Location: Inside the Void-Ark 'Beast-Tamer' – Sector 0 (The Stellar Core)
Time: T-Minus 10 Minutes to Planetary Detonation
The blast doors to the Engine Room did not slide open. They had to be melted.
Aris stood back as his Undead Laborers focused their Abyssal Rifles on the seam of the massive gold-and-titanium gates. The concentrated Void Qi ate through the metal, turning the divine alloy into grey sludge.
HISSS... CLANG.
The doors fell inward, crashing onto the floor with a sound that shook the deck plates.
A wave of heat rolled out. It wasn't fire; it was pure, unshielded radiation.
[System Warning: Environmental Hazard.]
[Zone: The Stellar Core.]
[Radiation Level: Critical.]
[Shields: Void-Walker's Mantle active (filtering 90%).]
Aris stepped through the breach, his boots clanking on the floor. Nox followed, growling low in his throat, his fur bristling against the static electricity in the air.
The Artificial Sun
The room was vast—a spherical chamber large enough to house a mountain. The walls were lined with thousands of cooling pipes and mana conduits, all converging on the center.
Suspended in the middle of the room, held in place by massive gravity rings, was a Miniature Star.
It was a sphere of burning white plasma, churning and boiling. It was the heart of the ship, the source of its infinite energy.
But now, the star was turning Red.
Deep, angry veins of instability were pulsing through the plasma. The gravity rings were spinning wildly, screeching as they forced the star to compress beyond its critical mass.
[Status: Supernova Sequence Initiated.]
[Detonation in: 09:58.]
[Yield: Enough to vaporize the planet and shatter the moon.]
"He's not just crashing the ship," Aris realized, watching the angry red pulses. "He's turning the engine into a bomb."
The Grand Elder
"YOU ARE LATE."
The voice came from above.
Aris looked up.
Floating directly above the burning star, bathed in the lethal radiation as if it were a warm breeze, sat Grand Elder Kong.
He sat cross-legged in the air. His white beard floated weightlessly. His eyes were closed. Around him, three rings of golden light rotated slowly—the sign of a Dao Severing expert who had severed his mortal shackles.
[Boss Encounter: Grand Elder Kong]
[Rank: Dao Severing (Mid-Stage).]
[Aura: Gravity / Star.]
[Status: Merged with Core.]
Kong opened his eyes. They glowed with the same red light as the dying star beneath him.
"You killed Mei," Kong stated calmly. "She was weak. A parlor trickster. But she was expensive to replace."
"Send me the bill," Aris said, drawing his Shadow Sword. "Turn off the bomb, Kong. You can't survive this explosion either."
Kong laughed. It was a deep, resonant sound that vibrated the liquid in Aris's inner ear.
"Survive? I have a teleportation talisman linked to the Main Sect. I will leave five seconds before detonation. You, however... you will be dust."
Kong uncrossed his legs and stood up on the air.
"You have humiliated the Myriad Beasts Mountain. You stole our beasts. You broke our ship. You killed our disciples. If I let this planet survive, other sectors might get ideas. They might think they can defy us."
He raised a hand. The gravity rings around the star spun faster.
"So, I am formatting the drive. Sector 994 will be reset. A clean slate."
The Pressure of a God
"Kill him," Aris whispered.
The twenty Undead Laborers raised their rifles.
Kong didn't even look at them. He simply twitched his finger.
"Dao Art: Gravity Crush."
CRUNCH.
The twenty skeletons were instantly flattened. It wasn't a projectile; the gravity around them simply increased by 10,000 times. They were compressed into pancakes of bone and steel on the floor in a microsecond.
Aris felt his knees buckle. The gravity wave hit him too.
[Warning: Gravitational Pressure increasing.]
[Movement Speed reduced by 80%.]
[Bones stressing.]
Aris channeled his mana, reinforcing his Abyssal Sovereign Body to stay standing. Even Nox was forced to his belly, whining as the floor threatened to crack under him.
"You possess a strange physique," Kong noted, floating down slowly. "You resist the weight of a star. Void Qi... a Forbidden Art. That explains your arrogance."
Kong landed ten meters away. He drew a sword from his waist. It wasn't a metal sword; it was a blade made of Compressed Light.
"But tricks do not bridge the gap between Realms."
The Clash
Kong flickered.
He didn't use speed. He used Space-Folding. He shortened the distance between them to zero.
Aris's System screamed.
[Dodge: Impossible.]
[Block: Mandatory.]
Aris raised Solstice.
CLANG.
The impact was catastrophic.
Aris was launched backward like a cannonball. He smashed through a cooling pipe, steam exploding around him, and slammed into the far wall. The Tiger-Steel plating of his armor shattered.
[HP: 65% / 100%]
[Left Arm fractured.]
"Fast," Aris gasped, sliding down the wall. "Too fast."
Kong stood where Aris had been, looking disappointed.
"Is that it? The Titan that caught my ship? Where is that power now?"
"On cooldown," Aris spat blood.
"A pity."
Kong walked forward. Every step he took caused the gravity in the room to pulse.
[Time: 08:30.]
"I have eight minutes," Aris thought frantically. "I can't beat him in a duel. His stats are double mine. I need to distract him. I need to get to the console and manually abort the sequence."
He looked at Nox, who was struggling to stand up under the gravity well.
"Nox. Buy me time."
Nox growled. The Eclipse Hound knew this was a suicide order. But he was a good boy.
"ROAR!"
Nox exploded into his mist form. He charged at Kong, turning into a cloud of biting shadows and claws.
"Annoying dog," Kong sneered. He raised his left hand. A miniature black hole formed in his palm. "Gravity Well."
Nox's mist form was sucked in. The shadows were pulled toward Kong's hand, condensing Nox back into a solid form and holding him suspended in the air, choking.
The Gambit
While Kong was distracted with Nox, Aris moved.
He didn't attack Kong. He flashed toward the Control Console located beneath the Star Core.
[Skill: Ghost-Step.]
He appeared at the console. His hands flew across the holographic keys.
"System! Hack the core! Abort sequence!"
[Accessing...]
[Encryption: Divine-Tier.]
[Decryption Time: 5 Minutes.]
"I don't have 5 minutes!"
"You have zero," Kong's voice said right behind him.
Aris spun around.
Kong had thrown Nox across the room and warped behind Aris instantly.
Kong grabbed Aris by the throat.
The grip was iron. Aris's feet dangled off the ground. He clawed at Kong's hand, but it was like clawing at a statue.
"You try to hack my ship?" Kong smiled, tightening his grip. "While I am standing here?"
He lifted Aris up.
"Watch the countdown, boy. Watch your world die."
[Time: 06:00.]
Aris's vision began to fade. The oxygen was cut off. His neck vertebrae were cracking.
But Aris smiled beneath his mask.
"I wasn't... hacking... the ship," Aris choked out.
Kong frowned. "What?"
Aris raised his hand. In his palm was a Remote Detonator.
"I was... opening... the hangar doors."
The Arrival of the Ark
Location: Hangar Bay 4
The Naglfar, crashed and seemingly abandoned, suddenly roared to life.
The Samsara Drive surged. The Undead Pilot (a skeleton Aris had left in the chair) received the signal.
The ship didn't fly out into space.
It flew deeper into the ship.
The Naglfar smashed through the internal bulkheads, tearing through the corridors like a bullet through a mansion. It was a missile made of bone and tiger-steel.
Location: The Stellar Core
CRASH.
The wall of the Engine Room exploded inward.
The Naglfar burst into the chamber, debris raining down everywhere.
Kong turned around, shocked. "A ship inside a ship?"
The bone-ship hovered there, its nose pointed directly at Kong and the Star Core.
And strapped to the bottom of the Naglfar was the Singularity Cannon.
Aris, still held in Kong's grip, pressed the button on the remote.
"Fire."