The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow.
I was the carrier. The plague rat. My grand, triumphant arrival in Nexus Prime had been the start of a silent, insidious epidemic. The Static, my ultimate, conceptual enemy, was not just a distant threat. It was inside me. It was riding on my coattails.
My first, instinctual reaction was a wave of cold, sovereign fury. I had been… contaminated. Violated. Used as a mindless delivery system for a cosmic disease.
But my second reaction, the one that came from the cold, hard, pragmatic core of my being, was one of pure, analytical focus.
A problem had been identified. A very, very big one. Now, it was time to solve it.
Master Artificer Cogsworth, oblivious to the cosmic drama unfolding in my mind, was still babbling in terror. "Can you fix it, Lord Sovereign? Can you save my star?"
"Fix it?" I said, my voice a low, dangerous murmur. "Oh, I'm going to do more than that. I'm going to perform an exorcism."
I looked at the beautiful, dying, Static-infected star. It was a cancer. But it was also a unique, unprecedented opportunity. It was a live specimen. A chance to study my ultimate enemy up close.
My System, my loyal, pragmatic assistant, immediately formulated a plan.
[SOVEREIGN'S WHIM: A LITTLE LIGHT SURGERY]
[Description: A 'Static' infection is a conceptual parasite. It feeds on the host's energy while slowly overwriting its core reality. Direct confrontation is… inadvisable.]
[Objective: Do not destroy the Forge-Star. Isolate it. Use your authority over 'Space' (from the Infinity Shard) to create a 'Quarantine Pocket Dimension' around the star. Cut it off from the rest of this reality.]
[Next Step: Use your authority over 'Time' (from the Chronaeternal Engine) to accelerate the temporal flow within the pocket dimension. Turn it into your own, personal laboratory. A place where you can study the infection's entire life cycle in a matter of minutes.]
[Purpose: To understand your enemy. To find a weakness. And to turn their own, insidious weapon into a tool for your own empowerment.]
It was a brilliant, terrifying, and utterly audacious plan. I was going to turn a city-ending bomb into my own, private petri dish.
"Cogsworth," I said, my voice now ringing with the absolute authority of a god-king surgeon. "Clear the area. Tell your people to stand back. The procedure I am about to perform is… delicate."
The terrified gnome scrambled to obey.
I stood before the raging, sputtering Forge-Star. I raised my hands.
First, Space.
I grabbed the very fabric of the reality around the star and I folded it. The world bent, warped, and sealed itself off, creating a perfect, shimmering, and utterly isolated bubble of space-time with the star at its center.
Next, Time.
I reached into the bubble, not with my hand, but with my will. And I pushed the fast-forward button.
Inside the quarantine zone, time began to accelerate at an impossible rate. Days, months, years, centuries… all flying by in a matter of seconds. I watched, my [Eye of Scrutiny] recording every nanosecond of data, as the Static infection grew, festered, consumed the star's energy, and then, finally, starved, sputtered, and died, leaving behind a strange, crystalline residue of pure, conceptual 'anti-existence'.
I had just witnessed the entire life cycle of a cosmic plague. And I now had its corpse.
I collapsed the pocket dimension. The Forge-Star, now cleansed, stable, and shining brighter than ever, hummed with a new, healthy energy.
The procedure was a success.
Cogsworth and his gnomes stared in a state of pure, religious awe. I had not just saved their city. I had performed a miracle that defied the very laws of their reality.
"The price," I said, my voice a little weary from the immense exertion of will, "is one trillion Quintessence. And your eternal, unquestioning loyalty to the Sovereign's Syndicate."
Cogsworth didn't even hesitate. "Done!" he squeaked.
My cash-flow problem was solved. And I now had the undivided loyalty of the most technologically advanced faction in the city.
But my true prize was the data. The knowledge of my enemy's weakness.
And the System, my beautiful, brilliant consigliere, had already formulated the final step.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE. The 'Static Residue' is a form of conceptual 'anti-life'. It is a poison to all living things.]
[CREATION ENGINE PROPOSAL: 'THE PLAGUE-EATER' PROTOCOL]
[Objective: You are Patient Zero. The Static spores are likely still dormant within your own soul. You must create an 'anti-virus'.]
[Forge a new, symbiotic entity using the 'Static Residue' as a base. An 'Anti-Static' organism. A creature whose sole purpose is to hunt and devour the Static's presence, not just in this world, but within your own soul.]
It was the ultimate, sovereign "fuck you" to my enemy. I was going to use the corpse of their own plague to create my own, personal, and permanent cure.
I was about to turn their greatest weapon into my newest pet.
But as I stood on the verge of this new, grand victory, a new, unforeseen, and utterly devastating twist emerged.
A message. Not from my System. Not from an ally.
It was a universal announcement. A cry for help. A public, desperate broadcast from a source I had long since forgotten, but whose voice was burned into the very fabric of my being.
It was from my Echo. My Regent. My Queen.
Lia.
The message was a single, frantic, and terrifying image, broadcast from the Third Floor across the entire Tower network.
It was an image of my throne room in the Black Spire. And it was a scene of absolute, total devastation. The obsidian walls were shattered. My armies of vassals were broken, their bodies scattered across the floor.
And in the center of the room stood two figures.
The first was Lia, my Echo, my perfect, logical queen. Her form was flickering, glitching, on the verge of collapse.
The second figure stood over her, a sword of pure, white-hot, solar fire held to her throat.
It was Cinder. The champion of the Solar Flame. The demigoddess I had defeated, consumed, and whose power I had used to mock the entire Necropolis.
She was not dead. She had been reborn. And she was no longer just a champion. Her body was now a vessel for the full, unadulterated, and incandescently furious consciousness of her sponsor, the god she served.
The Solar Flame itself.
And its message, which boomed across the multiverse, was not a challenge. It was a hostage negotiation.
[TO THE USURPER, KAELEN,] the god's voice roared, a sound of pure, righteous fury. [You have taken my champion. You have stolen my power. You have defiled my honor. Now, I have taken your queen. And I have taken your empire.]
[You will return what you have stolen. You will return the 'Heroic Will' of my Cinder. You will come to the Third Floor, alone. You will kneel. And you will surrender your own soul as payment.]
[Refuse, and I will burn your precious Echo, and your entire, pathetic little kingdom, to a cinder.]
[You have one cycle.]