Asher did not stop.
Even as the pulse of cosmic law throbbed like a second heartbeat in his ears, even as the radiant proto-stars in his body swirled with volatile might—he refused to halt his rise.
One by one, the minor stars he had refined—the Soul Star, the Law Star, the Reaper Monarch Star—collapsed into his core like dying suns, not fading but fusing. The immense pressure should have torn his essence apart, should have cracked his soul and body like brittle stone under divine weight.
But Asher endured.
No—he commanded.
He willed the celestial fire to kneel.
The crimson-black shimmer of his blood transformed again, now edged with silver starlight and ancient runic glimmers as if each drop held a fragment of the cosmos. His veins pulsed with power so refined, so primal, that his entire inner world began to quake. And at the center of it all… a single star remained.
It was no longer red, or crimson, or gold.
It burned white.
Pristine. Absolute.
