The Hydra's central head snapped forward with a speed that defied its massive bulk. The air groaned as the beast's fangs, dripping with a viscous, indigo liquid gravity, tore through the atmospheric pressure. Jeather didn't move—not out of bravado, but because he was physically incapable of it. His boots were fused to the obsidian floor, the "Falling Star" in his chest exerting a downward force so immense that the black glass beneath his heels was beginning to spiderweb and liquefy.
"Think, Jeather. Think," he hissed through gritted teeth, the sound muffled by the roar of the crater's sulfur vents.
His calculative mind, usually a clean stream of logic, was currently a battlefield of sensory overload. Kael hadn't just abandoned him in the deep; he had severed the connection to the world's central mana-grid. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his deck. The cards were slate-gray, the vibrant illustrations of his life's work obscured by a shifting, digital mist.
"You tried to delete me, Kael," Jeather whispered, his lungs burning from the 180°C air. "But I am the one who writes the ending."
Jeather looked inward, focusing on the crushing weight in his soul-core. He forced the raw energy of the Grand-Engine's collapse to flow through his fingertips.
"Saxum! I need you to become the foundation!"
Inside the realm, the little Golem responded instantly, liquefying into an obsidian mercury that bled from Jeather's pores, coating the gray cards. The "Falling Star" acted as a forge, incinerating the gray mist. The illustrations returned in midnight violet and jagged silver, etched with the scars of the descent.
"My rules now," Jeather growled.
The Hydra lunged, and Jeather flicked the first card of his new, independent deck.
"Shadow-Link: Manifest!"
The Void-Sovereign Hound erupted from a jagged rift, its spectral jaws locking onto the Hydra's central neck. Simultaneously, Jeather opened a mental channel to the pressurized space of his realm. He needed to know who had survived the "Falling Star" impact.
"Status report!" Jeather commanded, his voice echoing in the minds of his collection.
"I'm here, Jett!" Saxum's voice was distorted but eager. "The air is crunchy, but I've got the cards held together!"
"Ready to hunt," the Void-Sovereign Hound growled through the shadow-link, its teeth sinking deeper into the Hydra's scales.
High above the internal landscape of his soul, the Aether-Vulture shrieked, its emerald flames casting long shadows over the Jungle King Gorilla, who sat in the center of the quarry, arms crossed and eyes burning with suppressed fury.
"The weight is nothing," the Gorilla rumbled, his voice like tectonic plates shifting. "Give me the word, and I will crush this worm."
Near the flickering [Aether-Forge], Astrael stood silent, his white flames dim but steady. Beside him, the Mercury Mimics shivered, their forms shifting between jagged blades and liquid pools, waiting for a command. The Storm-Cloud Elemental residue swirled in the heights of the realm, its lightning turning a deep violet to match Jeather's current mana signature.
Even the Glass-Winged Drake and the Abyssal Vulture stirred from their forced hibernation, their predatory instincts sharpening as they felt the raw, unregulated power of the deep. The Mercury Hound and the Shadow-Weaver Spider moved in the periphery, weaving a defensive web around the core of Jeather's soul.
"Twelve active, three in recovery," Jeather calculated, dodging a strike from the Hydra's left head. "More than enough."
"Saxum! Increase the load! Gorilla, frontline!"
Jeather threw the second card. The Jungle King Gorilla manifested mid-air, but because Jeather was fueling the card with the "Falling Star," the beast's density was multiplied tenfold. The Gorilla slammed into the Hydra's back like a kinetic bombardment, shattering its obsidian scales.
The Hydra let out a dissonant shriek as its liquid-gravity blood sprayed across the floor. Jeather stepped forward, siphoning the beast's blood into his own chest to stabilize his heartbeat.
"You're just a brick in my new kingdom,"
Jeather said, pressing a Void-Steel Sealing Card against the Hydra's forehead. The capture was a total consumption.
[Capture Successful: Void-Stalker Hydra (Peak-Gold)]
With the Hydra sealed, the weight in Jeather's chest balanced. He turned North, heading toward the Ore Kingdom. The geography shifted into structured, geometric formations of raw iron and interlocking brass plates.
Crossing a mile-wide chasm of molten slag, Jeather was intercepted by a swarm of Shrapnel-Wasps. Their wings sounded like sharpening blades as they targeted his magnetic signature.
"Thermal Purge!"
He flicked the Aether-Vulture's card. The bird erupted in emerald fire, turning the wasps into falling embers mid-flight. Jeather pushed forward into the Inner Gate, where the Great Gear-Titan waited.
The thirty-foot Low-Platinum construct swung a massive brass hammer. Jeather used the Void-Sovereign Hound's shadow-step to blink behind the giant.
"Saxum, infect the core! Gorilla, tear the vents!"
Saxum liquefied into the Titan's gears while the Gorilla ripped the steam-pipes from its stone chassis. The guardian began to overheat, its brass skin turning a dull orange.
Jeather leaped from a catwalk, slamming a sealing card into the Titan's exposed heart-unit.
[Capture Successful: Great Gear-Titan (Low-Platinum)]
The chamber fell silent. Jeather stood in the center of the wreckage, looking at the two new cards in his hand—the Hydra and the Titan.
He looked toward the North, where the massive brass doors were creaking open to reveal a magnetic jungle of copper-wire vines.
Kael Dravenhart had tried to hide him, but Jeather realized the Under-World was his true forge. There was no rank here, only the weight of one's soul and the strength of the deck.
"Twelve kingdoms left," Jeather calculated, a small, cold smile appearing on his face. "I'll harvest them all."
He stepped through the doors, his heavy footsteps echoing into the new wilderness, the "Weight of the Falling Star" finally feeling like a crown.