Location: Deep Beneath the Imperial Palace – The Drydock
Time: Day 3 of the 7-Day Deadline
The Shard of the Fallen Star sat on a pedestal of reinforced lead in the center of the drydock.
It was small—no larger than a human thumb. Yet, it felt heavier than the entire spaceship looming behind it. The light from the magical torches in the room didn't reflect off its surface; the light bent towards it and vanished.
[Item Analysis: Singularity Fragment]
[Mass: Infinite (Conceptually).]
[Density: Infinite.]
[State: Dormant (Stabilized by 'World Law').]
Aris sat in his wheelchair, staring at the object. His violet eyes were bleeding slightly—a side effect of trying to perceive an object that technically didn't exist in three-dimensional space.
"It is a hole in the universe," Aris whispered. "A puncture wound that never healed."
Lin Chen stood ten feet back, his hand gripping Solstice tightly. His instincts were screaming at him to run. Even the Undead Laborers were avoiding the pedestal, their primitive AI recognizing the shard as a 'Fatal Error'.
"Master," Lin Chen said, his voice tight. "How do we fire that? If we put it in a cannon, it won't move. It weighs more than the mountain."
"We don't fire the Shard, Lin Chen," Aris corrected, wheeling himself closer. "The Shard is the lens. We fire through it."
The Containment Cage
Aris activated his Void Architect interface.
"Step one: Suspension. We can't let it touch the ship. If it touches matter while active, it will eat the ship instantly."
He turned to the pile of Abyssal Dense-Iron harvested from the Leviathan's bones.
"Construct the Barrel Assembly."
The skeletons moved. They began to build a massive, cylindrical structure, twenty meters long, attached to the underside of the Naglfar. It wasn't a smooth tube. It was a series of twelve magnetic rings, spaced two meters apart.
"Rune Inscription: Levitation," Aris commanded.
He used his own blood to paint runes on the rings. These weren't normal levitation spells; they were Gravity-Reversal Arrays derived from the Black Tortoise's data.
"Activate Field."
HUMMM.
The twelve rings lit up with a deep, throbbing blue light. The air inside the barrel distorted, creating a vacuum tunnel of zero gravity.
Aris picked up the Shard with a pair of Void-Tweezers (manifested from his Qi). He couldn't touch it with skin.
He placed the Shard in the exact center of the magnetic tunnel.
The Shard floated. It spun slowly, suspended by the opposing gravity fields.
"Stable," Aris exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Now comes the dangerous part. The connection."
The Beam Path
A gun needs gunpowder. A laser needs a battery.
A Black Hole Gun needs a stream of pure Null-Energy.
Aris looked at the Samsara Drive (The World Tree Branch + Soul Core reactor) throbbing in the center of the ship.
"We need to route the engine output directly into the Shard," Aris explained. "The reactor generates high-density Spirit-Qi. When that Qi hits the Shard, the Event Horizon will strip the 'Information' from the energy."
He made a crushing motion with his hand.
"It turns 'Something' into 'Nothing'. And then it projects that 'Nothing' forward at the speed of light."
"Anti-Matter?" Lin Chen asked.
"Worse. Anti-Reality."
Aris directed the skeletons to lay down the conduit pipes. They used the Veins of the Leviathan—massive, hollow organic tubes that were resistant to necrotic corrosion. They connected the Engine Room to the Weapon Mount.
"Sealing the connection," Aris murmured, welding the final joint with violet fire.
The ship groaned. The Naglfar seemed to recognize that it was now holding a weapon capable of killing itself.
The Trigger Mechanism
"We need a scope," Aris said. "I can't aim this with my eyes. The target is in orbit."
He pulled out the Wings of the Moderator (which he had integrated into his cloak, but the core logic unit remained).
"System. Salvage Celestial Targeting Matrix."
He ripped the code from the Agent's wings and installed it into the ship's helm.
A holographic interface appeared above the weapon controls. It showed a wireframe view of the sky, tracking the heat signature of the Pagoda-Ship.
[Weapon System Online.]
[Designation: The Singularity Driver.]
[Ammo Capacity: Infinite (Drains Reactor).]
[Cooldown: 10 Minutes (Heat Dissipation).]
"It's ready," Aris whispered.
"We should test it," Lin Chen suggested. "There is a mountain range to the East. An uninhabited peak."
"No," Aris shook his head. "If I fire this underground, the recoil might collapse the cavern. And if I fire it above ground, the enemy will detect the energy spike. We only get one shot at surprise."
Aris wheeled himself to the ship's hull and placed his hand on the cold Tiger-Steel.
"We test it dry."
The Simulation
Aris closed his eyes. He dived into the ship's system.
[Simulation Mode: Active.]
[Scenario: Target Practice.]
In his mind, he was flying the Naglfar. He felt the hum of the Samsara Drive. He felt the weight of the Singularity Shard.
He lined up the crosshairs on a virtual asteroid.
"Charge."
The reactor roared. Green energy flooded the conduits. It hit the Black Hole Shard.
VOOOOOM.
The sound wasn't loud. It was a sudden, terrifying absence of noise.
A beam of pure blackness shot out of the barrel. It didn't burn the asteroid. It didn't explode.
The asteroid simply... vanished. A perfectly cylindrical hole appeared through the rock, and then the rock crumbled into dust because its atomic bonds had been deleted.
[Simulation Result: 100% Penetration.]
[Warning: Reactor Output dropped by 40%.]
[Warning: Hull Integrity dropped by 5% due to Gravitational Shearing.]
Aris opened his eyes. He was gasping for air. The simulation felt incredibly real.
"It works," Aris grinned, a savage, hungry expression. "But it hurts us almost as much as it hurts them. It's a glass cannon."
The Final Component
"Master!" A messenger ran into the drydock. It was General Thorne.
"Aris," Thorne panted, holding a scroll. "The scouts report movement. The atmosphere is heating up."
Aris looked at the timer.
[Time: Day 3 of 7.]
"They aren't waiting for the seven days," Aris realized. "Elder Kong is impatient. He's starting the formatting process early."
"The sky is turning red," Thorne said. "The temperature in the capital has risen by ten degrees in the last hour. The crops are wilting."
Aris looked at the Naglfar. It wasn't painted. It wasn't tested. It was a skeleton ship with a bomb for a heart and a black hole for a gun.
"It's ugly," Aris said, grabbing the railing of the lift to pull himself up. He forced his legs to work, channeling mana into his muscles to stand.
"But it's the only ark we have."
He turned to Lin Chen and his father.
"Evacuate the civilians to the shelters. Activate the Turtle Shield over the city."
Aris walked—limping, but walking—toward the airlock of the bone-ship.
"I'm going to intercept them."
"Alone?" Thorne grabbed his son's arm. "Aris, that is a suicide mission. You need a crew."
"I have a crew," Aris said.
He whistled.
From the shadows of the drydock, Nox emerged. The Eclipse Hound was wearing a new suit of Tiger-Steel Armor.
And behind Nox, the Undead Laborers stopped their work. They picked up rifles and wrenches. They marched toward the ship in perfect unison.
"The dead don't need oxygen," Aris said. "And they don't fear death."
He stepped into the airlock.
"General. If I don't come back... tell the Emperor to plant a tree for me."
The airlock hissed shut.
[System: Pre-Flight Check.]
[Reactor: Green.]
[Weapon: Black.]
[Pilot: Violet.]
The engines of the Naglfar ignited. Green fire blasted the floor of the drydock. The massive bone-ship lifted off, shaking the foundations of the palace.
The ceiling of the drydock—a camouflaged section of the palace gardens—began to open.
Aris sat in the command chair. He didn't look back.
"Launch."