The sky above the shattered pocket dimension wept.

It was not water that fell from the dark clouds. Instead, thick and glowing droplets of liquid gold poured down.

"Sizzle."

The golden rain hit the ruined marble of the Blackwood Estate. It hissed and released a heavy scent of burnt copper.

This was the Mana Weeping. The entire Apex Realm was reacting to the violent death of the Silverleaf Divine King. The environment itself was mourning the loss.

Arthur Sterling did not care about the weather at all. He stood over the fading pile of ash and crushed armor that used to be a God. His face was illuminated by the glaring crimson light of his system interface.

[CRITICAL WARNING!]

↳ Maximum-Level Threat Detected.

↳ Entities: The Heavenly Sovereigns have breached the sector conceptual boundary.

Arthur did not flinch. The middle management was dead, and now the board of directors was finally tuning in.

He wiped a streak of golden blood from his jawline and reached down into the rapidly cooling ashes of the Divine King. His fingers closed around a pulsing and impossibly dense sphere of silver light. It was the Omni-Core.

"System," Arthur muttered, his voice cold and entirely devoid of fear. "Eat it."

[Ding!]

↳ Consuming Divine King Core...

↳ 10,000x ROI Multiplier Activated!

"Fvck!" Arthur grunted loudly. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

His heavy boots cracked the marble beneath him as the pure essence of the Divine King slammed into his meridians. The multiplier turned what should have been a slow absorption process into an instantaneous flood of power.

His veins glowed with blinding white intensity. The sheer density of the energy was staggering. It violently pushed his internal reserves past their absolute breaking point.

The Primordial Flame in his chest roared. It hungrily devoured the silver mana and refined it into something infinitely darker and heavier.

[System Notification]

↳ Host internal energy has been maximized.

↳ Host has reached the absolute peak of the Divine Lord Realm. Half-step to Sovereignty achieved.

Arthur rolled his shoulders, and the sound of his joints popping echoed like thunderclaps in the quiet courtyard. He felt incredibly powerful.

His Dimensional Breaker Physique hummed as it easily contained the absurd payload that would have turned any other cultivator into a localized supernova.

[Ding!]

↳ Warning: The Heavenly Sovereigns tracking array is locking onto Host soul signature.

↳ Advice: Utilize the Prismatic Orb to initiate Absolute Stealth Protocols. Evade detection.

"Evade?" Arthur scoffed, and a dark smile stretched across his face. "I do not hide from my competitors. I bought this company. They are going to look at me, and they are going to know exactly who took it."

"System. Override stealth protocols. Maximize aura projection."

[System Action]

↳ Override Accepted. Broadcasting Host coordinates across the conceptual plane.

Arthur turned to look at his three assets. Sylvia Thorne, Morwenna, and Lyra were standing a few dozen yards away.

Even from that distance, the sheer crushing weight of the incoming cosmic scan was beginning to push them down. The air grew impossibly heavy. The golden rain stopped falling and remained suspended in mid-air by a strange gravity.

"Get over here," Arthur commanded. His voice easily sliced through the suffocating pressure.

Lyra was shivering uncontrollably. Her violet eyes were wide with primal terror.

"T-The Sovereigns," she gasped while struggling to walk. "They are looking at us. We are going to die. We are going to be erased!"

"Nobody is getting erased on my watch," Arthur said confidently.

Sylvia and Morwenna flanked him immediately. They grabbed Lyra by the arms and dragged her into Arthur’s immediate airspace.

The moment the three women stepped within five feet of him, the crushing pressure vanished. Arthur projected his newly peaked Divine Lord aura outward, wrapping it around his Queens like an impenetrable shield.

"Hold onto me," Arthur ordered.

Sylvia wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his back.

Morwenna clung to his side, her abyssal tattoos flaring as she buried her face in his shoulder.

Lyra trembled and grabbed fistfuls of his dark coat because her knees were weak.

The absolute stability of Arthur’s existence was a perfect anchor against the storm. They looked at him with complete reverence. He wasn’t just a man anymore.

He was a fortress.

"BOOM!"

The sky above the Blackwood Estate did not tear. It simply ceased to exist.

The clouds, the golden rain, and the stars all vanished. They were replaced by an infinite void of pure conceptual weight.

Then a massive invisible eye opened in the cosmos. It did not have a physical form, but every living cell in Arthur’s body could feel it. It was a gaze so ancient that it viewed the multiverse as nothing more than a petri dish.

The Heavenly Sovereigns were scanning the island.

The eye focused on Arthur. The weight of an entire dimension pressed down on his shoulders to force him to his knees. The cosmic observer expected the anomaly to bow and shatter.

Arthur tilted his head back and stared directly into the invisible eye. He did not bow. He did not even bend a fraction of an inch.

"You are looking at the wrong guy," Arthur snarled.

He did not draw the Ebonheart Sword. He just raised his right hand and pointed his index and middle fingers directly at the sky. He funneled his newly augmented power into a single point.

[System Ability]

↳ Initiating Domain-Level Sword Intent.

↳ Fusing with Conceptual Element: Primordial Flame.

"Pierce," Arthur whispered.

"SHAAAAANK!"

A beam of pitch-black sword intent erupted from his fingertips. It was covered in the multi-colored fire of the foundational spark. It acted like a needle of absolute order piercing straight into a dimension of arrogant apathy.

The attack shot upward at the speed of light. It completely ignored the distance between the physical world and the Sovereigns domain.

The beam struck the invisible eye dead center.

For a fraction of a second, the universe held its breath.

"RRAAAAAAAAGH!"

A mind-shattering roar of pure agony echoed across the firmament. The invisible eye violently recoiled because the sheer heat of the Primordial Flame burned its conceptual retina.

The void in the sky shuddered and violently snapped shut. It was unable to handle the pain of a mortal striking back.

The sky returned to normal, and the dark clouds rolled back into place. The golden rain began to fall again, hitting the ground with soft splatters.

The suffocating pressure was completely gone.

Arthur slowly lowered his hand, and a cold smirk played on his lips. The Heavenly Sovereigns had looked down on him, and he had poked them directly in the eye.

"Did... did you just blind a Sovereign?" Lyra whispered. Her voice cracked as she slowly let go of his coat and stared up at him as if he were a walking myth.

"Just a warning shot," Arthur replied casually.

He turned his back on the sky and walked toward the center of the ruined courtyard. His boots crunched over the shattered marble. He approached the massive dark iron throne he had brought from the Vanguard Bastion. It was the seat he had placed over the ashes of the Blackwood Patriarch.

He sat down heavily and rested his elbows on the armrests while steepling his fingers. He looked at the system interface hovering in his vision and read the fading red threat warnings.

The board of directors knew he was here now. They knew he had the capital, the firepower, and the absolute lack of respect for their authority.

Sylvia, Morwenna, and Lyra approached the throne and stood dutifully at his sides. They were no longer just survivors. They were the elite executive staff of an empire that was about to go to war with the heavens.

"They know we are here," Arthur said. His dark eyes gleamed with ruthless anticipation. "Good."