Chapter 73: Life Force Anomaly Detected...

Zen walked over to the flashing terminal. He glanced over his shoulder at the Goddess of War and the Spymaster.

"Stay where you are. And stay quiet," Zen ordered flatly.

Zen tapped the console, causing the blinding gold light to flicker and expand upward into a tall, high-definition holographic projection.

Aurelia appeared.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, giving off the cold, perfect grace of true royalty. She wore a tailored dress made of white and gold silk. A small, glowing crown floated just above her silver-blonde hair, and her sharp blue eyes immediately looked at Zen.

She didn’t even look surprised to see him.

Instead, her eyes narrowed into sharp, icy slits.

"It has been five days, Zen," Aurelia said. Her voice was smooth, but it carried a chilling, demanding edge. "Five days since my courier delivered the biometric lockbox to you in the Ares Domain. I expected you to take the first train to my capital."

Zen stood tall, meeting her gaze without flinching. "I had other matters to attend to first."

"Other matters?" Aurelia’s eyes shifted. She looked past Zen’s shoulder, taking in the sight of the completely destroyed penthouse.

She saw Nyx standing quietly by the ruined servers. Then, her eyes landed on Valeria, who was standing perfectly still holding a massive chunk of broken concrete.

Aurelia let out a soft, mocking laugh. "I see. The continental alarms were screaming about an S-Rank shield breach in the Omni Domain. I should have guessed the Vanguard was throwing another one of her feral tantrums. Look at her. The Goddess of War, playing maid in the rubble."

Valeria’s golden eyes flashed with murderous rage, and the concrete she was holding cracked into dust. She opened her mouth to scream at the Empress, but Zen slightly raised his hand to stop her.

Valeria immediately snapped her mouth shut, suppressing her anger because she was afraid of disobeying Zen’s order to remain silent.

"They are hoarding you," Aurelia said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, possessive whisper. "They are treating you like a prize to be hidden away in the dark. You are the Emperor. And you are my betrothed. You belong on a throne beside me, not standing in the ruins of a digital whore’s bedroom."

Nyx’s purple circuitry lines flared brightly on her neck, but she forced herself to simply cross her arms and look away.

"I am not being hoarded, Aurelia," Zen replied coldly. His voice carried his full authority and pushed back against her Empress aura. "I am calming down my Vanguard and fixing my Spymaster. I am doing what must be done."

Aurelia paused. The dominance in his voice made her breath catch slightly. A faint blush touched her pale cheeks, but she quickly hid it behind her cold, royal mask.

"The Zenith Gala is in a week time," Aurelia stated, crossing her arms. "The lockbox I sent you contains your personal access code. I expect you to use it."

"I fully intend to attend the Gala," Zen replied. "We have a lot to discuss regarding the future of the domains."

"We do," Aurelia agreed. She tilted her chin up slightly, asserting her absolute rule. "But I am issuing a decree for this event. The invitation is for you, and you alone."

Behind Zen, Valeria dropped the remaining pieces of concrete. Nyx’s head snapped back around.

"You will not bring the Vanguard," Aurelia ordered, staring directly at Valeria. "And you will not bring the Spymaster. I will not have my elegant city turned into a warzone by mindless brutes and sneaky rats. You will walk into the Crown Domain by yourself, Zen. Prove to me that you are not their prisoner. Prove to me that you are still my Emperor."

"I don’t need to prove anything to you, Aurelia," Zen said calmly. "But I will see you at the Gala."

Zen cut the transmission himself, and the golden hologram vanished.

The silence in the ruined penthouse was deafening.

"Zen..." Valeria whispered, her voice trembling with barely contained panic. "You cannot go to the Crown Domain alone. She is manipulative. She wants to lock you in her palace and throw away the key!"

"Valeria is right," Nyx added quickly, stepping forward. "Aurelia controls the entire political network. If you walk into her territory without us, she will trap you."

"I gave you both an order to stay quiet," Zen said, turning around to face them.

Both Goddesses froze, immediately lowering their heads in submission.

Before Zen could say another word, the door to the pool room slid open and Maya stepped out.

She had wrapped a large, white towel tightly around her body, completely soaked. But she looked entirely different. The timid, clumsy energy that usually surrounded her was completely gone.

Instead, a thick, steady hum of Mid D-Rank mana radiated from her skin. The air around her warped slightly from the weight of her new power. Her eyes glowed with a faint mix of Zen’s gold magic and her own natural green aura. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

She looked at her hands, then up at Zen, having overheard the entire conversation with the Empress.

"You... you are leaving?" Maya asked. Her voice was steady now, as the massive jump in her core rank had strengthened her mind and body.

Zen looked at her. He could feel the mutated Blood Pact humming strongly between them. By forcing her core to break and absorb his ancient Emperor mana, he had accidentally painted a massive target on her back.

He couldn’t leave her behind.

If he left Maya here while he went to the Crown Domain, she wouldn’t survive the night.

Valeria had just tried to crush her into dust out of pure jealousy, and Nyx would likely... who knows what Nyx would do to her? They were perfectly obedient while he was watching, but the second he stepped on a train, their feral obsession would take over.

She carried his magical signature now. She was his responsibility.

"I will be leaving for the Crown Domain in a few days," Zen said smoothly. He walked over to Maya. "And you are coming with me."

Valeria’s head snapped up. "What? Emperor, no! You cannot take this little rat with you! She is weak! If you must take anyone, it should be me!"

"She is not weak anymore," Zen said, looking at Maya’s glowing aura. "And Aurelia specifically banned my Vanguard and my Spymaster. She did not ban my personal healer."

Maya stared at him, her heart pounding against her ribs. "The Crown Domain? But... I don’t know anything about high society or politics. The Empress might also kill me the second she sees me with you."

"She will try," Zen corrected her gently. "Which is why starting right now, you are no longer just an academy student. You are my protégé. I am going to teach you how to use that Mid D-Rank core. You are going to learn how to survive."

Maya swallowed hard. The truth of his words resonated through the Blood Pact. She nodded slowly. "Okay. I will go with you."

Zen smiled. It was the first piece of his new board falling into place.

But suddenly, the entire penthouse shook.

Unlike the violent, explosive tremor from when Valeria broke the shield, this was a slow, heavy, and suffocating pressure. The remaining fires in the room were instantly extinguished as the air grew incredibly thick, smelling strongly of blooming flowers and sterile medicine.

A massive, flashing red window shattered across Zen’s internal system vision.

[CRITICAL ALERT: Life Force Anomaly Detected.]

[Warning: The Heart Fragment is resonating violently with the Blood Pact.]

Across the room, Nyx’s repaired terminal started blaring a deafening, high-pitched alarm.

"Nyx!" Zen shouted over the noise. "What is that?"

Nyx’s fingers flew across her holographic keyboards. Her face drained of all color. "It... it is a massive wave of pure life energy. It is bypassing the city’s outer shields completely. It is not attacking the grid, it is just... phasing through it."

"Who is it?" Valeria demanded, summoning her golden Aegis gauntlets in a panic.

"She didn’t call first," Nyx whispered, staring at the radar screen in absolute horror. "She probably felt the Blood Pact mutate. She thinks someone is stealing his life force."

The heavy, suffocating pressure pushed down on them so hard that Maya was forced to her knees, gasping for air.

"Zen..." Nyx looked up, her purple eyes wide with genuine fear. "It is Selene. The Healer is here."