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The Throne Room of the High Spire was not a place of luxury; it was a gravity-chamber of terrifying proportions. As the iron doors dissolved into mist, the atmosphere inside hit Kael's team like a physical wall. The pressure was a constant, oscillating 50x—a "Meat-Grinder" field that turned the very oxygen into a heavy, suffocating sludge.
"Jax, Vora... out," Kael commanded, his voice barely a whisper yet cutting through the atmospheric roar.
"But Kael—" Jax started, his Runic bellows screaming as they fought the 50x pressure.
"This isn't a battlefield for a Legion," Kael said, his platinum eyes fixed on the giant on the throne. "It's a singularity. Go."
As the Sump-Legion withdrew to secure the perimeter, Kael stepped forward. Every inch he advanced, the High Overlord, Baron Ghal, stood taller. Ghal was a mountain of a man, his skin not just gray, but literally petrified by centuries of exposure to the Taurus Array. He didn't wear armor; his body was the armor.
"You think because you can flip a few vectors, you understand the Earth?" Ghal's voice was the sound of tectonic plates grinding. He stepped off his dais, and the entire Spire leaned three degrees to the left. "The Earth isn't just weight, boy. It's Inevitability."
Ghal didn't punch. He simply closed his fist.
[WARNING: COLLAPSAR-FIELD DETECTED] [GRAVITY INTENSITY: 200x... 400x... 800x]
The air around Kael vanished as it was crushed into a microscopic point. The floor beneath him didn't just crack; it turned into a black hole of compressed stone. Kael's Sovereign Vanguard mantle flickered violently, the platinum runes turning a deep, stressed crimson.
For the first time since Volume 1, Kael felt his knees buckle. The 800x gravity was trying to fuse his marrow into his boots.
"That's it," Ghal rumbled, looming over him like a cliffside. "Kneel. Everything in this world eventually returns to the dust. Even a Sovereign."
Kael looked up, blood trickling from his nose, his platinum eyes swirling with a new, dangerous logic. "You're right, Ghal. The Earth is inevitable. But you made one mistake."
Kael's hand shot out, grabbing Ghal's stony ankle.
"You think the Earth is the bottom," Kael gasped, his smirk returning. "But to the Stars... the Earth is just another falling rock."
[ZODIAC SYNC: 55%... 60%... 70%] [THRESHOLD BREACHED: TRUE TAURUS MASTERY] [NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: THE CENTER OF THE VERSE]
Kael didn't push back against the 800x gravity. He became the source of it.
The "Law of the Center" was a Year 5 logic Kael had pulled from the Second Array's archives. It stated that gravity isn't a force that acts on you; it's a force that radiates from you.
Suddenly, the 800x pressure around Kael vanished. Not because he blocked it, but because he had shifted his own internal density to match the field. He stood up, his hand still gripping Ghal's ankle.
"MY... TURN."
Kael didn't lift Ghal. He increased the gravity of Ghal's own body.
The Overlord's eyes widened as his 800-pound frame suddenly weighed 800 tons. The stone floor shattered as Ghal was driven into the bedrock. The "Mountain of Terra" was being crushed by his own essence.
"Sia! Is the broadcast live?" Kael's voice rang out, projected by the Spire's own internal resonance.
"Live to every sector, Kael!" Sia's voice crackled through the comms. "The House of Azure, the House of Gemini... they're all watching!"
Kael looked down at the struggling Overlord. "Look at your god," Kael said to the cameras. "He told you that weight was a burden you had to carry for him. He lied. Weight is just the earth's way of holding you close. And he no longer deserves the embrace."
Kael raised his other hand, channeling the Scorpio-Aries-Taurus trinity. Platinum, Red, and Amber light fused into a needle-thin point of white energy.
"RESET."
He drove the point into Ghal's chest, right where the Taurus Heart-Link was fused to his ribs.
The explosion was silent. A wave of white light expanded from the Spire's apex, traveling down the iron ribs, through the Sump, and into the very core of the Array.
Ghal's stony skin began to flake away, turning back into soft, human flesh. The Overlord's glow died. The 800x field vanished. The air in the Spire became light, sweet, and breathable.
Ghal lay in the crater, gasping, looking up at Kael with eyes that were finally, humanly clear. "The Array... it's... quiet."
"The Array is mine," Kael said.
[VOLUME 2 COMPLETE: THE TAURUS BASTION] [ZODIAC SYNC: 100% (TAURUS)] [PERMANENT BUFF: THE EARTH-KING'S AUTHORITY] Kael is now immune to all gravity-based attacks and can command the density of any object he touches.
Outside, the Sump-Legion let out a roar that shook the Wastes. The Goldsmiths on the bridge dropped their fused weapons and knelt. In the distance, the Golden Bastion flared with a permanent, celestial light.
Kael walked to the Spire's balcony and looked out over his new kingdom. The Western Wastes were no longer a graveyard. They were the foundation of his empire.
[DEAD MAN'S SWITCH: 04:00:00] [NEW OBJECTIVE: TRAVEL TO THE SECTOR OF TWINS]
"Lyra," Kael said, looking at the silver-haired girl who had appeared at the entrance. "It's time to go home. Volume 3 belongs to the Gemini."