Chương 410: Void Battery

The unyielding resolve to protect our home required more than just plans and promises. It required a complete, systematic overhaul of my offensive capabilities. I spent the first weeks following Elyon's memorial locked in the deep, silent vaults of the Cradle, my consciousness entirely withdrawn into the dark, ash-capped continent of my inner geode.

I was working on a concept that most cultivators would have considered madness: the construction of a massive "Void Battery" within the fourth layer of the void, established directly inside my soul realm. At the Ninth Tier of Ascendancy, my soul gate was no longer a passive container. It was a dominant, active anchor of my Domain.

I used my [Shroud] to open a quiet, stable rift between my Inner World and tethered it to the fourth Void Layer — the deep, un-coded rifts where the conceptual gravity was so heavy it felt like solid iron. I didn't just open a door; I wove a colossal, non-Euclidean reservoir out of my own Void-essence, anchoring its boundaries to the basalt pillars of my soul's continent.

I used my zeroth-tier [Symphony of the Animus Arch] to translate the chaotic, howling gravity-waves of the fourth layer into stable, concentric leaden rings — inspired by the unyielding weight of the Leaden Titan's basalt throne — to hold the volatile gold-violet liquid in check. It was an endless, almost infinite storage system, designed specifically to hold and stabilize the massive, volatile Essence we had discovered in Freonim-Prime's core-sink.

If I tried to absorb that much explosive mana directly into my active star-cores, my foundation would have decompiled in milliseconds. But by storing it inside this hidden, fourth-layer battery inside my soul, I could bypass the physical limits of my body.

"It will take time," I told my core council during a meeting in the Sanctum.

"I first need to figure out how to build this battery but it should be possible based on my tests so far. Then, with enough training and practice, I will be able to systematically siphon the entirety of that core-sink into my inner world, holding the weapon directly within my own soul. It is the only way to ensure the Courts can never trace the siphoned coordinates back to Freonim-Prime." Leoric stared at me, his yellow eyes wide with absolute, manic bewilderment.

"To hold such a massive, galactic-scale core-sink inside your own soul-realm? Master, that is a feat most legends consider impossible for anyone below the fourteenth Tier! The sheer, uncompiled density of that much volatile mana would turn your mind to glass!" I offered a dry, confident smile.

"A lot of things I've done were considered impossible, Leoric. But I've always been good at editing the rules. We're going to try it anyway. Besides, like I said, I feel that it is possible, just going to take some time."

"And once the Essence is secured?" Lucas asked, his face serious.

"I intend to compile a clone," I said.

"Not a standard [Echo] proxy, but a massive, fully independent Tier 9 Ascendant clone that can act across galaxies. It will allow us to maintain a permanent overwatch on the uncompiled sectors while my real body remains here to guard Ferra. And should the need arise, that clone should be capable of accessing the essence in an explosive manner."

To survive across the deep rifts without decompiling, this massive clone would require a specialized "soul-anchor" wreathed in the uncompiled void, essentially acting as an independent beacon that could run its own local calculations without constantly draining my central core. The council went completely silent, the sheer, boundless scale of the project leaving them speechless.

To project a Tier 9 proxy with enough energy to blow an entire sector across the cosmos was an accomplishment of the ancient, pre-Shattering gods — a level of spatial authority that surpassed any System-standard design. But they knew my hybrid core, and they knew I didn't stop until the draft was finished. We also met with the delegates of the other allied factions of Ferra — the Solar Ascendancy, the Azure Syndicate, and the Elven Clans of Aethelgard.

The representatives sat in the basalt chamber, their high-tier auras glowing in quiet shades of gold, blue, and emerald as they listened to our new security protocols.

"From this second onward, the quarantine is our primary shield," I told the assembled delegates, my voice carrying the low-frequency, unyielding weight of my Ascendant Domain.

"Nobody leaves Ferra, Aethelgard or Bir-Z without checking in with Jeeves and the central monitoring system. The Spires' fast-travel portals are locked. If you wish to go on an expedition, an Anima must secure the target planet beforehand. We will add more security measures and defenses too which everyone will be debriefed on to make sure we don't have to bury any more of our people. The boundary veils of this sector are shrinking, and we cannot afford a single, un-monitored data leak."

Jeeves stepped forward, explaining the new "buddy-system" monitoring protocols in his dry, precise manner.

"Every departing team must maintain active, real-time spatial communication with a designated anchor on Ferra. If their coordinates experience even a fraction of a millisecond of lag or blocking, the Spires will instantly lock down, and the Master's Domain will translate to their position in a heartbeat." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. We spent the rest of the meeting debating how to allocate the volatile Essence.

"If we can store some of it into a planetary core-sink on Ferra like we have discussed," Lucas suggested, leaning his forearms on the basalt table.

"We can use it to fuel our shield relays for centuries. But if the core collapses, we are holding a solar-system-destroying bomb in our own basement." Kasian floated closer, his empty, glowing eyes tracking the holographic charts.

"The records from G-42 state that this Essence is highly reactive to time-authority, Master. If Anna integrates her Chronos-Hunter domain with our containment field, she can artificially slow down its decay rate, keeping the volatile mana stable indefinitely without risking a physical collapse."

"We'll leave the options open," I decided, closing the charts.

"We'll use a secure bypass to channel five percent of the liquid mana directly into Ferra's secondary planetary batteries. It will act as a silent, stable reserve while we decide whether to compile the weapon or use it for our own core-refinements. For now, my priority is establishing our alliances." Once the domestic logistics were locked, I decided to seek out potential allies.

If a systemic war was indeed coming — a clash between different compiling engines that would disintegrate our quarantine veils — we couldn't fight the High Courts alone. We needed partnerships with people who were enemies of the Court, those who had survived the Great Shattering in the dark corners of the Deep.

"I'm going to visit Crys and Syntheia in Crystal City," I told Anna.

"The crystalline elemental clans of their world have long maintained a quiet, non-Systemic network. I want to see if we can establish a security pact with them, and then I'll use the token to contact the Silence."

"Be careful, Eren," Anna said, her silver eyes warm.

"The Spires leading to their world are still within the scanning sweeps of the local registries."

"My veils are tight," I smiled. I engaged my [Omnipresence]. With a single translation of coordinates, I stepped through the Spire-gate, disappearing from Bastion. But the moment I landed on the outer platform of Crystal City, my star-cores gave a sudden, cold hum. The planet was completely different than I remembered. The bustling, high-grade quartz towers of the crystalline metropolis were silent, and the warm, golden atmosphere of their world had vanished.

Instead, the entire planet was shrouded in a massive, heavy time veil — a silent, shimmering dome of temporal-essence where the air, the light, and the clouds were completely stationary. The water fountains in the central plazas were frozen mid-splash, the liquid droplets looking like floating, uncompiled diamonds suspended in the golden twilight. It was a temporal stasis trap. A cold wave of dread spiked through my chest.

I worried that the Higher Courts had targeted more of our allies, using their chrono cultivators or ritual diviners to lock the entire planet in an absolute, silent stasis. I clamped my [Humming Veil] tightly around my coordinates, keeping my presence conceptually erased as I stepped onto the glowing quartz path of the city. I wove my star-cores into a slow, delicate cycle, maximizing my [Void-Lattice Perception] and my zeroth-tier [Symphony of the Animus Arch] to analyze the temporal veil.

I didn't just look at the light; I studied the "ticks" of the local time-affinity. I used my newly evolved Temporal Slide logic to "slide" my perception through the stationary seconds, trying to determine if this high-tier time-lock had been cast by an enemy to trap them, or by their own Queen as a desperate defensive shield.

"Eren!" A sudden, sharp shout cut through the absolute silence of the stasis, completely shattering my concentration. I turned around, my hand instinctively resting on my sabre. Running down the frozen, crystal-glass steps of the main palace spire was Crys. The crystalline elemental girl looked exactly as I remembered, her semi-translucent skin glowing with a vibrant, pale-blue light, her head wreathed in ancient optic lines. Her large eyes were wide with an absolute, pouting grumpiness.

The heavy, dark grief that had been resting on my shoulders since Elyon's passing suddenly felt a fraction lighter. My face broke into a genuine, broad smile, my eyes softening as I looked at her familiar, bright blue-light form.

"My mom said to wait for you here, but you took so long!" Crys polled, crossing her arms as she stopped in front of me, her tail thumping against the crystal path in a rhythmic, agitated slap.

"She's been out doing some boring administrative thing she said you needed, but I'm not sure what! Come on, let's go meet up with her! I've been so bored in this stupid stasis-well!"

"What exactly is this stasis-well?" I asked, looking around the frozen plaza.

"My mom set up this temporal veil because some weird, un-coded spatial probes were scanning our sector," Crys explained, her gold-fiber hair flashing in an annoyed yellow.

"She said we had to look completely dead to the outside world until you arrived. It is so boring, Eren! Everything is frozen, even the sweet quartz fruit! I can't even take a bite of the delicious food you showed me without having to manually realign my own time-channels!" I laughed — a soft, genuine sound that carried the warm, familiar peace of our old friendship.

Crys giggled, her grumpiness temporarily vanishing as she went for a hug, before she turned her bottomless eyes back to my face, her visor flaring with an annoyed, blue-pink light.

"Wait... how did you... how did you ascend so quickly?! You smell like a collapsed star! The density of your presence is... it's ridiculous! Ascension is supposed to be a very hard thing to do! I've been practicing my core-rotations for two hundred cycles, and I'm still stuck at the peak of Tier 8! I thought my new Time chambers would finally let me catch up to you! How is this fair?!"

"It's good to see you again, Crys," I smiled, my voice carrying a quiet, genuine warmth.

"You have no idea how good it is to see a friendly face."