Celestial Golems.
"Drop the ramps!" he roared.
The massive, heavy iron boarding ramps slammed down onto the superheated stone.
The silence of the Sun-Forge was shattered by the terrifying, rhythmic march of ten thousand Void-iron Brutes. Under the crushing buff of Ariel’s Legion’s Authority, the heavy infantry poured out of the dreadnought, their pitch-black tower shields locked together in an unbreakable phalanx. They didn’t burn. Their Void-iron armor, forged in the Tartarus Vaults and corrupted by the Original Sin, absorbed the localized heat like a sponge.
"Hold the line!" a Forge-Angel commander shrieked, hovering above the trenches, raising a blazing spear. "Do not let the rot touch the plasma!"
A massive Celestial Golem waded forward, raising a hammer the size of a cathedral, aiming to conceptually crush the entire front line of Kaelen’s phalanx.
Before the hammer could fall, a singularity of catastrophic black fire erupted from the dreadnought’s ramp.
Seraphina didn’t jump; she fired herself like a kinetic missile directly at the fifty-foot-tall construct. She collided with the golem’s chest, her dragon-glass armor conceptually nullifying the sheer, unadulterated heat of its molten body.
"You are too slow!" Seraphina roared, her corrupted golden eyes wide with euphoric bloodlust.
She swung the Eclipse Breaker upward in a devastating vertical arc. The hyper-dense void-diamond blade effortlessly sheared through the molten gold and celestial bronze, entirely severing the massive golem’s hammer-arm at the shoulder. Golden plasma violently sprayed into the air like a ruptured artery.
[Passive Triggered: Kinetic Devourer.]
[Seraphina has siphoned massive thermal mana. Base Strength +50%.]
The golem let out a mechanical, staticky groan, staggering backward into the river of fire.
"Push into the trenches!" Ariel commanded from the sky, raining heavy, localized shadows down upon the celestial infantry attempting to flank the Brutes. "Crush their golems! Butcher their angels!"
The Void-iron Brutes aggressively advanced, dropping into the trenches and violently clashing with the heavily armored Forge-Angels. It was brutal, close-quarters trench warfare. Meat cleavers severed golden wings; void-halberds shattered pristine solar shields. The pristine, elegant magic of the heavens was being aggressively dragged into the mud and blood of the Abyss.
On the bridge, he watched the meat grinder commence with absolute satisfaction.
"They are bringing the galleons around to bombard our ground troops, Master," Lyriel whispered from his shadow, her eyes tracking the movements of the Second Solar Fleet above.
Kaelen’s dark smirk widened. "Elara. The Eater of Dawn is a siege engine. Show the Goddess what her bleached mana looks like when we fire it back."
"With pleasure, my Demigod!" Elara shrieked, slamming her soot-stained hands onto the firing console. "Entropic Gravity Cannons: Fire!"
The massive, jagged cannons along the sides of the dreadnought roared to life, unleashing hyper-condensed spheres of necrotic violet gravity directly into the sky, aimed squarely at the pristine golden galleons of the First Choir.