Chapter 31: The Threshold of Heaven
The world did not end with a bang, but with an ascension.
To the five billion souls below, the sky over Moscow didn't just change; it tore open. A pillar of crystalline light, miles wide, connected the ruins of the Kremlin to a point in the upper atmosphere where the stars themselves seemed to cluster in an artificial formation. This was the 'Bifrost' of the new age—the Light-Elevator to the Consensus Tower.
I stood at the base of the pillar, my long coat snapping in the unnatural winds. Beside me, Elena and Isabella were no longer mere companions. Through the [Sovereign's Bond], I had shared fragments of the Alchemist's and the Tsar's data with them. Elena's eyes now held a faint, icy blue glow of 'Structural Logic', and Isabella moved with a 'Shadow-Void' that made her look like a glitch in reality.
"Once we step inside, there is no Oakhaven to return to," I said, my voice resonating with a gravity that made the very snow around us hover in mid-air. "There is only the Truth. And the Truth is rarely kind."
"I stopped looking for kindness the day I met you, Fang," Elena replied, her hand finding mine. Her grip was firm, her resolve a diamond-hard shield. "I'm looking for the end of the script."
[System Notification: Final Directive Initialized]
[Destination: The Consensus Tower (Apostolic Throne)]
[Neural Load: 100% (Synchronized)]
We stepped into the light.
The sensation wasn't one of movement, but of being rewritten. My atoms were disassembled and broadcasted upward, translated into pure information before being reconstituted in an environment that defied every human law of architecture.
When my vision cleared, I was no longer on Earth. I was standing on a floor of solid, translucent obsidian that stretched toward a horizon of swirling nebulae. Above us, the "Tower" rose—a spire of white geometry that looked less like a building and more like a massive, frozen explosion of logic.
"Welcome to the source code of your species," a voice whispered.
It was the First Apostle. He was waiting for us at the foot of a staircase made of suspended light. He looked exactly like the hologram—three pupils in each eye, skin like polished marble, and an aura that felt like the cold, indifferent weight of the entire universe.
"Look down, Fang Li," the Apostle gestured toward the obsidian floor.
I looked. The floor wasn't opaque; it was a window. Below us, the entire planet Earth hung like a blue marble in the velvet dark. But it was covered in a web—a shimmering, pulsating net of silver and gold threads. Every desire, every dream, every prayer of five billion people was being sucked upward into the Tower through these threads.
"It's a farm," Isabella whispered, her voice trembling with a rare, raw horror. "Oakhaven, London, Tokyo... they weren't cities. They were 'Cultivation Plots'."
"Precisely," the First Apostle smiled, and the sound was like the clicking of a thousand locks. "Humanity is the only species in the galaxy that produces 'Raw Desire'—the most potent energy source in the multiverse. We simply provide the 'Systems' to refine that energy. You, Fang Li, are our most efficient refinery to date."
[Ding!]
[Hidden Quest: The Butcher's Choice]
[Objective: Accept the Throne of the Weaver OR Burn the Loom.]
"You want me to take the Weaver's place," I said, my [Fate-Breaker] vision seeing the throne at the top of the tower. It was a chair made of a billion agonizingly beautiful threads. "You want me to be the one who pulls the strings of five billion people for eternity."
"It is the highest honor," the Apostle replied, stepping closer. "As the Weaver, you will be immortal. You will see every timeline, every possibility. You will prevent wars before they start, and end suffering before it is felt. You will be the God that humanity has always begged for."
I felt the temptation. It was a physical weight, a siren song echoing through the [Root Code] in my brain. I could save everyone. I could make Elena and Isabella queens of a perfect world. I could erase the very concept of pain.
But then, I looked at the threads again. They weren't just energy; they were the struggle. The woman in Oakhaven crying for her child. The man in Tokyo working until his heart failed. The Tsar's desperate dream of iron.
If I took the throne, their struggle would become artificial. Their choices would become sub-routines.
"A god who removes the right to fail is just a jailer with a better title," I said, my silver-gold eyes flaring with an incandescent, rebellious fire.
I drew my obsidian blade, but it didn't look like a blade anymore. It was a shard of the void, wrapped in the gold of the Root Code and the blue of my own sovereign will.
"I didn't come here to replace the Weaver, Apostle," I growled, the gravity of the Tower beginning to buckle under my presence. "I came to give the threads back to the people they belong to."
The First Apostle's smile didn't fade; it grew wider, more terrifying. "A pity. We were hoping for a peaceful transition. But a 'Blood-Harvest' produces more energy anyway."
He raised his hand, and the stars around the Tower began to align into a cosmic formation. Twelve more figures appeared—Apostles I had never seen, each one a master of a different reality.
[WARNING: APOCALYPSE-LEVEL EVENT DETECTED]
[Current DP: 25,000]
[System Command: Unleash everything.]
"Elena, Isabella," I whispered, my aura expanding until it covered the entire obsidian platform. "Close your eyes. This isn't a fight anymore. This is a rewrite."