Alrin returned from the Mecha plant late that evening, the scent of ionized fuel and heavy grease clinging to his uniform.
Inside the Veyron Tower, the air felt thick and unsettled, as if the very walls were vibrating with an anxious energy.
He saw Lyra standing by the window, her gaze fixed on the distant stars, her Weave Phase ribbon looms shimmering in a restless, disorganized pattern around her.
Alrin stepped forward quietly and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her into a protective embrace.
He rested his chin on her shoulder, but his eyes immediately narrowed at the chaotic flow of her energy.
"The looms are unsettled, Lyra," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "Something has happened to our little Dreadnought."
Lyra sighed, leaning back into his warmth as she recounted the day's events—the Void Whale hunger, the emergency call, and the advice from General Valerius.
Alrin's expression darkened as he listened. "The Void Whale consciousness is waking up faster than we anticipated. It needs to be controlled."
"I'll head to a dying star," Alrin decided. "I'll stabilize some Red-Core Liquid from a super-heavy star. It's dense enough to sate that hunger and keep Redveil from getting out of control."
Lyra turned in his arms, her eyes wide with worry. "Alrin, that's too dangerous. Extracting star-core fluid at your current output... the pressure could crush your internal circuits."
Alrin didn't argue; instead, he simply let his breath out in a slow, controlled exhale.
Suddenly, the air in the room grew heavy, and the light seemed to get sucked into a localized vacuum.
A massive, intricate Net of pitch-black ribbons erupted from Alrin's body, spanning the entire room in a perfect, geometric web.
Lyra gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in pure amazement.
His cultivation has not slowed down as his level increased, but has instead become faster, defying the usual laws of stagnation at higher levels.
She felt a surge of pride, but it was quickly followed by a pang of bittersweet frustration.
Before her pregnancy with Kaelen, she had been neck-and-neck with Alrin, but the toll of birthing a Veyron heir had left her cultivation lagging behind.
Veyron DNA was inherently aggressive in its growth, and seeing Alrin move so far ahead made her own stagnant looms feel fragile.
Alrin sensed the sudden silence in her heart; he didn't just hold her closer, he chose a more rigorous path of support.
With a sharp mental command, Alrin did the unthinkable: he severed several primary strands of his own Black Net from his boundary.
Lyra cried out in protest, but the black strands were already weaving themselves into her disorganized looms.
The high-level Net energy acted like a magnetic template, forcing her loose threads to align, connect, and fuse with terrifying efficiency.
"Alrin, stop! You'll damage your own foundation!" she whispered, feeling her cultivation speed triple in seconds.
"It's alright," Alrin grunted, his face slightly pale but his eyes burning with resolve. "Regrowing a severed net only makes the new strands more compact. As Veyrons, we thrive on the burn."
Lyra knew it wasn't as easy as he made it sound, but she felt the love in the sacrifice; she turned and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest.
Alrin wrapped his heavy arms around her, the black net slowly receding back into his skin. "It's alright, Lyra. We rise together."
After a moment of peace, Lyra looked up. "If you are at this level... what about your Destroyer? Have you finalized the design for your personal Mecha?"
Alrin walked over to a holographic terminal, pulling up a massive, skeletal frame of a black Mecha. "I've been gathering the materials, but the weapon system... I'm still not satisfied with the logic."
Lyra's eyes lit up with her Weaver's brilliance as she began to modify the blueprints, integrating Alrin's new Net Phase into the Mecha's very skin.
"The Net shouldn't just be inside," she murmured, drawing a web of armor-plating. "It should be the outer layer, making the Mecha a living extension of your boundary."
Then, she looked at the primary weapon slot and remembered Kaelen's hammer practice. "Alrin, we should use a Pulsar-Smasher design. But with a Veyron twist."
"A hammer?" Alrin asked, tilting his head.
"A Gravity-Impact Siege Pillar," Lyra corrected, her fingers flying over the holographic keys.
"The head of the pillar functions as a Super-Heavy Vacuum Cannon. It fires condensed Ribbon pulses that collapse space-time on impact."
"And when the energy cells are empty?" Alrin asked, a grin beginning to form.
"Then you trigger the Detonation Coupling," Lyra explained. "The cannon head locks onto the handle, which extends into a Telescoping Gravity-Shaft."
"You wrap the entire head in your Black Net, turning the cannon into a solid, reinforced War-Sledge. From a long-range artillery piece to a super-destroying melee weapon in one click. It's brute, but it's sophisticated."
Alrin looked at the design—a weapon that fires stars and then swings them like a mace. "I love it. It fits a Smasher perfectly."