The Tesseract was designed to be an inescapable prison. The spatial laws within the geometric box were entirely dictated by the Silverleaf Patriarch.

Gravity shifted every microsecond. It pulled Arthur’s internal organs in six different directions at once. The physical dimensions folded endlessly. If he threw a punch forward, his fist would merely appear behind his own head.

It was a masterpiece of Apex-tier spatial magic. It was capable of holding a Divine Lord until they starved to death or their mind snapped.

Arthur Sterling, however, was not a normal Divine Lord. He was a corporate liquidator. He knew exactly how to dismantle a badly structured contract.

He didn’t waste energy attacking the invisible walls. He simply closed his eyes and let the hostile spatial energy wash over his Dimensional Breaker Physique. His body naturally resisted the crushing gravity. His dense muscles hummed as they absorbed the sheer kinetic stress of the shifting environment.

As he stood there in the dark, the system in his mind roared to life.

"Ding!"

[Target ’Silverleaf Patriarch’ is actively utilizing Spatial Fold: Tesseract.]

[Analyzing structural integrity...]

↳ Identifying foundational nodes...

↳ Mapping conceptual geometry...

[10,000x ROI Multiplier Activated!]

[Host has gained: Grandmaster of Space.]

Arthur’s eyes snapped open. The once confusing void of the Tesseract suddenly made perfect sense. His brain was flooded with millions of hours of spatial comprehension.

He could see the invisible threads holding the dimensional box together. He understood the exact frequencies required to bend, break, and rewrite the physical laws of the universe.

The Patriarch’s ultimate technique wasn’t a prison anymore. It was just a very poorly coded piece of software.

’A microscopic flaw? This is too easy!’ Arthur thought as he smiled.

"Let’s debug this," Arthur whispered.

He raised his right hand. The Ebonheart Cube resting on his shoulder instantly flattened and extended. It snapped into the form of a pitch-black longsword.

He didn’t swing wildly. Using his newly acquired Grandmaster spatial laws, Arthur pinpointed the exact structural weakness of the Tesseract. It was a microscopic flaw in the folding angle of the upper right quadrant.

Arthur infused the blade with his Domain-Level Sword Intent and the chaotic heat of the Primordial Flame.

"Shatter!"

He thrust the Ebonheart Sword upward. The pitch-black blade pierced the invisible fault line. The reaction was catastrophic.

The flawless mathematical equation of the Tesseract violently unraveled. The spatial walls shattered like cheap glass and exploded outward in a blinding shockwave of displaced reality.

Arthur stepped out of the collapsing void and back onto the command bridge of the Ebon Citadel, perfectly unharmed.

Down in the burning depths of the Silverleaf Capital, the real looting had already begun.

While Arthur was momentarily detained, Sylvia Thorne and Morwenna had not been idle. The Arch-Mage and the Demon Empress had dropped directly into the primary vault sector of the city.

They moved with a terrifying lethality. Sylvia walked through the chaotic corridors with her glacial eyes glowing. She didn’t bother fighting the remaining elite guards. She simply waved her hand.

"Absolute Zero," Sylvia commanded.

Entire hallways flash froze instantly. Hundreds of guards were instantly encased in hyper-dense ice with their expressions frozen in permanent horror.

Morwenna followed right behind her acting as the ultimate wrecking ball. The Demon Empress laughed a dark sultry laugh as her abyssal claws easily tore through the heavily enchanted vault doors.

"Crack! Squelch!"

She ripped a massive titanium vault door off its hinges and tossed it aside like a piece of cardboard. They systematically emptied the millennia-old treasury. They swept mountains of divine crystals, sacred texts, and ancient artifacts into their spatial rings.

They were the perfect executive team. They ruthlessly stripped the assets of their defeated rival.

Back on the command bridge, Lyra was staring at a holographic tracker. Her hands were flying across the console.

"Emperor!" Lyra shouted and pointed at a rapidly moving red dot on the display.

"The Patriarch is fleeing! He’s using the city’s emergency spatial relays to teleport to the outer rim. He’s three miles away and accelerating!"

Arthur casually rested the Ebonheart Sword on his shoulder. His dark eyes locked onto the distant burning horizon. Through the thick smoke, his visual acuity spotted the faint shimmering distortion of the Patriarch desperately trying to fold space and run.

"He’s running from a Grandmaster of Space," Arthur scoffed. "Pathetic."

Arthur raised his left hand and curled his fingers into a tight grip. He didn’t move his feet. He just aggressively pulled on the spatial fabric connecting him to the fleeing Patriarch.

The space between them literally compressed. It folded like an accordion.

In the blink of an eye, the three mile distance was reduced to zero. Arthur teleported instantly and materialized directly in front of the panicked Patriarch hovering above the burning city.

The old man screamed and desperately tried to conjure a shield. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

He was too slow.

Arthur didn’t use a spell. He drove his bare hand directly into the center of the Patriarch’s chest. The Dimensional Breaker Physique easily shattered the silver armor and ribs of the man.

"Squelch!"

Arthur’s fingers dug deep into the chest cavity and wrapped securely around a pulsing sphere of energy. The Spatial Core.

According to the laws of cultivation, ripping a core out of a living host preserved one hundred percent of its absolute power.

The Patriarch gagged. Black blood bubbled past his lips as Arthur violently ripped his hand backward.

"Gaaaaah!"

The scream was agonizing. Arthur held the glowing Spatial Master Core in his hand. He watched with cold indifference as the Patriarch’s eyes rolled back. The old man’s body went entirely limp and plummeted out of the sky into the burning ruins of his own city.

Arthur floated in the air to inspect the loot. As he turned the core over in his hand, a sleek encrypted data pad fell from the Patriarch’s shredded robes. Arthur caught it effortlessly with his telekinesis.

He tapped the screen. It was a master ledger. But this one was far older and far more terrifying than the one Lyra had stolen.

It detailed the Harvest Ritual.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed as he read the cold hard numbers. The Three Heavenly Sovereigns weren’t just hoarding energy. They were currently stationed at the absolute center of the Apex Realm conducting a ritual designed to consume the lifespans of a trillion mortals.

They were attempting to forcibly generate enough conceptual weight to blow open a door to the Celestial Court. The next dimensional layer.

"A trillion mortals," Arthur muttered. A dark predatory smile formed on his face. "That’s a lot of stolen capital."

With a thought, Arthur warped space and instantly reappeared on the command bridge of the Citadel. Sylvia, Morwenna, and Lyra were already there surrounded by floating piles of looted treasure.

Arthur casually tossed the dripping Spatial Core to Lyra. The rogue panicked for a second before catching it clumsily.

"Take it, Lyra," Arthur ordered and stepped up to the captain’s chair. "You’re going to need the upgrade. Sylvia, set coordinates for the absolute center of the Apex Realm."

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. Her hands rested on the helm. "The Sovereign Summit?

Commander, that is the seat of the Three Heavenly Sovereigns. It is suicide."

"It’s a hostile takeover," Arthur corrected. He sat down and crossed his legs.

"We have a cosmic ritual to crash."