The air in the Obsidian Citadel isn't just heavy; it's a physical weight, a pressurized mix of compressed divinity and the metallic tang of desperation. This fortress, a jagged splinter of reality wedged between the Aetherial Plane and the mundane world, hums with the vibration of a thousand dying stars. On a throne carved from a literal, solidified black hole—a seat that drinks the light and warps the very vision of those who stare too long—Harish sits.
To the masses, he is the Absolute Sovereign. He's the guy who choked out Void-Eaters while barely breaking a sweat and rewrote the laws of physics because the old ones were too clunky. To them, he is a living monument.
But inside that shimmering Star-Eater silk, Harish is just a guy from xxxxxxxxxxx, India, who is absolutely, 100% done with being a god. He's daydreaming. Not about mana-density, but about the specific, oily crispness of a roadside samosa. He misses the way his sister's laughter sounds like a deliberate provocation and the crinkle of the morning newspaper in his father's hands. His armor can withstand a supernova, but right now, he'd trade it all for a banyan tree's shade and a worn-out t-shirt with a hole in the armpit.
He fidgets. It's a tiny twitch of the cuff, a hairline fracture in his "Infinite Ruler" persona.
"Enough," Harish says.
The word doesn't just travel; it anchors. The desperate babble of a thousand worlds—Dwarves in clanking, steam-hissing plate, Elves with hair like weeping willows—simply ceases. The silence is so sudden it makes your ears pop.
He leans forward. The shadows of the black hole throne swallow half his face, making him look like a terrifying marble statue. His eyes, usually a warm brown prone to squinting at a bad joke, are currently twin voids of cold authority. He looks at Soo-jin.
"I taught you the Nine Heavens God-Slaying Fist," Harish reminds her, his voice a low rumble that vibrates in her very marrow. "Your Qi capacity is a literal ocean now. The Murim realms don't need my shadow. They need your strategy."
Soo-jin doesn't move an inch. Her posture is a masterpiece of military precision, but her brain is a high-speed processor running disaster simulations.
"Power is one thing, Master," she says, her voice as steady as a blade. "But you are the Principle of Deterrence. Without you, the math of our survival drops to seven point eight percent."
Harish suppresses a groan. He's thinking about how his mom used to deter him from staying out late by waving a rolling pin. That was real power. This? This is just exhausting.
He turns his gaze to Kaelen, the war-mage whose shoulders are broad enough to carry a mountain, yet currently shaking like a leaf.
"Kaelen," Harish sighs. "You have the Aegis of Primordial Light. You are the shield. Act like it."
Kaelen looks up, eyes wet and pleading.
"The treaties are held together by your name alone, Sovereign. If you leave, the Elven Empire and the Draconian Houses will be at each other's throats before the sun sets."
Harish wants to tell him he doesn't give a damn about Draconian property disputes; he just wants to argue about cricket scores in a plastic chair. Instead, he looks at Lyra.
The youngest disciple is a mess. Her moonstone skin is streaked with glowing tears, her aetherial essence flickering like a dying lightbulb.
"The Prime Origin Arcana is incomplete," she whispers, clutching at the air near his feet. "Who will explain reality to me if you go? You're the only light we have."
Harish's face softens, just for a heartbeat.
"You've read five universes' worth of libraries, Lyra. Reality is fluid. I'm just closing a cycle."
"But why?" she asks, her voice cracking. "Why go back to a low-power backwater like Earth?"
Harish stands. The gravity in the room lurches. People stumble.
"Because there, I'm not a crown," he says, and for the first time, the "Absolute Sovereign" mask feels like it's peeling off. "I'm just a son. I'm just Harish. And I've missed him for three hundred years."
He raises his palm. A blinding, white-gold spark ignites, condensing into a small, impossibly intricate key. The Seventh Dimensional Nexus Key. It pulses with a rhythm that feels like a heartbeat.
"My final decree is simple: Peace through Vigilance. Growth through Unity."
With a flick of his wrist, the key slots into the invisible gears of the universe. Reality doesn't just open; it screams. A jagged, violent rupture tears through the hall—a swirling vortex of indigo fire and the smell of ozone and home.
The crowd wails. They reach out. But Harish is already at the edge of the wound in space-time. The wind from the portal whips his regal robes, making the captured nebulae dance.
He looks back one last time. For a microsecond—a flash only someone as sharp as Soo-jin could catch—the mask vanishes. He looks like a kid who just heard the school bell ring for summer vacation. He gives a tiny, carefree smirk, and then he steps into the chaos.
The portal implodes. Pop. Silence returns, but it's a different kind now. Hollow. Terrified.
Kaelen stands up first. He isn't shaking anymore. His fists are white-knuckled, and his eyes are burning with a terrifying, singular focus.
"He is gone," Kaelen rumbles.
Lyra wipes her eyes, her sorrow hardening into something sharp and crystalline.
"He went to Earth," she whispers. "A low-energy world. Protected. But... we have the coordinates now."
Soo-jin is the last to rise. She looks at the empty black hole throne, her analytical mind already discarding the "grief" variable and replacing it with "objective."
"He gave us power and loyalty," Soo-jin says, her voice like cracking ice. "He made a mistake. He taught us exactly how to find him."
She looks at Kaelen.
"Rally the Legions. Maintain the borders. Rule in his name for now."
Then she turns to Lyra, whose eyes are already glowing with aetherial calculations.
"Forget your other research. Trace his signature. Map the Chrono-Aetheric Bridge. I don't care how many laws of magic you have to break."
Soo-jin clenches her fist, a rare, human display of raw intent.
"The Sovereign thinks he's going home to have a nap. He thinks he can just leave us behind."
Kaelen places a heavy hand over his heart.
"We are the Hunters of the Sovereign."
"To find our Master," Lyra declares.
"To find Harish," Soo-jin corrects, a predatory glint in her eyes. "No matter the cost. No matter the distance."
As they march out of the hall, the cosmic search begins. Back in xxxxxxxxxxx, a man is about to find out that when you spend three centuries becoming a god, your disciples don't just say goodbye—they start tracking you.