The death of the Karma Sovereign sent a violent metaphysical shudder through the absolute center of the Apex Realm.

The cosmic tear behind the remaining deities pulsed erratically. The harvested souls screamed loudly as the ritual destabilized.

"You dare!" a loud voice roared. It sounded exactly like the collision of tectonic plates.

The Sovereign of Space stepped forward.

He was a towering imposing figure. His physical form was draped in heavy cloaks made of compressed swirling nebulas.

Galaxies seemed to blink in and out of existence within the fabric of his robes.

He looked down at the shattered ice that used to be his peer. His face twisted into a mask of incomprehensible fury.

"You filthy localized glitch!" the Space Sovereign bellowed angrily. The air around him violently warped.

"You think because you killed that weaver of parlor tricks that you can stand against the physical dimensions themselves? I am Space! I am the canvas upon which you exist!"

Arthur Sterling didn’t even blink his eyes.

He casually rolled his shoulders. The Ebonheart Cube floating beside his head snapped quickly into the form of his pitch black longsword.

"You are just real estate," Arthur corrected smoothly. He pointed the tip of his blade straight at the towering God. "And you are taking up valuable market share."

"Kill them all!" the Space Sovereign commanded.

From the shifting folds of his nebula cloaks, dozens of elite spatial warping Apex Guards poured out rapidly.

They were heavily armored zealots. They wielded weapons that literally cut through the fabric of distance itself.

They swarmed out immediately. They aimed to overwhelm Arthur and his Vanguard completely.

Before Arthur could even issue a single order, the shadows beneath his feet boiled over.

Morwenna erupted from the darkness. Her liquid gold eyes blazed with predatory joy.

She didn’t use any weapon at all. Her arms elongated and coated in hyper dense abyssal matter. She slammed directly into the front line of the Elite Guards.

"Squelch! Crack!"

"These ones are mine, Emperor!" Morwenna laughed wildly. Her claws ripped a spatial guard entirely in half while completely ignoring his teleportation shields.

A fraction of a second later, Lyra blurred into existence right behind the guard formation.

The Stardusk rogue moved with terrifying efficiency. Her daggers flashed brightly as she severed hamstrings and slit throats before the Gods even knew she was there.

"Just leave the loot intact!" Lyra yelled loudly. She kicked a dying guard straight into the abyss.

Arthur watched his employees handle the extras with a satisfied smirk. He turned his attention back to the CEO of Space.

"Looks like it is just you and me, big guy," Arthur spoke. He took a slow step forward.

"I will banish you to the Void Between Worlds!" the Space Sovereign shrieked.

"You will drift in the graveyard of ascended failures for eternity!"

The deity slammed his hands together forcefully.

The world instantly went violently sideways!

Gravity completely inverted. The distance between Arthur and the Sovereign compressed from a hundred yards to less than an inch. Then it instantly expanded to a thousand miles!

The obsidian platform folded upward rapidly. It turned into a jagged three dimensional maze of sheer drops and crushing pressures.

It was a mind bending and physics shattering assault. It was designed to completely break a mortal spatial orientation and crush their internal organs instantly.

Arthur just sighed heavily.

The system in his mind was already screaming loudly. It fed off the Proxy Binder he had established with the Sovereign. It also utilized the Spatial Core he had ripped from the Blackwood Patriarch.

[Ding!]

[Target Heavenly Sovereign of Space has cast Dimensional Collapse.]

[10000x ROI Multiplier Activated!]

[System Ability Upgraded]

↳ Gained: Supreme Insight into Omniversal Spatial Geometry.

Arthur’s brain processed the shifting labyrinth in a mere fraction of a microsecond.

To the Space Sovereign, he thought he was manipulating reality.

To Arthur, who now possessed ten thousand times the spatial comprehension of the God attacking him, the Sovereign was just poorly drawing lines on a piece of paper.

"You are really bad at math," Arthur stated clearly.

His voice didn’t echo at all. It bypassed the spatial folds entirely and projected directly into the Sovereign’s ears.

Arthur didn’t try to fly up. He didn’t try to dodge either.

He simply walked forward.

As a jagged spire of compressed space shot directly toward his chest, Arthur casually reached out with his left hand and swiped it away.

"Shatter!"

The spatial construct broke apart like cheap sugar glass!

Arthur’s Dimensional Breaker Physique combined with his absolute mastery of space made him entirely immune to the God’s domain.

He strolled easily through the inverted gravity. His heavy boots found solid footing on completely empty air. He rewrote the local physics with every single step he took.

The Space Sovereign’s eyes widened in absolute terror!

His face immediately paled like he had seen a ghost.

He threw everything he had at the approaching monster. Black holes, localized supernovas, tesseracts of infinite crushing weight.

Arthur walked straight through all of it.

He was like a bored auditor walking through a failing factory. He was completely unimpressed by the frantic attempts to hide the bad numbers.

"How?!" the Sovereign gasped in horror. He stumbled backward awkwardly as Arthur closed the distance. "I dictate distance! I dictate reality!"

"I dictate the buyout," Arthur snarled viciously.

He blurred instantly. He utilized his Transcendent Spatial Velocity.

He didn’t just cross the distance. He completely deleted it!

He appeared directly inside the Sovereign’s guard.

Before the God could even attempt to fold space and retreat, Arthur’s left hand shot out rapidly. His fingers dug brutally into the Sovereign’s forearm.

The deity nebula cloak flared wildly. It tried to warp Arthur’s hand away. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"No," Arthur commanded sharply.

His aura flared violently with the blazing multi colored heat of the Primordial Flame.

He didn’t pull the arm. He gripped the very concept of the space occupying the Sovereign limb. Then he violently ripped the dimension itself apart!

"Riiiip! Squelch!"

The Space Sovereign unleashed a bloodcurdling cosmic scream!

Arthur physically tore the God’s arm completely out of its socket. He pulled the compressed nebulas and starlight flesh completely free.

Golden blood geysered wildly into the void.

Arthur tossed the severed glowing limb over his shoulder like a piece of useless trash.

[Ding!]

[System Resources]

↳ Item Acquired: Void Step Boots.

↳ Concept: Omnipresence.

The Space Sovereign didn’t try to fight back anymore.

The absolute soul crushing realization that he was entirely outmatched completely broke his mind.

He clutched his bleeding stump desperately. His eyes darted frantically toward the massive cosmic tear behind him. It was the gateway to the Celestial Court.

"I yield! I withdraw!" the Sovereign screamed loudly.

He turned his back on his realm and rocketed straight toward the tear. He was abandoning his domain, his pride, and his peers just to survive.

"We do not take resignations," Arthur said coldly as he watched him run.

Before Arthur could even raise his sword, a blinding streak of golden light tore across the obsidian platform.

"Swoosh!"

Aurelia the fallen Valkyrie completely intercepted the fleeing God.

Her shattered wings had been replaced by a terrifying dark radiance. It was a fusion of her holy magic and Arthur’s corrupting Primordial Flame.

She moved with flawless and lethal precision. She materialized directly in front of the cosmic tear. She completely blocked the Sovereign escape route.

"Move, you broken bird!" the God roared angrily. He tried to force his way past her.

Aurelia’s face was a mask of cold unyielding discipline. She didn’t flinch at the God’s command.

She gripped the Spear of Longinus tightly in both hands. Her eyes burned with absolute loyalty to her new Emperor.

"The Heavens are closed," Aurelia whispered softly.

"Shaaaank!"

She drove the conceptual spear forward violently!

It bypassed the Sovereign panicked spatial shields entirely. It plunged deep into the center of his chest and erupted straight out from his back.

The God gasped loudly. His eyes went wide as the dark radiance of the spear incinerated his core completely from the inside out.

Aurelia ripped the spear free quickly. She let the dead Sovereign of Space collapse heavily onto the glass floor.

She turned toward Arthur and bowed her head in perfect military submission.

Arthur smiled slightly. He rested his black sword on his shoulder.

"Good employee."