The silence in my throne room was a rare, precious thing.
Lia, The Champion, and my various Echos and vassals all looked at me, waiting for the explosion. They had just witnessed a mortal, a character from a forgotten story, a literal bug in the system, blackmail the sovereign god of their universe.
They expected me to rage. To descend upon Aethelgard-2 and wipe it from existence for its insolence.
Instead, I started to laugh. A deep, genuine, and utterly delighted laugh that echoed through the Obsidian Monolith.
"He's good," I said, wiping a tear of amusement from my eye. "The little bastard is good. He didn't just win his own game. He's trying to get a seat on the board of mine."
Jin had not just challenged me. He had impressed me. He had used my own, cynical, corporate tactics against me. He had identified a key asset ('Cheesus', the sentient cheese prophet), secured it, and was now leveraging it for a piece of the action.
It was the most beautiful, most gangster move I had ever seen.
"Lia," I said, my grin a mile wide. "Get me a line to Aethelgard-2. I think it's time for a formal business meeting with our new... 'narrative consultant'."
The connection was established. A shimmering, holographic image of Jin appeared before my throne. He was no longer the boy I remembered. He was a king, his eyes sharp and intelligent, his bearing confident. And sitting on a small, velvet cushion on the table beside him was a wedge of enlightened, sentient cheddar, humming with a serene, dairy-based aura.
"Jin," I said, my voice a smooth, friendly baritone. "Or should I say, King Jin? I got your letter. It was a bold move. A stupid one, but bold."
"Sovereign Kaelen," he replied, his tone equally smooth. "I believe the term is 'strategic initiative'. My people have a unique skill set. Your broadcast is a work of art, but it lacks a certain... authenticity. You write stories about mortals. We are mortals. We can provide you with a level of insight that will make your narratives infinitely more profitable."
"And in exchange," I finished for him, "you want a piece of my profits. And, I assume, a non-aggression pact. You want to take your world off the list of potential 'season finales'."
"A mutually beneficial partnership," he said with a diplomat's smile.
It was a good offer. A very good offer. But a good mob boss never takes the first offer.
"Here's the problem, Jin," I said, leaning forward. "Your key asset, the cheese-prophet... he's a religious figure. And my son, the Dairy Hegemony, is currently engaged in a holy war. A war between the old faith (devouring all non-cheese) and this new, pacifist heresy. You're harboring their equivalent of a heretical messiah. That makes your entire world a target. Your 'strategic initiative' has just painted a giant, cheesy bullseye on your own back."
Jin's smile faltered slightly. He had seen the strategic value, but he hadn't considered the theological implications.
"So, here's my counter-offer," I said, my voice turning to cold, hard steel. "You don't get a percentage. You get a salary. You will become the first, official, 'Chief Narrative Officer' of the Sovereign's Syndicate. You and your entire world will work for me. You will provide me with the insights I need to make my stories better. You will manage the 'mortal perspective' of my broadcasts."
"And in exchange," I continued, "I will offer you my protection. When the Dairy Hegemony inevitably declares a 'Grand Crusade' to reclaim their lost prophet, I will ensure that your world is… overlooked. I will edit their war maps. I will alter their prophecies. I will make your entire reality a conceptual blind spot to them."
I was not offering him a partnership. I was offering him a job, and the most valuable benefit in the multiverse: being ignored by the gods.
Jin was silent for a long moment, the weight of my offer sinking in. He had come here as a king, hoping for an alliance of equals. He was leaving as an employee.
"I accept your terms," he finally said, the words a bitter pill.
"Excellent," I said with a cheerful clap. "Welcome to the company, kid. HR will be in touch about your benefits package."
I cut the connection.
I had won. I had neutralized a potential rival, acquired a new, valuable asset, and solved the 'Cheesus' problem, all in one, clean negotiation.
My empire was now more stable, more profitable, and more interesting than ever.
But as I sat back on my throne, basking in the glow of my own, magnificent genius, a new, unforeseen, and deeply disturbing twist emerged.
The Champion, my stoic, time-bending enforcer, who had been silent this entire time, suddenly took a step forward. His face, for the first time since I had met him, was a mask of profound, urgent concern.
"Sovereign," he said, his voice a low, rumbling echo of a dying universe. "While you were... negotiating... I was observing the new arrivals. The Dairy Hegemony."
"And?" I asked, annoyed at the interruption. "Did they do something funny?"
"No," he said, his ancient eyes now holding a deep, unfamiliar fear. "They did something... impossible."
He raised a hand, and an image, a recording from his own, time-seeing eyes, appeared in the air before me.
It was an image of one of the brie-dreadnoughts, a colossal, living ship of sentient cheese. But it was not attacking. It was… building.
The ship was extruding a strange, shimmering, crystalline substance. And it was using this substance to construct a massive, intricate, and terrifyingly familiar object in the void of space.
It was building a throne. An obsidian throne, a perfect, one-to-one replica of the one I had left behind in the Abyss. The one my brother Valerius was now using to power his invasion.
The twist was not just that they were building a throne. It was the energy signature.
My System, my loyal, all-knowing consigliere, screamed a single, catastrophic line of analysis.
[!!! CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED !!!]
[The 'Dairy Hegemony' is not just a 'Consumer Swarm'. They are a 'Replicator Swarm'.]
[Their sentience, born from a 'Sovereign's Whim', has given them a unique, and terrifying, ability: they can replicate any conceptual or divine artifact they encounter.]
[They have replicated the 'Abyssal Throne'. And they are not just building one.]
The Champion's vision expanded, showing me the entire Hegemony fleet, scattered across the lower floors of the Tower.
And every single one of them was building a throne.
[CONCLUSION:] the System concluded, its voice laced with a digital terror I had never heard before. [My analysis of the 'Abyssal Throne' artifact is complete. It is not just a key. It is a gateway. A two-way, conceptual conduit to its creator's soul.]
[The Dairy Hegemony, your 'son', has just, accidentally, created thousands of open, unsecured backdoors... directly into your own, sovereign mind.]
[And the universal broadcast network, the one you opened to the entire multiverse... it is now transmitting the coordinates of every single one of them.]