"Kill him!" one of the remaining Enforcers shrieked. He raised his crackling stun baton.

They did not get the chance to swing.

"Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!"

Lyra blurred through the air. Her Stardusk daggers flashed brightly.

She severed the hamstrings of two guards in a fraction of a second. She dropped them to the golden clouds.

Before they could scream, Morwenna stepped forward. Her abyssal claws casually

decapitated them both in a single fluid motion.

Sylvia simply raised a finger. A localized spike of Absolute Zero instantly froze the fourth guard solid.

His internal organs crystallized into useless ice.

It was over in two seconds.

The elite security patrol of the Celestial Court had been completely butchered by a group of ascended trash. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Arthur dropped the dead leader’s corpse. He did not waste time gloating.

He walked over to the frozen guard Sylvia had incapacitated.

The man was still alive. His eyes darted frantically in sheer panic behind his visor, but his body was completely immobilized.

Arthur crouched down. He placed his hand flat against the terrified Enforcer’s chestplate.

"System. Initiate Binder," Arthur commanded.

[Ding!]

[Target Identified: Celestial Enforcer. Rank: Celestial Mortal.]

[Target Bound. Initiating System Feedback Loop.]

Arthur smirked. He did not kill the man.

He grabbed the frozen Enforcer by the collar and casually tossed him into his spatial ring.

The internal pocket dimension would keep the man perfectly preserved in stasis.

He would act as a permanent living battery.

"Let us see what the local currency looks like," Arthur murmured.

[Siphoning passive Celestial Qi from Bound Target.]

[10,000x ROI Multiplier Activated!]

Arthur’s eyes rolled back in his head. "Fuck," he grunted.

His heavy boots cracked the solid gold clouds beneath him.

A torrential flood of pure Celestial Qi exploded into his meridians.

The multiplier turned the passive energy generation of a low level guard into a

cataclysmic tsunami of power.

His newly reformatted core expanded violently.

The ambient laws of the Celestial Court tried to suppress him. But the sheer volume of his internal energy bullied the external physics into submission.

His muscles grew dense. His bones hummed with a high pitched frequency that

vibrated through the air.

[Ding!]

[Host has bypassed the Celestial Mortal stage.]

[Host has reached: Celestial Knight.]

Arthur let out a long heavy breath. A cloud of hyper dense white steam escaped his lips.

He rolled his shoulders. He felt the immense crushing power of the Celestial Knight tier settling comfortably into his Dimensional Breaker Physique.

It had taken him less than five minutes in the new dimension to completely break the local power scaling.

"Strip their armor," Arthur ordered his Queens. He gestured to the dead guards.

"We are going undercover."

Ten minutes later, Arthur and his team were walking down a sprawling and pristine marble concourse.

They headed toward a massive domed outpost in the distance.

They wore the seamless white armor of the Enforcers. Their faces were entirely obscured by the mirrored visors.

"The architecture here is incredibly inefficient," Sylvia noted. Her voice was

transmitted through the squad’s internal comms.

"Too much open space. Terrible for defensive choke points."

"They do not expect to be attacked," Arthur replied smoothly. "Arrogance breeds

terrible security."

They approached the outpost doors. Two heavily armed guards stood at attention.

Arthur did not slow down. He marched right up to the scanner. He projected the stolen badge of the squad leader he had killed.

The console beeped a pleasant green. The doors hissed open.

They walked into a bustling high tech command center.

Dozens of bureaucrats and low level nobles in flowing silk robes were monitoring

holographic screens.

They tracked the slave arrays and managed the sector logistics.

Arthur immediately spotted his next target.

A plump and highly decorated bureaucrat was yelling at a subordinate near a primary data terminal.

The man clearly had high level clearance.

Arthur walked up behind the screaming manager. He did not draw a weapon.

He just bumped his shoulder against the man’s back, seemingly by accident.

"Watch it, you clumsy fool," the bureaucrat snapped. He turned around angrily.

Arthur patted the man’s shoulder in a gesture of fake apology. "My mistake, sir."

[Ding!]

[Target Celestial Bureaucrat Bound.]

[Siphoning passive knowledge: Languages, Local Laws, Outpost Layouts.]

Arthur’s brain was instantly flooded with everything he needed to know.

The Celestial Court operated on a sickeningly rigid caste system. Bloodlines

dictated everything.

If you were not born a Noble, you were dirt.

"Sylvia," Arthur whispered over the comms. "Terminal three. It is unsecured. Get me the corporate files."

The Arch Mage nodded. She slipped away from the group.

Her movements were graceful and entirely unnoticed by the arrogant staff.

She approached the terminal. With a few rapid and incredibly complex magical inputs, she bypassed the Celestial encryption in seconds.

She slipped a data pad into her armor. She caught Arthur’s eye across the room.

Beneath her visor, she offered a triumphant conspiratorial smirk.

"Good work," Arthur praised. "Let us grab a drink and review the files."

They exited the command center. They made their way to a lavish open air tavern

situated on the edge of the outpost.

The establishment was filled with off duty guards and minor nobles sipping glowing nectar.

Arthur and his team found a secluded booth in the corner. They took off their helmets and were finally able to breathe freely.

Just as Sylvia placed the stolen data pad on the table, a shadow fell over them.

"Well, well. Look at this," a slurring arrogant voice called out.

A fat and heavily jeweled Celestial Noble stood by their booth.

His face was flushed with expensive wine. His eyes were locked entirely on Lyra.

The Stardusk rogue was wearing her tight undershirt. Her beauty drew unwanted

attention.

"A little commoner guard," the Noble sneered. He reached a sweaty hand out to

grab Lyra’s face.

"You are far too pretty to be wearing that cheap armor. Come back to my estate.

I will show you what real divine merit feels like."

Lyra’s violet eyes went dark. Her hand instantly dropped below the table. Her

fingers wrapped around the hilt of her dagger.

She was ready to gut the man right there in the tavern.

Arthur’s heavy hand clamped down on Lyra’s wrist beneath the table. He stopped her.

He did not yell. He did not flare his aura.

Arthur stood up and forced a sickeningly polite submissive smile onto his face.

He bowed his head exactly the way a lowly guard was supposed to.

"My deepest apologies, My Lord," Arthur said. His voice dripped with fake reverence.

"She is new to the squad. She does not know her place yet. Please, allow me to

escort her out of your sight so we do not offend you further."

The Noble scoffed. He looked at Arthur with utter disdain. "Pathetic dog. Keep your trash out of my tavern."

As the Noble turned to walk away, Arthur reached out. He gently brushed his hand

against the man’s silk robes in a gesture of subservient apology.

"Of course, My Lord."

The Noble sneered and waddled back to his table.

Arthur sat back down. His submissive smile instantly vanished. It was replaced by a cold dead eyed stare.

"Emperor," Lyra hissed. Her pride was wounded. "Why did you stop me? I could

have killed him quietly."

"Because making a scene in a public tavern is bad business," Arthur stated. He picked up his drink. "And because you do not need a knife to kill a pig."

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"I planted a highly condensed time delayed curse directly onto his heart valve,"

Arthur said casually. He took a sip of his wine.

"In exactly three days, when he is safely tucked away in his heavily guarded mansion, his core is going to violently detonate."

He paused and smiled.

"They will rule it a cultivation deviation. Clean, quiet, and extremely lethal."

Morwenna laughed. It was a dark throaty sound of pure appreciation. "You are wicked, Emperor."

Arthur ignored the praise. His attention shifted to a glowing holographic flyer resting on the edge of the tavern table.

He picked it up and read the shimmering text.

[ANNOUNCING THE DIVINE SELECTION TOURNAMENT.]

[The Celestial Emperor seeks a new disciple. The victor shall be granted access to the Origin Font. The purest source of foundational energy in the Heavens.]

Arthur’s dark eyes gleamed. He tossed the flyer onto the center of the table and tapped the glowing words with his index finger.

"Change of plans, ladies," Arthur smirked.

He was a predatory shark who finally smelled blood in the water.

"Looks like we found our battery."