Chapter 24: The Falling Sky
Han stepped out of the shadows and back into the humid, salt-kissed air of the Sovereign's Nest. The sudden change in pressure made his ears pop, but his focus was singular. He stood on the balcony, looking north toward the jagged, white silhouettes of the Himalayas.
"It's starting," he murmured.
Behind him, Lin Mei and Kali approached. Kali looked at him with a knowing, dark shimmer in her eyes; she could feel the scent of the frost princess on his skin, a cold musk that hadn't yet evaporated.
"You took her," Kali whispered, a trace of a smirk on her lips. "The 'Ice Jewel' of the North. Boris will lose his mind."
"He's about to lose a lot more than that," Han replied.
The Backfire
At that exact moment, the horizon ignited. It wasn't the slow glow of a sunrise, but a violent, jagged spear of violet light that shot upward from the highest peak. The 'God-Slayer' cannon had been triggered.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath. Then, the spear of light buckled. The golden mana Han had injected into the conduits acted like a virus, reversing the flow of energy. Instead of firing outward, the beam collapsed in on itself.
A silent shockwave rippled across the sky, followed by a roar that shook the very foundations of the Jade Emperor Tower. The mountain peak didn't just crumble; it liquefied. Millions of tons of ice and ancient stone turned into a rolling, white apocalypse, surging down the slopes to swallow the Himalayan Sanctum.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[EMPIRE 'HIMALAYAN HIGH-COMMAND' — CRITICALLY DAMAGED]
[POINTS GAINED: +15,000]
"Han, the survivors!" Su Lan cried out, her emerald eyes wide with horror as she sensed the thousands of lives being snuffed out in the cold. "The women, the children... they'll be buried!"
"We aren't letting them die," Han said, his voice hard. "We're going to harvest them. Mei, Kali—prepare the transport units. We're going into the rubble."
The Rescue in the Ruins
Using the Harem_Teleportation, Han didn't just bring himself; he brought his warriors. They materialized in the heart of a nightmare. The grand palace was a skeleton of white marble half-buried in a sea of frozen debris. The air was a thick fog of ice dust and the screams of trapped soldiers.
Han moved through the wreckage like a ghost. He didn't care about the generals or the King; his Dynasty_Eye was scanning for "High Fertility" signatures—the women who had been the backbone of the mountain society.
He found Anya first. She was trapped beneath a fallen glacier-pillar in her private chambers. Her silver mesh suit was torn, and blood—red as rubies against the snow—trickled down her forehead.
Han lifted the three-ton pillar with a single, grunting heave of his Strength, tossing it aside like a twig. He knelt in the snow, pulling Anya into his arms. Her skin was deathly cold, her pulse thready.
"You... you came back," she rasped, her blue eyes struggling to focus on his golden ones.
"I told you I would," Han whispered. He didn't give her a potion. He pressed his mouth to hers, breathing his own surging, divine heat directly into her lungs. It was an intimate, desperate transfer of life. As his warmth flooded her, Anya's body arched, her hands clutching at his chest as if he were the only solid thing in a world of ice.
The Harvest of the Peaks
Around them, Lin Mei and Kali were rounding up the survivors—hundreds of high-ranking maidens and researchers who had been left for dead by their fleeing King.
"The Citadel is ready for them," Xara's voice crackled through the Hive_Mind. "But Han... the energy from the explosion has woken something up. Something beneath the mountains. It's moving toward the heat."
Han looked toward the dark, yawning chasm that had opened in the valley floor. A low, vibrating hum—deeper than any kraken—shook the ground.
"Load them up," Han commanded, his eyes flashing. "We take everyone back to the tower. The mountains are dead. The era of the sea begins tonight."
As the last of the survivors were teleported away, Han stood alone for a moment in the ruins of the empire. He could feel the eyes of the thing in the chasm watching him. He smirked, his hand resting on the hilt of his power.
The Dynasty wasn't just growing. It was hungry.
Next Step in the Story:
Han has saved hundreds of women from the mountains, including the Princess. The Citadel is about to become very crowded.