The dark sky above the Ebon Citadel was completely blotted out by the sheer mass of the Golden Armada.

Three hundred sun-forged galleons hovered in a perfect blockade.

Their massive energy cannons hummed with a low vibrating frequency. The sound made the very air taste like burnt copper.

Arthur stood on the command bridge balcony. His dark coat whipped in the violent winds generated by the fleet descending from the sky.

He held his glass of celestial wine and looked perfectly relaxed. He was just anticipating a slaughter.

But the Heavens were not going to just wait their turn. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"SWOOSH!"

A blinding streak of golden light erupted from the bow of the central flagship.

It moved with incredible speed, tearing through the atmosphere so fast that the sound barrier completely shattered.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. His visual acuity tracked the incoming threat easily.

But his physical body was still adjusting to the sheer density of the gravity in the Apex Realm. He was a fraction of a second too slow.

"CRACK!"

Aurelia was the Undefeated Valkyrie Commander. She slammed feet-first right into Arthur’s chest.

The impact was terrifying.

The wine glass in Arthur’s hand instantly vaporized. The reinforced dark metal of the Citadel balcony crumpled like wet paper under the force of the blow.

Arthur was violently thrown backward. His massive frame tore through the reinforced walls of his own command spire.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"

He crashed through three separate rooms and shattered crystalline pillars. He violently carved a trench into the polished floor before finally slamming into the main reactor housing.

"Commander!" Sylvia shouted loudly. Her icy aura flared with immediate murderous intent.

"I will rip her wings off!" Morwenna roared. Her abyssal tattoos ignited as she prepared to launch herself at the golden blur hovering where Arthur had just stood.

"Stand down!" Arthur’s voice echoed through the dust and rubble. His words were laced with a harsh grating edge.

Slowly, the dust settled. Arthur pushed himself out of the cratered wall.

His dark coat was torn across the chest. A thin trickle of crimson blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

He wiped it away with his thumb and stared at the red smear. He had not bled since he arrived in this universe.

Hovering outside the shattered balcony, Aurelia looked down at him with absolute disgust.

Her six golden wings flared with pure solar energy. The Aegis of the Sun physique radiated a heat that began to melt the exterior of the Citadel.

"You are nothing but an arrogant beast," Aurelia boomed. Her voice was layered with self-righteous fury.

"You lack the refinement of the Heavens. You rely on brute strength, but before the absolute technique of the Vanguard, you are just a slow lumbering target."

Arthur let out a low rumbling chuckle.

He rolled his broad shoulders. He could feel the bruised muscles in his chest knit back together in seconds thanks to his Dimensional Breaker Physique.

"Fast," Arthur admitted as he spit a glob of blood onto the floor. "I will give you that, bird. You actually managed to land a hit. Consider me invested."

Aurelia’s flawless face twisted into a snarl. She raised her right hand and pointed her glowing Spear of Longinus toward the heavens.

"I have no interest in entertaining a dying anomaly," she declared loudly.

"Armada! Purge the filth! Heavenly Smite!"

Above her, the three hundred sun-forged galleons synchronized their arrays.

The ambient mana of the entire sector was violently sucked into the colossal cannons of the fleet. The sky turned into a blinding ocean of concentrated solar plasma.

The heat alone was enough to instantly boil the surrounding moisture. The air turned into a suffocating sauna of lethal radiation.

"They are firing a synchronized planetary wipe!" Lyra screamed from the command console. Her fingers flew across the runes in sheer panic.

"Emperor, the Citadel shields cannot take a blast of this level!"

"They will not have to," Arthur said coldly.

He didn’t step back. He walked forward instead.

He moved through the shattered walls of the spire until he stood at the very edge of the ruined balcony.

He looked up at the sky. His dark eyes reflected the golden light descending upon them.

"Whoosh!"

The Heavenly Smite fired. It was not a beam. It was a falling ocean of divine fire.

It descended with the weight of absolute judgment. It was a strike designed to erase continents and turn oceans to glass.

Arthur didn’t draw the Ebonheart Sword. He simply raised his bare right hand toward the falling sun.

"Is this the best the Heavens can do?" Arthur muttered. A cruel mocking smile spread across his face. "I am disappointed."

"CRACK!"

The massive beam of pure solar plasma slammed into Arthur’s open palm.

The shockwave should have vaporized him instantly. It should have melted the Ebon Citadel into slag.

Instead, the beam stopped dead.

Arthur’s Dimensional Breaker Physique hummed like an engine pushed past its limits.

His muscles bulged. The dark veins in his arm pulsed with the power of his pseudo-ascended core. The sheer volume of the Heavenly Smite crashed against his palm, but it could not pass.

[System Alert]

↳ Foreign Divine Energy Detected: Heavenly Smite.

[Biological State]

↳ Dimensional Breaker Physique Activated: Conceptual Nullification.

"You are wasting company resources," Arthur snarled. His fingers slowly curled inward.

The golden fire screamed. Arthur’s immensely dense mana physically grabbed the light and forced it to obey his rules.

He began to close his fist. As his fingers tightened, the massive beam of plasma was violently sucked downward. It compressed at a terrifying rate.

Up in the sky, Aurelia’s eyes widened in sheer unfiltered horror. The invincible attack of the Golden Armada was not just being blocked. It was being eaten.

In a matter of seconds, the blinding ocean of fire was entirely contained within the palm of Arthur’s hand.

He squeezed his fingers together. He condensed the massive blast into a perfectly smooth marble of pure golden light.

The air around the tiny sphere warped. The sheer density of the contained explosion threatened to tear a hole in reality.

Arthur looked up at the hovering Valkyrie. He tossed the marble of light casually in his hand like a baseball.

"Return to sender," Arthur whispered softly.

He placed his thumb behind his middle finger. He rested the marble on his nail

and flicked it.

"SZZZZZT!"

The tiny sphere of light shot upward faster than the eye could track.

It bypassed Aurelia entirely and tore straight into the center of the Golden Armada formation.

For a fraction of a second, there was absolute silence.

Then the marble detonated.

"BOOM!"

A catastrophic blinding explosion erupted in the middle of the fleet.

The compressed energy of three hundred ships was unleashed all at once. The golden shockwave ripped outward. It instantly vaporized the heavy armor of the galleons.

Fifty massive dreadnoughts were caught in the immediate blast radius. They didn’t even have time to register the impact.

Their shields shattered. Their hulls melted. Their elemental cores detonated in a chain reaction of fireworks.

Flaming debris and molten gold rained down from the sky. It lit up the dark clouds like a hellish meteor shower.

The remaining ships were violently thrown off course. Their formations were entirely broken by the concussive force of their own returned attack.

Down on the balcony, Sylvia and Morwenna watched the sky burn. They were entirely speechless.

Lyra had dropped to her knees. Her hands covered her head as she trembled in absolute awe.

Arthur dusted off his coat. He was entirely unfazed by the localized sun he had just detonated.

His eyes locked onto Aurelia. She was floating in the sky and staring at the burning wreckage of her invincible fleet in disbelief.

"System," Arthur commanded. His aura finally flared outward. "Keep the 10,000x multiplier running. I want every single drop of her combat experience."

[System Alert]

↳ Target Lock Confirmed: Aurelia.

Arthur bent his knees. The dark marble

beneath his boots cracked.

With a deafening sonic boom, he launched himself into the sky. He tore through the air toward the stunned Valkyrie.

"Let us see how well you take a hit, bird!" Arthur roared. His fist reared back.

The real fight was just beginning.