The throne room of The Architect's Mercy was a masterpiece of architectural arrogance. There was no floor only a series of floating marble platforms held in place by golden tethers. Below the platforms was a swirling vortex of clouds and lightning, visible through a crystalline floor that pulsed with the power of the sixth Star.
The Sky-Lord Regent stood on the central dais. He was a man of towering height, his skin etched with silver filigree and his eyes glowing with the heavy, pressurized light of Absolute Gravity.
[TARGET: SKY-LORD REGENT AURELIAN (RANK 8 - GRAND MASTER)]
[CLASS: GRAVITY SOVEREIGN]
"You stand in the presence of the sky's apex, Scrapsmith," Aurelian said, his voice carrying the physical weight of a mountain. "You think because you survived the depths and the library, you are ready for the weight of the heavens? Every step you take in this room requires the mana of a thousand lesser souls."
[FIELD EFFECT: CRUSHING WILL]
[STAMINA DRAIN: 5% PER SECOND]
Kenji took a step forward, his boots cracking the marble. He wasn't using his own strength; he was using the Stasis Diamond to lock his bones into a fixed state so they wouldn't shatter under the pressure.
"The heavens are just a high-altitude trash heap, Aurelian," Kenji rasped, his violet-ringed eyes meeting the Regent's gold ones. "And I've come to take out the trash."
Aurelian slammed his scepter down. "Downward!"
[SKILL: G-FORCE BURST (50x GRAVITY)]
The air itself turned into a solid block of lead. Kenji was slammed onto the platform, the marble beneath him disintegrating. But as he fell, he used [System Sight]. He saw the golden tethers holding the platforms together. They weren't just chains; they were "Fixed Lines" of gravity.
"Zola! Bjorn!" Kenji shouted over the comms. "Don't fight the weight, become part of it!"
Bjorn leaped from the Scrap-Venture's boarding ramp, his runic axe glowing. As the 50x gravity hit him, he didn't struggle. He used the momentum of his own falling weight to accelerate. He became a human meteor, hurtling toward Aurelian with terrifying speed.
Aurelian flicked his wrist. "Lateral."
The gravity shifted ninety degrees. Bjorn was suddenly "falling" sideways, missing the Regent and smashing through a decorative pillar.
"Elara, now!" Kenji commanded.
Elara didn't jump. She stood on the edge of the breach, her hands weaving a complex pattern. Using the Star of Truth's proximity, she had learned a new trick. She didn't freeze the air; she froze the Gravity-Lines themselves.
Jagged spikes of "Frozen Weight" erupted from the air, creating a solid path across the void. Kenji sprinted along the ice-path, his speed increasing as he used [Recursive Echoes] to double his steps.
"You play with the toys of the stars, boy," Aurelian sneered. He raised his hand, and the obsidian sphere in the center of the room the Scrap of Absolute Gravity began to spin. "But I am the star!"
[BOSS ULTIMATE: SINGULARITY EVENT]
A tiny black dot appeared at the tip of Aurelian's scepter. The entire throne room began to be sucked toward that point. The marble, the air, and even the light began to stretch and warp.
[WARNING: EVENT HORIZON DETECTED]
[CORE CRITICAL - HUNGER OVERLOADING]
The Scrap of Eternal Hunger in Kenji's chest screamed. It had found its match. A black hole of gravity versus a black hole of consumption.
"Kenji, get out of there!" Mateo's voice was distorted by the gravitational lensing. "The ship is being pulled in! We can't hold the distance!"
"I'm not leaving!" Kenji roared.
He deactivated his Stasis. He deactivated his Truth. He let the Hunger take the wheel. His body became a silhouette of violet fire. He didn't fight the Singularity; he consumed it.
Kenji lunged into the center of the vortex, his hand closing around the Regent's scepter.
"You want to talk about weight?" Kenji's voice was no longer human. It was a chorus of the five Stars. "I carry the weight of every person your System has discarded. I carry the rust of the Graveyard and the silence of the Library. Your gravity is nothing compared to their Grief."
[SKILL: RECURSIVE CONSUMPTION]
Kenji didn't just break the scepter; he turned the singularity inside out. The hunger in his core "ate" the gravitational pull, reversing the polarity.
A massive shockwave of "Negative Gravity" exploded from the center of the room. Aurelian was thrown back, his Rank 8 defenses shattering like glass. The golden tethers snapped, and the Grand Skyship began to drift upward, out of control.
Kenji stood over the Regent, the obsidian Star floating between them.
"The islands are going to drift into space," Aurelian panted, blood leaking from his silver-filigree skin. "Without the Star... we all float into the void. You've killed us all."
"No," Kenji said, reaching for the Star. "I'm a Scrapsmith. I don't just take things apart."
Kenji grabbed the Scrap of Absolute Gravity.
[STAR ACQUIRED: THE SCRAP OF ABSOLUTE GRAVITY (6/7)]
[NEW ABILITY: WORLD-WEIGHT]
As the Star entered his core, Kenji felt the weight of the entire world pressing down on his soul. He didn't let it crush him. He funneled that weight into the Recursive Iron of the Scrap-Venture.
"Mateo! Kael!" Kenji shouted. "I'm tethering the ship to the islands! We're the new anchor!"
Kenji stood at the center of the falling fortress, his arms outstretched. Five glowing lines of light shot out from his core, connecting the floating islands to the Scrap-Venture. He was manually holding the entire civilization aloft.
[STATUS: WORLD-ANCHOR ACTIVE]
[MANA CONSUMPTION: MAXIMUM]
"Kenji, you can't hold this forever!" Elara ran to him, her face pale.
"I don't have to," Kenji gritted his teeth, his muscles tearing under the strain and instantly being repaired by the Recursion Star. "We're going to land them. All of them. On the ground."
The Sky-Lords were coming down.