[Ding!]

[System Awakened!]

[Rebooting 1,000,000x Return System...]

[Systems Online. Multiplier Restored.]

[Hostile interference permanently neutralized.]

Arthur Sterling released a blinding aura of total dominance from his body! It rippled out into the Chaos Sea. This was a shockwave of pure willpower that forced the trillions of watching horrors to violently recoil in terror.

Arthur rolled his shoulders. The joints popped with the sound of cracking mountains. A dark and terrifying smile appeared on his face. He was back online.

"BOOM!"

The space where the Void Walker had just existed collapsed into a tiny singularity before snapping back into normal reality. The glitched code of the failed predecessor was completely gone. It was erased by the sheer density of Arthur’s Primordial Flame.

Arthur stood on the bow of the Ebon Citadel. His dark coat whipped in the chaotic winds of the void. He did not even look out of breath. He looked out at the endless ocean of space mercenaries, star-eating monsters, and rogue gods that had come to claim his bounty.

A moment ago, they had been a suffocating wall of impending doom. Now? They were frozen.

The absolute weight of a man possessing a million-fold multiplier backed by the foundational laws of the universe slammed into their minds. It was a suffocating pressure.

To the Outer Gods, who relied entirely on overwhelming weight rather than structured technique, Arthur’s presence was a mathematical impossibility. He was a glitch that refused to be written out.

"What is wrong?" Arthur called out. His voice was amplified by his Chaos Lord aura and echoed across the boundless graveyard of the multiverse. "I thought there was a bounty on my head! Come and take it!"

"SCREEEEEECH!"

A massive multi-dimensional horror composed of weeping eyes and jagged bone let out a terrifying wail of absolute panic. It did not lunge. It turned violently. Its massive tentacles tore through the fabric of the Chaos Sea as it frantically tried to flee.

That single movement broke the dam.

"WHOOSH!" "WHOOSH!" "WHOOSH!"

The endless armada of cosmic predators broke rank. Trillions of entities scrambled over one another like terrified rats fleeing a burning building. They tore jagged rifts into the void. They desperately tried to put as much distance between themselves and the man on the floating dreadnought as possible.

He did not chase them. He just stood there and let the system in his mind process the raw data he had just ripped from the Void Walker’s soul.

[Ding!]

[Assimilating remnant code of the 100x Return System.]

[Merging foundational data with Host’s 1,000,000x Return System.]

[System Evolution Complete!]

[Host Information]

↳ Name: Arthur Sterling

↳ Status: The Absolute Apex System

Arthur’s pitch-black eyes flared with a sudden and intense golden light. The calm blue interface in his mind shattered. It replaced itself with a sleek and perfectly pristine white layout. The very structure of the system felt different. It no longer felt like a tool he was using. It felt like an extension of his own nervous system.

[Notice]

↳ The Binding mechanic has been rendered obsolete.

↳ Host no longer requires direct conceptual tethers to acquire targets.

[New Feature Unlocked]

↳ Passive Omniversal Leech

[System Remark]

↳ Host’s existence now acts as a localized singularity. Host will passively drain a fraction of ambient energy, physical stats, and conceptual laws from every entity, object, and dimension within sensor range, multiplied by 1,000,000x.

Arthur let out a low and rumbling laugh. "Now that is what I call passive income."

He did not need to slap a binder on an enemy anymore. He did not need to hold their throat and force a tether into their soul. Just by standing in the same reality as them, he owned a piece of their existence.

"Let’s try it."

"System. Activate the Leech," Arthur commanded.

"SQUELCH!"

A terrifying invisible vacuum expanded outward from the Ebon Citadel. It covered millions of miles of the Chaos Sea in a fraction of a second. It washed over the fleeing armada of Outer Gods.

The weakest among the horde simply dissolved. They did not explode. They were just instantly drained of their weight and turned into fine grey ash that drifted aimlessly through the void.

[Passive Leech Active]

↳ Absorbing chaotic energy...

↳ 1,000,000x Multiplier Applied!

↳ Host’s internal energy reserves are expanding infinitely.

Arthur groaned and his head fell back as a torrential flood of power rushed into his meridians. The sheer volume of energy would have instantly vaporized a Grand Sovereign. But Arthur’s Dimensional Breaker Physique greedily devoured it. It reinforced his cells, densified his bones, and fueled the Primordial Flame burning in his chest.

He could feel the terrified thoughts of the fleeing Gods as he siphoned their strength. He felt their despair. He felt their panic. It was intoxicating.

"Arthur!"

He turned his head. Sylvia Thorne, Morwenna, Lyra, Aurelia, and Kaelith were rushing out onto the command balcony. The five Queens looked completely drained. Their divine auras flickered erratically from the sudden severing of the system link moments ago.

But as they stepped into Arthur’s immediate airspace, the system link forcefully re-established itself.

[Cross-Dimensional Harem Share re-activated.]

Lyra gasped. Her violet eyes went wide. The Stardusk daggers in her hands glowed with blinding intensity.

Sylvia staggered and grabbed the railing of the balcony to steady herself. Her Arch-Mage core violently expanded. The Absolute Zero magic within her instantly stabilized and roared back to life. "You... you killed the anomaly," she breathed as she looked at the dissipating ash in the void.

"I fired him," Arthur corrected. He walked back across the starlight metal of the deck. He did not look like a man who had just survived an assassination attempt by a cosmic counterpart. He looked entirely unbothered.

Morwenna did not ask questions. The Demon Empress launched herself forward. Her six abyssal wings flared as she threw her arms around Arthur’s neck.

Arthur caught her effortlessly with his large hands resting on her waist.

"You scared the shit out of us, Emperor,"

Morwenna whispered against his mouth. Her liquid gold eyes blazed with a mixture of anger and profound relief.

"It was a minor technical difficulty," Arthur murmured. He pulled away just enough to look at his executive board. "The software needed an update. But we are back online and our capacity has expanded."

He looked at Kaelith. The Primordial Weaver was staring at him with her blind white eyes. Her six crystalline spider-limbs trembled. She could sense the fundamental shift in his existence. He was not just a Chaos Lord anymore. He was something entirely new.

"You absorbed the fragmented code," Kaelith projected. Her mental voice was laced with sheer awe. "You hold the complete blueprint."

"If you say so," Arthur said. He walked past them and stepped back onto the command bridge. The massive and intricately carved Ebon Helm stood in the center of the room. It hummed with latent energy.

He placed his hands on the obsidian wheel.

"The Void Walker was a symptom and not the disease," Arthur stated.

His dark eyes locked onto the sprawling holographic Star-Chart floating above the console. "He was a discarded toy. A failed experiment thrown into the trash by the Prime Creator.

And if this Creator is just going to keep throwing systems into the lower realms to see what sticks, then my empire is never going to be secure."

"What are your orders, Emperor?" Aurelia asked. She stepped up to the tactical map. Her dark-radiant spear hummed in her grip and her military discipline was entirely restored.

Arthur’s gaze fell on the absolute center of the Star-Chart. It was not a sector. It was not a Bubble Realm. It was a massive and swirling singularity of pure blinding white light.

"We are done playing in the puddles," Arthur said. His voice dropped into a cold and lethal rumble. "Kaelith. Set a direct course for the Origin Point."

And Lyra as always, overly calculative and exaggerating.

Lyra swallowed hard and pulled herself up from the floor. "The Origin Point? Arthur, that is the center of the Chaos Sea. That is where the Prime Creator sleeps. The conceptual pressure alone will crush the Ark before we even get within a million miles of the core!"

"Let me worry about the pressure," Arthur sneered. He poured his newly evolved and absolute power into the Ebon Helm.

"BOOM!"

The entire Chaos Dreadnought violently shuddered. The reality-enforcing sail outside the hull flared with blinding starlight intensity. It cut through the corrosive anti-matter of the void like a blazing knife.

"I am tired of waiting for the Heavens to audit me," Arthur declared. His pitch-black eyes burned with the multi-colored fury of the Primordial Flame. "We are going to the absolute top of the corporate ladder. We are going to wake the Creator up."

He spun the wheel.

"And then I am going to take his throne."he said like a true narcissist.

The Ebon Citadel surged forward. It tore a massive physics-breaking trench through the Primordial Chaos. The final hostile takeover had begun.