The weight of the Gravity Wells slammed into the Arena floor with the force of a falling moon. The sand beneath Yun's feet compressed into solid glass instantly, and a groan of protesting metal echoed from the stadium's foundations. For any ordinary cultivator, this pressure would have liquefied their internal organs, but Yun Caos didn't resist the weight; he allowed his bones to become the conduit for it.
The Star-Eater Beast was mid-leap, her massive form silhouetted against the artificial violet sun of Odis. As the gravity wells activated, she too was dragged down, her nebula-wings flapping uselessly as she crashed into the sands mere meters from Yun. The Imperial needles in her back glowed with a frantic, blinding light, feeding off her desperation to keep the suppression fields active.
"Now!" Yun's voice was a resonant hum that vibrated through the gravity-crushed air.
Meilin moved like a streak of white lightning. Using the Cinder-Wraiths, she performed a feat of impossible acrobatics, leaping through the increased gravity by burning the very air beneath her boots. She reached the beast's left flank, her twin daggers glowing with a heat that transcended the physical. With surgical precision, she didn't cut the flesh; she cauterized the spiritual connection of the Imperial needles.
"Burn, you parasitic chains!" Meilin roared. As the needles melted into slag, a wave of freed starlight erupted from the beast, nearly throwing Meilin back, but she stood her ground, her white flames absorbing the excess energy.
On the other side, Shara slammed the Thorn of Providence into the glassed sand. Emerald vines, reinforced with the density of the gravity field, erupted from the ground and wrapped around the beast's spine. Shara wasn't binding her; she was acting as a lightning rod, drawing the chaotic, leaking energy of the Star-Sovereign and filtering it through her own wood-elemental Qi before feeding it directly into Yun.
"The bridge is open, Yun!" Shara cried out, her face pale from the sheer volume of energy passing through her. "Take it! Claim the edge!"
Yun walked toward the struggling beast. Each step was a battle against the crushing gravity, but the Void-Hilt in his hand was no longer cold. It was screaming, hungry for the essence it was designed to hold.
The Star-Eater Beast turned her four golden eyes toward him. In that moment, the telepathic link from before snapped back into place. There was no more feral rage—only a profound, ancient recognition. She saw the boy with the translucent skin and the violet mark, and she realized that death by his hand wasn't an end, but a transformation.
"I am a star without a sky," the Beast's spirit whispered in Yun's mind. "And you are the sky that has forgotten its stars. Let us become the night together."
With a mournful, beautiful cry, the Beast didn't attack. She lunged forward and pressed her forehead—the seat of her Ethereal Heart—directly onto the empty space above the Void-Hilt.
The collision was silent at first. Then, a pulse of absolute negation expanded from the center of the Arena. The Gravity Wells didn't just turn off; they were erased from the timeline. The Imperial needles shattered into dust. The noble spectators in the high balconies screamed as their wine turned to ash and their silk robes began to fray.
In Yun's hand, the Void-Hilt began to drink. The starlight of the beast and the shadow of the void swirled together, condensing into a single, terrifying edge. It wasn't a blade of metal, but a fracture in the world—a jagged, two-meter-long crack of violet and silver that seemed to bleed darkness.
The Void Reaver was born.
As the light faded, the sixty-foot beast was gone. In her place, a faint, ethereal woman made of starlight stood for a fraction of a second, smiling at Yun, before she was absorbed entirely into the new blade.
Yun stood in the center of a crater that had decimated half of the Arena's structures. He held the blade with one hand, its weight feeling like nothing and everything at the same time. His translucent skin now had faint, glowing constellations swirling beneath the surface, and the crown of thorns on his neck had fully bloomed.
"The cage is broken," Yun said, his voice echoing with the power of the Star-Sovereign.
He looked up at the royal balcony. Marquis Valerius was no longer smiling. He was scrambling backward, his face a mask of primal terror. Yun didn't even swing the sword; he simply pointed the tip toward the balcony.
A thin line of violet light shot out, and the entire royal section—reinforced with the strongest spiritual wards of the Empire—simply ceased to exist. No explosion, no rubble. Just a clean, rectangular void where the Marquis and his guards had been standing.
Shara and Meilin approached him, their new weapons humming in resonance with the Void Reaver. They looked at the destruction, then at the man they had chosen to follow.
"The Empire will send armies now," Shara said, though there was no fear in her voice, only a cold, focused readiness.
"Let them," Meilin added, her white flames licking the edges of her daggers. "I want to see if their 'Heavenly Mandate' can survive the bite of that blade."
Yun turned to his queens, the constellation-skin glowing brightly. "Odis is finished. The Graveyard of Sovereigns is calling. It's time we reminded the Heavens why they feared the Titan."