The Throne Room was a nightmare of screaming brass. As Sultan Midas-V turned the Master Valve into its final position, the atmosphere didn't just become heavy, it became viscous. The nitrogen and oxygen in the air were being pressed so tightly they began to shimmer like liquid diamonds.
[ZONE: THE THRONE OF COMPRESSION]
[ENVIRONMENTAL STATUS: STAGE 3 COMPRESSION (MAXIMUM)]
[LOCAL GRAVITY: 15x EARTH STANDARD]
[DEBUFF: MOLECULAR CRUSH (HP DECAY: 500/SEC)]
"Look at them," the Sultan boomed, his massive obsidian chest heaving as he maintained the pressure. "Your friends are wilting, Scrapsmith. At fifteen times gravity, the heart cannot pump. The lungs cannot expand. Only those of us who have replaced our fragile flesh with the Sultan's Brass can stand in the presence of the Core."
Bjorn was on both knees, his World-Root Splitter cracking the marble floor just by resting on it. Elara's ice was shattering the moment it manifested, unable to maintain its structure against the atmospheric weight.
"Kenji... can't... move..." Elara gasped, her vision blurring.
Kenji felt his own bones groaning. His Steam-Core Plating was screaming, the alarms on his HUD flashing a violent, rhythmic red.
[WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY 12%]
[WARNING: CORE OVERLOAD IMMINENT]
"You think... you're the only one... who knows how to handle a squeeze?" Kenji's voice was a jagged rasp.
He didn't fight the gravity. He didn't try to stand up straight. He collapsed his own armor's joints, intentionally folding the metal into a smaller, more compact shape.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DENSE-FORGE (RANK 1)]
"If the world is shrinking," Kenji whispered, his violet eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity, "then I'll just become the densest thing in it."
Kenji used his [Binary Blade] to cut into his own Steam-Core. He wasn't destroying it; he was removing the "Safety Limits." He allowed the 15x gravity to do the work for him, using the external pressure to hammer his armor and his mana-well into a singular, hyper-compressed point.
[IDENTITY EVOLUTION: NEUTRON SMITH (TEMPORARY)]
The Sultan's eyes widened. Kenji wasn't wilting anymore. He was sinking. The floor beneath Kenji didn't just crack; it turned to dust as his weight became astronomical.
"Impossible!" the Sultan roared, releasing one hand from the Master Valve to fire a [Pressure Cannon] blast.
The beam of liquid air hit Kenji. Normally, it would have erased a mountain. But Kenji simply absorbed the impact. He was so dense that the energy had nowhere to go it was simply "Recycled" into his own gravitational pull.
Kenji lunged. He didn't run; he "warped" toward the Sultan, the floor rippling behind him like water.
CLANG!
Kenji's fist, encased in hyper-compressed Valve-Iron, hit the Sultan's brass chest. The shockwave blew out every window in the Spire. The Sultan, a Rank 60 giant, was lifted off his feet and slammed back into the Master Valve.
"You... you are a monster of your own making!" the Sultan hissed, his brass skin spider-webbing with cracks.
"I'm a Scrapsmith," Kenji countered, grabbing the Sultan's throat. "And you're just a valve that needs to be closed."
[SKILL ACTIVATED: ULTIMATE AUDIT - SYSTEM VENT]
Kenji didn't break the Sultan. He became the "Release Valve." He channeled all the 15x pressure he had absorbed directly into the Sultan's internal boilers.
"No! My engine! It's too much!"
The Sultan's Rank 70 Void-Engine, the one he had spent centuries preparing, couldn't handle the "Dirty Mana" of Kenji's recycled scrap. It didn't explode—it Vented.
A pillar of pure, white steam shot out of the Sultan's back, piercing through the copper ceiling and into the sky. The pressure in the room plummeted. The 15x gravity vanished, replaced by a momentary weightlessness.
[BOSS DEFEATED: SULTAN MIDAS-V]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 250,000]
[LEVEL UP: 54 -> 62]
[SECTOR 6 STABILITY: RESTORED]
The Sultan slumped to the floor, his brass form dull and lifeless. The Master Valve hissed one last time and locked into a neutral position.
Bjorn and Elara slumped over, gasping for the now-thin, cool air.
"Kenji..." Elara managed to say, looking at him.
Kenji was standing in the center of the room. His armor was gone, burned away by the friction of the compression. He stood there in his basic rags, his skin covered in glowing, violet-etched scars that looked like circuit boards.
[NEW PERMANENT TRAIT: DENSITY SOUL]
[EFFECT: PHYSICAL DEFENSE PERMANENTLY INCREASED BY 200%]
"The engine," Kenji said, pointing to the glowing core the Sultan had been building. It was a sphere of pure, compressed Void-energy. "We're not leaving it here."
"Kenji, that's a Rank 70 component," Mateo warned over the comms, his voice finally clear. "If you touch that without a stabilizer, it'll delete your arm."
Kenji didn't use a stabilizer. He pulled out the Seventh Star, the one he had carried since the Gutter, still dim and hungry. He pressed the Star against the Void-Engine.
The Star didn't just take the energy; it devoured it. The black-and-gold sphere vanished into the Star, which suddenly flared with a brilliant, silver light.
[THE SEVENTH STAR: AWAKENED]
[TRUE FORM: THE STAR OF THE VOID-SMITH]
"Arc Two is officially over," Kenji said, his voice echoing in the silent throne room. "We have the Seven Stars. We have the ship. And now..."
He looked up. Through the hole in the ceiling, he could see the boundary of the Third Layer the "Aether-Reach," where the Architect's True Throne sat.
"Now, we go find the man who started all of this."