The air in my Divine Realm crackled with a heat that was not merely physical, but conceptual. Cinder, the chosen of the Solar Flame, stood before my fortress, a living star radiating an aura of absolute, righteous power. The disciples of the other gods, a silent, grim-faced army, hovered in the sky behind her, a jury of demigods ready to witness an execution.
Elara stood at my side on the grand balcony of the Black Spire, her hand on her sword, her face a mask of fanatical defiance. "My lord," she whispered, her voice tight, "her power… it is beyond anything I have ever felt."
"Of course it is," I said, my voice calm, almost bored. "She is a true god's pet. They have sent their best dog to put down the stray that wandered into their yard."
I looked out at the assembled host, at the arrogant, beautiful champion. They saw a lone, upstart anomaly. They saw a target. They had no idea they were not the hunters. They were the tithe.
"Unit 734," I said in my mind. "Run a full-spectrum analysis on the entity 'Cinder' and the 'Solar Flame' sponsor. Use the stolen authority from the Tower's network. I want to know everything. Their powers, their history, their weaknesses."
[Acknowledged, Administrator,] the Librarian's voice was a cool, clean stream of data in my mind. [Scanning... Analysis complete. The 'Solar Flame' is a Tier-7 Sponsor entity. Its domain is 'Righteous Fire' and 'Heroic Will'. Its champion, Cinder, is a former mortal who won a previous game cycle. Her primary abilities are pyrokinesis and conceptual enforcement of 'justice'. Her primary weakness is… arrogance. Statistical probability of her accepting a one-on-one duel of honor: 98.7%.]
Predictable.
I stepped forward, my voice resonating across the plaza, amplified not by magic, but by my own sovereign will. "You are Cinder, the voice of the Solar Flame," I declared, my tone flat. "I am Kaelen, the voice of myself. You have come to 'annihilate' me. A bold opening bid in a negotiation."
Cinder's fiery eyes narrowed. "There is no negotiation, Usurper. Only judgment."
"There is always a negotiation," I countered, a lazy, condescending smile on my face. "You simply haven't realized what you're bargaining with. You are offering me your life. I am offering you the chance to keep it."
A wave of outraged murmurs went through the hovering disciples. The sheer, unadulterated arrogance of my statement was a slap in the face to every god on this floor.
Cinder's aura flared. "You will die for that insult!"
"Perhaps," I said with a shrug. "But not by the hands of your mob. You are a champion, are you not? A being of 'Heroic Will'. Hiding behind an army of lesser beings is not a very heroic look. Face me. One on one. A Divine Duel, to decide the fate of this floor. If you win, my domain, my followers, and my life are yours. If I win…" I let the sentence hang in the air, my smile turning cruel. "I will collect my tithe."
It was a perfect trap, baited with her own pride. As Unit 734 had predicted, she could not refuse. To do so would be to betray her own conceptual nature.
"A duel!" she roared, a vortex of fire erupting around her. "I accept! I will burn your pathetic, shadowy soul from existence myself!"
The other disciples backed away, forming a vast circle in the sky around my floating island, creating an arena.
Elara looked at me, her face pale. "My lord, you are goading a god…"
"I am collecting a debt," I corrected her. I turned and began walking back into my spire.
"Where are you going?" Cinder demanded. "The duel is here! Now!"
"A sovereign does not trouble himself with such… pedestrian matters," I said over my shoulder, my voice dripping with contempt. "I have more important things to attend to. My champion will face you."
I stopped at the entrance to my throne room and gestured to the woman who stood silently within, a beautiful, blank-faced doll in a simple, elegant gown. Lia.
A wave of confusion, then outrage, swept through the spectators. I was sending a powerless, class-less, seemingly mortal woman to fight their greatest champion? It was the ultimate insult.
"You mock me!" Cinder shrieked, her form now a raging inferno.
"I am giving you an opponent of appropriate stature," I said, my final words echoing as I disappeared into the darkness of my throne room.
On the balcony, Lia stepped forward. She looked at the raging demigoddess, her expression utterly calm, her ancient Guardian eyes holding no fear, only a quiet, logical certainty.
The Warden's Vow collar around her neck glowed with a soft, gray light. The Conduit effect activated.
My will, my power, my authority flowed into her. But I did not give her my abyssal arts. I did not give her my cultivator's strength. I gave her something far more potent.
I gave her my authority as the Pactmaker.
Lia raised a hand. The spectral, featureless face of the Collector of Oaths, my Enforcer, materialized behind her like a colossal, gray ghost.
"The terms of the duel have been set," Lia's telepathic voice, now resonating with the cold, absolute authority of cosmic law, washed over the entire assembly. "The price of your loss is your existence. The contract is binding."
Cinder, the creature of pure, heroic passion, was now facing an opponent of pure, unbreakable law. It was a conceptual mismatch of catastrophic proportions.
The battle was over before it began.
Cinder unleashed a torrent of holy fire, a supernova that could have incinerated a continent.
The Collector simply raised a hand. The fire did not stop. It did not explode. It just… ceased to be. The concept of "fire" had been legally overruled.
Cinder stared, her mind unable to process what had just happened.
"The pact is forfeit," Lia's voice declared. "The price is due."
The Collector's ghostly hand reached out, not touching Cinder's body, but her very concept. It did not kill her. It collected her. Her form, her fire, her very being dissolved into a single, perfect, fist-sized mote of pure, condensed 'Heroic Will'.
The mote floated gently into Lia's waiting hand. She turned, walked back into the throne room, and presented the prize to me.
I took the mote of power, the very essence of a demigod, and I devoured it without a second thought. My power surged, my understanding of this world's divine energies deepening.
The army of disciples in the sky was frozen in a state of absolute, terrified shock. Their champion, their god's chosen, had been unmade by a single, incomprehensible act of law.
I stepped back out onto the balcony, the last vestiges of the Solar Flame's power fading on my lips.
"The tithe has been paid," I announced to the silent heavens. "Are there any other accounts that need to be settled?"
Silence.
"Good," I said. "Then let it be known. This floor, and all its gods, now belong to me."
My victory was absolute. My domination was complete.
But as I stood there, the undisputed sovereign of the Celestial Realm, a new message appeared in my System. It was from the Watcher. And it was a twist that proved that even in my greatest triumph, I was still just a pawn in a much, much larger game.
[Administrator. A commendable, if theatrical, victory,] the Watcher's thought was dry and unimpressed. [While you have been… redecorating… I have completed my deep-level analysis of your rival, the Main Core user 'Silvana'.]
[I have discovered the nature of her primary objective from her sponsor, The Architect.]
[Her goal is not reunification. It is not conquest. Her 'Wager of Fragments' was a lie to keep you occupied.]
[Her true mission, the reason The Architect has invested so heavily in her, is to acquire a specific, legendary-tier artifact known as the 'World-Forge'. My data suggests it is located here, on the Third Floor.]
[But that is not the critical part of the intel.]
[The critical part, Administrator, is *why* The Architect wants it. The World-Forge is not a weapon. It is a creation engine, similar to your own, but on a cosmic scale. It is the only artifact in the Tower capable of creating a 'Prime Homunculus'. A perfect, blank, artificial body.]
[And the soul The Architect intends to place in that body… is the original, uncorrupted, and complete soul of the true Kaelen Ravencrest, which it has apparently kept in stasis since the day of your transmigration.]