The heavy golden Token of the Origin Font rested coolly in Arthur Sterling’s palm.

He didn’t bow.

He didn’t raise his fist in triumph.

He simply tucked the carved artifact into the inner pocket of his dark coat. His face was a mask of complete boredom.

All around him, the massive floating continent of a stadium was locked in a

breathless silence.

Millions of Celestial Nobles stared down at the scorched marble arena. These were beings who considered themselves the absolute peak of reality. Yet they had just watched their golden boy get completely dismantled.

Prince Valerius had not just been beaten. He had been humiliated.

His forbidden Void Magic was crushed by a mortal who didn’t even bother to draw a weapon!

"Competitor Vaelen." A booming voice echoed through the stadium.

It wasn’t the announcer. It was a voice that carried the sheer weight of a dying star. It came from the highest Imperial Box looking over the entire arena.

"Ascend. The Emperor summons you."

Arthur didn’t flinch at all.

He just cracked his neck and the sound echoed sharply in the quiet stadium.

’Looks like upper management wants a meeting,’ Arthur murmured to himself.

He turned and walked toward the grand spiraling staircase. It was made of condensed starlight and descended straight from the Imperial Box.

His four Queens followed silently behind him. Sylvia, Morwenna, Lyra, and Aurelia were all draped in oversized grey robes of lowly servants. They kept their heads bowed and played their parts perfectly.

However, Arthur could feel the violent anticipation radiating through their shared system bond.

The walk up the starlight stairs took exactly two minutes. Arthur used the time to analyze his surroundings.

The architecture of the Celestial Court was incredibly rich. Every pillar was capped with divine crystals. The banners were woven from the harvested lifespans of lower mortals. It was a society bloated on passive income and completely devoid of actual struggle.

They were soft!

Two massive armored Imperial Guards stood at the top of the stairs. Their faces were hidden behind golden visors. They crossed their humming energy halberds to

block the path.

"The servants wait outside," one of the guards droned.

Arthur stopped. He didn’t look at the crossed halberds. He looked directly through the guard’s visor.

He didn’t flare his aura. But the heavy presence of his Dimensional Breaker

Physique bled into the air. It was a suffocating weight.

"They come with me," Arthur stated flatly. "Or I can take your arms off and open the doors myself. Your choice."

The guards stiffened instantly.

Before they could even retaliate, the massive doors of the Imperial Box hissed

open.

"Let them in," the booming voice commanded from within.

Arthur offered the guards a cold mocking smile. He stepped past their lowered weapons and walked right into the room.

The Imperial Box wasn’t just a viewing deck. It was a localized pocket dimension. The air inside was so thick with Celestial Qi it felt like wading through warm syrup.

At the far end of the vast white room sat the Celestial Emperor. He rested on a throne of floating geometric glass.

The Emperor didn’t look human at all.

He was a humanoid silhouette comprised entirely of blinding shifting plasma and

starlight. He radiated the intense heat of a dying star. There were no facial features. There was just a singular burning consciousness that looked down at Arthur with an overwhelming sense of ancient boredom.

Arthur stopped ten feet from the throne. His hands were casually tucked into his pockets. His Queens stood perfectly still behind him.

"You did not kneel when you took the token," the Emperor said. The sound vibrated right in Arthur’s teeth. "And you do not kneel now. You have no Divine Merit. You possess no registered lineage. Yet you swat down a Celestial Duke’s son like a fly."

The Emperor leaned forward.

The heat in the room instantly spiked to a level that would boil a normal mortal’s blood. The physical laws of the room shifted entirely.

"Kneel before your Emperor," the star commanded.

"BOOM!"

It wasn’t a physical attack. It was Imperial Authority! It was a conceptual law bound to the dimension itself. The sheer weight of the Celestial Court’s hierarchy crashed down on Arthur’s shoulders. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The white marble floor beneath his boots instantly spider-webbed and groaned under the phantom mass.

Arthur didn’t even bend a knee.

His Dimensional Breaker Physique roared to life. His hyper-dense muscles locked into place. The conceptual gravity washed over him and completely failed to register on a body that had been forged outside the laws of this universe.

"I have a strict policy against bowing to someone else’s board of directors,"

Arthur said smoothly. A dark smirk stretched across his face.

The Emperor’s blinding form shifted. A low rumbling hum echoed from his plasma chest.

It wasn’t anger. It was amusement.

"Fascinating. A physical vessel that rejects the mandate of heaven. I have watched you since you entered my city. Your power is crude but its foundation is impossibly dense."

Arthur’s eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t like being studied. He brought up his system interface while keeping it hidden from the God.

’System,’ Arthur commanded in his mind. ’Let’s put a leash on the boss. Initiate

Binder.’

[System Notification]

↳ Target Identified: Celestial Emperor.

↳ Analyzing Target...

[CRITICAL ERROR!]

↳ Binding Failed.

Arthur’s internal smirk vanished completely. ’What do you mean it failed?’

[System Diagnosis]

↳ Target’s soul is not confined to a singular physical vessel.

↳ The entity before you is a localized projection.

↳ Target’s true core is bound to the foundational leylines of the Celestial

Court dimension.

↳ To forcibly bind an entity of this scale, Host must achieve the Celestial King tier to possess the required weight.

Arthur clicked his tongue against his teeth.

So the glowing man in the chair was just a highly advanced hologram.

The real Emperor was the dimension itself. Or at least the dying star powering it.

He couldn’t just leech off this guy. He was going to have to do things the hard way!

"You call yourself Vaelen," the Emperor continued. He was completely unaware of

the system attempting to hack his soul. "A rogue cultivator from the outer rim.

A clever disguise. The Fate-Masking Veil you purchased is a high-tier artifact.

But it cannot hide the stench of the Apex Realm on your skin."

Sylvia shifted slightly behind Arthur. Her hand twitched toward her robe.

Arthur subtly raised a finger and signaled her to stand down.

"You know?" Arthur asked with genuine curiosity.

"I am the Celestial Emperor," the star replied as the boredom returned to his voice. "I feel every ripple in the lower dimensions. I felt the Patriarch of the Blackwood family die. I felt the leylines of the Apex Realm forcefully hijacked and stitched into the MortalDomain. You are the anomaly that conquered the

slaughterhouse below us."

"And yet you let me walk right through your front door," Arthur noted and crossed his arms.

"Because you are entertaining," the Emperor stated simply. "I have sat on this throne for three million years. My subjects are perfectly obedient. My laws are absolute. Perfection is stagnant. I let you enter my tournament because I wanted to see what the anomaly would do. You did not disappoint. Breaking Valerius’s hand was a delightful bit of theater."

Arthur let out a low dry chuckle.

"So I’m just a court jester to you? A glitch to cure your boredom?"

"You are a momentary disruption," the Emperor corrected. "A violent spark. But

even sparks eventually burn out when they run out of oxygen."

"I wouldn’t bet on that," Arthur sneered. His eyes locked onto the blinding plasma of the Emperor’s face. "I’m not here to entertain you. I’m here for a hostile takeover. I want the Origin Font and then I want your seat."

The Emperor laughed.

The sound was deafening. It was a loud mixture of solar flares and grinding cosmic dust.

"The Origin Font? You think the prize is power? You think I would hand the purest source of foundational energy to whoever wins a physical brawl?"

The Emperor stood up. The ambient heat in the room rose to agonizing levels.

"You are completely clueless of how this company operates mortal," the Emperor

said. His voice dropped into a lethal rumble. "The truth of the Celestial Court is far less romantic."