Sanctum was seventy thousand light-years away.
In the old days—three days ago—that distance would have been a death sentence. It would have meant months of careful navigation through tithe-lanes, avoiding Void-pockets, paying tolls to Junk-Barons, and praying the warp-drive didn't overheat.
Now, it was just a commute.
But the universe, perhaps sensing that its new administrators were getting a little too comfortable, decided to throw a tantrum.
They were passing through the Sargasso of Lost Suns. It was a region of space that didn't appear on any star chart because no one who entered it ever came back to update the map. It was a cosmic riptide, a graveyard where gravity went to die and where the fabric of reality was knotted like old rope.
The Stiletto was currently screaming.
The ship shook violently, the hull groaning under the pressure of a "Karmic Shear"—a storm that didn't attack with wind or rain, but with waves of pure, condensed misfortune.
Inside the cockpit, Mali Alkahest sat in the pilot's chair, one leg crossed over the other, sipping a cup of hot, synthesized caf.
"Shields are down to 40%," he noted, watching the red lights blink on the console with mild interest. "The shear is trying to rewrite the ship's hull into sponge-cake."
Anya was in the co-pilot's seat. She wasn't looking at the sensors. She was looking at a holographic projection of a dress she was considering for the victory gala back home.
"Let it try," she murmured, swiping left on a teal gown. "Are we going to intervene, or are we letting the auto-pilot learn a lesson?"
"Let it learn," Mali said, taking another sip. "If it can't handle a Class-5 Shear, it doesn't deserve to carry us."
CRUNCH.
Something massive slammed into the side of the ship. The Stiletto lurched sideways, spinning wildly. The artificial gravity compensators whined and died, sending the caf cup floating into the air.
Mali sighed. He reached out with two fingers, caught the floating cup, and plucked a droplet of brown liquid from the air before it could stain his console.
"Okay," he said. "Lesson over."
He didn't touch the controls. He just looked at the ship's struggling engine core with his Cosmic Axiom.
Be stable.
The thought wasn't a wish; it was an order. The Stiletto instantly stopped spinning. The groaning hull went silent. The gravity returned, perfectly calibrated. The ship didn't just stabilize; it became an immovable object, plowing through the chaotic storm like a diamond bullet through fog.
"You're spoiling the machine spirit," Anya teased, finally closing her fashion tab. She looked out the viewport.
The storm outside was a swirling bruise of purple and green clouds. And swimming through those clouds, drawn by the scent of the ship's reactor, were the locals.
Void-Leviathans.
They were magnificent, terrifying things. They looked like crossbreeds between deep-sea eels and dragons, their bodies kilometers long, composed of shifting, jagged obsidian scales. Their mouths glowed with the light of the dead stars they had consumed. In any other story, they were end-game bosses. They were the monsters that ate fleets.
There were six of them.
"Oh look," Anya said, her silver eyes scanning their code. "Species: Aether-Maw. Level: 65. Disposition: Hangry."
"Only 65?" Mali asked, sounding genuinely disappointed. "I was hoping for at least an 80. I need to test the range on the Genesis Touch."
"They're pack hunters," Anya noted, watching as the massive eels circled the ship, their maws charging up beams of necrotic energy. "They think we're a walnut. Hard shell, tasty meat inside."
Mali unbuckled his seatbelt. He stood up, stretching his arms above his head until his back cracked. The black 'Void-Weave' combat suit he wore rippled, responding to his rising POW.
"Shall we?" he asked, extending a hand to her.
Anya smirked. She took his hand, her Omniscient Eye already dissecting the Leviathans' attack patterns three seconds into the future.
"Let's go walk the dog."
They didn't fight from the cockpit. That was too impersonal.
They cycled the airlock and stepped out onto the hull of the Stiletto as it tore through the cosmic storm at Mach 10.
The environment was lethal. The vacuum was absolute. The "wind" of the storm was a torrent of radioactive acid.
Mali didn't wear a helmet. He didn't need one. His VIT: GOD-TIER meant his skin was harder than the ship's armor, and his lungs processed vacuum as easily as air.
Anya stood beside him. She wasn't holding her breath either. She had simply used [SYSTEM OVERRIDE] to edit the local reality around her body, defining "Vacuum" as "Breathable Atmosphere."
They stood on the roof of their ship, hair whipping in the psychic wind, watching the six city-sized monsters converge on them.
"I'll take the three on the left," Mali said casually.
"Boring," Anya countered. "How about... I set them up, you knock them down?"
"Deal."
The first Leviathan shrieked—a psychic scream that would have liquidated the brains of a normal crew—and lunged. Its mouth, wide enough to swallow the Stiletto whole, gaped open, revealing rows of teeth made of compressed diamonds.
Anya didn't move. She just looked at the beast.
[SKILL: SYSTEM OVERRIDE]
[TARGET: LOCAL PHYSICS - FRICTION]
[VALUE: MAX]
She didn't hit the monster. She changed the rules of the space it was swimming through.
Suddenly, the vacuum around the Leviathan wasn't empty. It had the friction coefficient of solid granite.
The beast slammed into the empty space as if it were a brick wall. The kinetic energy of its own charge backfired instantly. Its massive, kilometers-long body crumpled, scales shattering, momentum arresting so violently that its internal organs liquified.
It floated there, stunned, trapped in invisible amber.
"Pull!" Anya shouted.
Mali grinned. He raised his hand, pointing at the paralyzed monster.
[SKILL: ALKAHEST NEEDLE]
[MODIFIER: CLUSTER SHOT]
He didn't fire one beam. He fired a hundred. Tiny, microscopic threads of golden-black light erupted from his fingertips. They arced through the storm like angry hornets.
They hit the Leviathan. They didn't punch holes; they unraveled it. The massive beast dissolved into a cloud of harmless, glowing glitter.
"One down," Mali counted.
The other five Leviathans roared in fury. They didn't understand what had just happened, but they knew they were angry. Three of them opened their maws, firing beams of concentrated necrotic energy—thick, green columns of death that converged on the tiny figures on the hull.
Mali stepped in front of Anya. He didn't block. He caught it.
He held up his hand, palm open. The three beams of energy, powerful enough to crack a planet's crust, slammed into his palm.
And stopped.
Mali held the energy. He felt it burning, churning, trying to consume him. It tickled.
"You guys have bad breath," he muttered.
[SKILL: GENESIS TOUCH]
[CONVERSION: ENERGY -> MATTER]
He squeezed his fist. The massive beams of death collapsed. He kneaded the energy like dough, twisting the necrotic green light until it turned brilliant white. Then, he opened his hand and blew on it.
A flock of birds—made of pure, white plasma—erupted from his palm. They flew back down the beams, screeching with holy fire.
The plasma-birds slammed into the Leviathans' open mouths.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The creatures exploded from the inside out, turning into massive fireworks of white light that illuminated the entire nebula.
"Show off," Anya yelled over the roar of the explosion.
"I made them pretty!" Mali yelled back, grinning like a boy who'd just found a cool rock.
Two left. The Alphas.
These ones were smarter. They didn't charge. They flanked. One dove beneath the ship, the other spiraled above, synchronized to strike from the blind spots.
"Pincer movement," Anya noted, her eyes glowing silver. "Synchronized strike in 3... 2..."
She grabbed Mali's collar and yanked him down into a kiss.
It wasn't a soft kiss. It was fierce, hungry, and full of adrenaline. And as their lips touched, the Binary Star link flared white-hot.
[BINARY STAR: SYNC 100%] [SHARED SKILL: OMNIPOTENT JUDGMENT]
They didn't need to look. They didn't need to aim.
Mali kicked his leg out backward, unleashing a wave of Alkahest force downward. Anya snapped her fingers upward, unleashing a System Override gravity-well upward.
The Leviathan below was unmade. The Leviathan above was crushed into a singularity the size of a pea.
They broke the kiss, breathless, eyes wild.
Around them, the storm was silent. The Leviathans were gone. The Stiletto continued to hum along its course, untouched.
Mali looked at Anya. Her hair was a mess, her indigo suit glowing with residual power, her chest heaving. She looked more like a goddess of war than a princess.
"That," Mali whispered, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face, "was incredibly hot."
Anya smiled, a dangerous, predatory curve of her lips. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the airlock.
"We have four hours until the next waypoint," she said, her voice dropping an octave. "And my VIT stat is currently overclocked."
"Is that a tactical assessment, Empress?"
"It's a direct order, Sovereign."
Mali laughed, a sound of pure joy that echoed into the void. "As you command."
The Stiletto drifted through the calm wake of the storm. Inside, the chaos of battle had been replaced by a different kind of intensity.
The cockpit was empty. The lights in the small living quarters were dimmed to a warm amber.
They lay tangled in the sheets of the bunk, the only sound the soft hum of the environmental recyclers and their own synchronized breathing. The violence of the fight had bled into the passion of the aftermath—a frantic, desperate need to reaffirm life after dealing so much death.
Mali traced the line of Anya's spine with his finger. His Genesis Touch was passive now, leaving a trail of warmth that made her shiver.
"You know," he murmured, his chin resting on her shoulder. "We should probably stop calling them 'training exercises.'"
"Why?" Anya murmured sleepily, tracing patterns on his chest.
"Because I think we're traumatizing the local wildlife. Those Leviathans are going to be telling ghost stories about the 'Demon Ship' for eons."
Anya laughed softly. "Good. Let them. The universe needs to know the hierarchy has changed."
She rolled over, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him. The silver glow in her eyes had faded to a soft, natural gray-green. She looked at him not as the Unmaker, or the Sovereign, but just as her husband.
"You did good today, Mali," she said quietly. "You didn't hesitate. You didn't doubt."
"I didn't have time to doubt," he said, kissing her palm. "I was too busy trying to impress you."
"It worked."
She grew serious for a moment. "How close are we? To the edge of the sector?"
Mali closed his eyes, extending his Cosmic Axiom senses. He could feel the stars rushing by. He could feel the familiar, golden tug of the Thronecycle, tens of thousands of light-years away.
"Two days," he said. "If we push the engines."
"Two days," Anya repeated. She lay back down, resting her head on his chest, listening to the slow, powerful rhythm of his heart—a heart that beat with the power of a star.
"Mali?"
"Yeah?"
"When we get back... it's not going to be like this, is it? Just us and the monsters?"
"No," he admitted. "It's going to be politics. And rebuilding. And finding the other 'Regents' out in the dark."
"I hate politics," she sighed.
"You're a Strategist. You love politics."
"I love winning politics," she corrected. "I hate the dinner parties."
Mali chuckled, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close into the safety of his embrace. "Well, I'm the Sovereign now. I hereby decree... no boring dinner parties. Only cool ones. With explosions."
"I'll hold you to that."
They lay there in the silence of the slipstream, the two most powerful beings in existence, floating in a tin can halfway across the galaxy.
They were a long way from home. They were a long way from the boy who carried crates and the girl who wove tapestries.
But as Mali drifted off to sleep, feeling the solid, real weight of Anya in his arms, he knew one thing for sure.
He wasn't a scary cat anymore. He was a dragon. And he had found his mate.
And God help anyone who tried to stop them from getting home.