The death of the Gilded Sovereign did not leave a vacuum; it left a deficit. As the copper remains of the God of Wealth scattered across the leaden floor of the ruined palace, the very concept of value began to bleed out of the astral realm. The diamond pillars, once symbols of unyielding worth, turned into brittle glass, and the sky of beaten gold cracked like a frozen lake, revealing the terrifying, dark violet expanse of the Higher Threshold.

Ren Hanshin stood at the center of the devastation, his silhouette a jagged scar against the dying light.

[Synchronization: 69.0%]

[Level: 113] 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

[Condition: Sovereignty Rejection]

[Status: The Grave-Breaker’s Debt]

His left arm, the leaden anchor of his humanity, was now fused with his shoulder in a rigid, grey lattice that pulsated with a dark, bruised violet mana. His porcelain right side was so translucent that the crimson starlight of the Weaver’s circuits looked like a web of lightning trapped beneath ice. He no longer felt the friction of his clothes or the weight of his boots. He was becoming a conceptual needle, a tool of pure severance.

The Severance of Destiny hummed in his hands, its blade no longer amber-red, but a deep, sunset-crimson that seemed to drink the shadows of the falling palace. It was the only thing that felt real in a world that was rapidly devaluing into nothingness.

Weaver’s presence was the architecture of his mind. Her starlight veil was woven into his optic nerves, and her voice was a constant, shimmering harmonic that made the air itself vibrate with her obsession.

[Weaver]: The merchant is harvested, my King. The debt is voided, but the loom is still hungry, Ren. Loot at the fleet below, consume them. They are fragile threads in a storm we have created. If we do not anchor them to the higher realms, they will be erased by the devaluation.

Ren’s obsidian eyes, now flecked with gold-silver shards from the Sovereign’s death, focused on the distance. Miles below, the Kashima Maru was a speck of rusted iron struggling against a sea of metallic sludge. He could feel Haru’s sapphire core pulsing with a tiny, frantic heartbeat in a world of silence.

"I... am still... a porter," Ren rasped. The voice was a Dual-Will resonance, a sound that made the leaden floor beneath him crumble into ash.

He didn’t walk toward the edge of the palace; he translated. The 69% synchronization allowed him to treat space as a folded fabric. In a single frame, he stood on the prow of the Kashima Maru, his sudden arrival causing the deck to groan under the sheer conceptual mass of his 113 levels.

The survivors recoiled. Tanaka and Kaito raised their hands to shield their eyes from the amber-red radiance leaking from Ren’s skin. They didn’t see a savior; they saw a calamity draped in a tattered coat.

"Ren... your face," Haru whispered, her sapphire light a trembling, pale blue.

Ren looked at his reflection in the bridge glass. The red cracks of the Weaver’s Mark had reached his jawline, and the lead infection from his arm was creeping up his neck like a slow, grey vine. He looked like a man being rebuilt by two different gods who couldn’t agree on the design.

"The Sovereign is dead," Ren said. The words were a command that echoed in the survivors’ souls. "But the realm is falling. The gold is turning to lead. If we do not cross the Aureum Threshold now, the weight of the debris will sink the fleet into the Void."

"We can’t move, Ren!" Kaito yelled from the bridge, his face pale and aged. "The propellers are seizing! The water is turning into solid copper!"

Ren looked at the sea. The metallic sludge was indeed solidifying as the God of Wealth’s mana evaporated. The Kashima Maru was encased in a tomb of worthless metal.

The Weaver’s voice turned sharp, a rhythmic needle-prick in his brain.

[Weaver]: The sapphire, Ren. Her core is the only source of constant frequency left. If you weave her light into the scythe, you can cut a path to the void. But the strain... The strain will break the dirt. Consume her, Ren. You will become more and more strong than now.

Ren’s hand tightened on the handle of the Severance of Destiny. He looked at Haru. She was his sister, the only reason he had carried the load this far. But he was at 69%, and the silk was whispering that the many outweighed the one.

"Haru... I need... the light," Ren rasped, his left leaden hand reaching out.

"Ren, don’t," Tanaka stepped between them, his hand on his sword. "You’re not thinking straight. You’re bleeding starlight and talking like a machine. If you take any more from her, there won’t be a Haru left to save!"

Ren didn’t look at Tanaka. To his 69% vision, the veteran hunter was just a frayed thread, a liability in a high-stakes transaction.

"Move," Ren commanded.

The aura from the scythe flared. A wave of amber-red pressure hit Tanaka, throwing him across the deck as if he were made of paper. The survivors screamed, but their voices were muffled by the heavy, metallic air.

Ren walked toward Haru. Every step he took left a glowing amber footprint that burned into the steel deck. He was a predator of destiny, and his sister was the target.

"Niisan... please," Haru whispered, her sapphire core blinking a frantic, terrified blue.

Ren stopped inches from her. He raised his right porcelain hand and touched the air near her chest. He didn’t pull the mana; he Weaved it. He began to pull the blue threads of the Sea-Heart’s light and lace them directly into the crimson glass of the scythe.

The Severance of Destiny began to scream. The combination of the Weaver’s silk and the Sea-Heart’s sapphire created a violent, unstable frequency — a Braid of Rejection.

[Synchronization: 69.0% -> 69.2% -> 69.5%]

[Heart consumption in progress]

"STOP!" Ren roared, but the voice wasn’t his. It was a chorus of the Weaver and the Sovereign of the Deep. He slammed the scythe into the solidified copper sea.

"Shinen-ryu Style: Kokū-Zandō!" Ren didn’t swing for a kill. He swung for Erasure. The sapphire-crimson arc of the scythe didn’t cut the metal; it unraveled it. The solid copper sea turned into a torrent of red and blue silk that pulled the Kashima Maru forward at a terrifying velocity. He was weaving a path through the collapsing realm, using the survivors’ own destinies as the thread.

The fleet surged. The towers of Aureum-Primus collapsed behind them, turning into a cloud of leaden dust that was swallowed by the dark violet void. They were crossing the threshold, leaving the Gilded Grave for the absolute unknown of the Higher Constellations.

But as the path opened, Ren felt his human heart stutter. The 69.5% was a weight that even he couldn’t carry. He looked down at Haru. She had collapsed on the deck, her skin pale, her sapphire core dim and flickering.

[Weaver]: It is done, my King. The debt is paid. The scrap is safe, but the pattern is now permanent. You cannot go back to the dirt.

Ren fell to his knees beside his sister. He reached out with his leaden hand, but he didn’t touch her. He saw the white-hot fissures on his skin and the grey vine on his neck. He was the Grave-Breaker, the Executioner who had killed Death and Wealth.

But as the Kashima Maru sailed into the violet silence of the Higher Threshold, Ren Hanshin realized he had forgotten the smell of the Okutama pines. He had forgotten the sound of his own laughter.

He was Level 113. He was at 69.5% synchronization. He was the most powerful thing in the Astral Realm.

And he had never been more bankrupt.

[Synchronization: 69.5% (LOCKED)]

The Aureum Threshold was behind them. The Void of the Weaver was ahead. And as the first star of the next constellation appeared in the dark violet sky, Ren Hanshin gripped the Severance of Destiny and waited for the next destination.

//Author note for readers.//

I am here to request a thing. I didn’t get a sufficient response for my novel - ’Solo Streaming: My only viewer is a Yandere Goddess.’ If you really like to read it, please support it with the gifts, power stones or any thing.

Any one of them will be an inspiration to me. And another thing. from now the Chapters gonna be more intense and Let’s dive deep into Ren’s journey. Hope you all love my novels.

And I launched a new book of eastern genre, also I am new to xianxia genre so please inform me any mistakes are found. I will make sure to change them and give the output which will entertain you a lot. Thank you so much..

My new book name is ’Eternal Beast Cultivation’. Hope you will enjoy it. Thank you!