Chapter 28: The Sovereign of Broken Strings
The golden rain of Tokyo felt like liquid electricity against my skin. It wasn't just water; it was the literal residue of the Root Code I had touched within the Labyrinth. As I stood in the center of the shrine, the world didn't look like a collection of buildings and people anymore. It looked like a vast, shimmering tapestry of silver threads, each one representing a destiny, a career, a love, or a tragedy.
[System Notification: Sovereign Overlap Active]
[Authority: Rank 5 - Fate-Breaker]
[Status: You are now synchronized with the World's Loom.]
Kenji Sato, the man who was once a void of terror, now looked like a ghost. His sword was shattered, but more importantly, the thread that connected him to the title of 'Blade-Master' was frayed and translucent. He stared at me, his hands trembling—a human emotion he hadn't felt in decades.
"What... what did you do to the sky?" Kenji wheezed, falling to one knee. The golden rain was dissolving his black aura, peeling away the 'Void' like old paint.
"I didn't change the sky, Kenji," I said, my voice echoing with the resonance of a thousand souls. "I just reminded it that it doesn't belong to the Consensus."
I walked toward him, my boots clicking against the wet, golden wood. I could see it now—the thick, pulsing cord of his 'Role'. It was a dark, jagged thread that forced him to be a killer, a tool for the Weaver.
"You were built to be a weapon," I whispered, reaching out my hand. My fingers didn't touch his skin; they touched the air where his fate was woven. "You've forgotten what it's like to just... be."
"No... my purpose... the Silence..."
"Your purpose was a lie," I countered. I gripped the dark thread of his destiny and, with a single, mental command, I exercised my new authority.
[Skill Activated: Thread-Severance]
[Target: Kenji Sato - Role: The Blade-Master]
[Result: ROLE DELETED.]
A sound like a snapping violin string echoed through the courtyard. Kenji let out a strangled cry, but it wasn't a cry of pain—it was a gasp of air reaching lungs that had been held underwater for a lifetime. The blackness in his eyes vanished, replaced by a simple, human brown. He looked at his hands, then at the broken katana, as if he were seeing them for the first time.
"I... I don't want to kill you anymore," Kenji said, his voice fragile. "I don't... I don't feel the need to cut anything."
[Ding!]
[Host 'The Blade-Master' has been neutralized through Role-Deletion.]
[Follower Gained: Kenji Sato (Unranked Mortal).]
Isabella and Elena stepped out from the inner sanctum, their eyes wide with disbelief. They saw a man who had been a god of death seconds ago now looking like a confused wanderer.
"Fang... what did you do?" Elena asked, her voice trembling. She looked at me, and I saw her flinch. I realized then that my aura was no longer just 'sovereign'—it was divine. The silver rings in my eyes were now interlaced with golden circuits.
"I gave him back his soul, Elena," I said, though my mind was already miles away, scanning the global network. "But the Consensus won't stop at Kenji. They've already realized that I'm not just a virus... I'm a rewrite."
Isabella stepped forward, her violet eyes scanning the golden rain. "The Moscow Host—The Iron Tsar—he's just gone off the grid. The network says he's initiated a 'Full Mobilization'. He's not waiting for you to come to Russia, Fang. He's bringing the war to the sky."
[Warning: Global Positioning Shift Detected]
[Massive Kinetic Signature detected over the Sea of Japan.]
I looked toward the horizon. The golden rain was suddenly cut by a series of sonic booms. Six—no, twelve—high-altitude interceptors were screaming across the clouds, their auras glowing with a harsh, metallic red. This wasn't the 'Silence' of the Sisters or the 'Alchemy' of Thorne. This was raw, industrial, nuclear-grade power.
"He's impatient," I murmured. I turned back to my team. "Kenji, if you want to find a new purpose, protect these women. Elena, Isabella... get to the underground bunker in the Sterling Tokyo branch."
"And you?" Elena grabbed my sleeve, her fingers tight. "Where are you going?"
I looked up at the approaching jets, my [Fate-Breaker] vision seeing the threads of the pilots—all of them bound by a single, iron will in Moscow.
"I'm going to show the Tsar that an empire of iron is nothing but a cage of rust," I said.
I didn't use a jet. I didn't use a car. I concentrated the [Architect of Matter] energy beneath my feet, transmuting the very air into a solid, gravitational platform. With a single burst of will, I shot into the sky like a blue-silver comet, heading straight for the fleet of the Iron Tsar.
[New Arc: The Iron Curtain]
[Mission: Intercept the Tsar's Fleet.]
[Current DP: 5,000 (Earned from Kenji's Neutralization).]
As I broke the sound barrier, the voice of the First Apostle echoed one last time in my mind, cold and distant: "You may break the threads, Fang Li. But can you survive the weight of the Iron?"
"Watch me," I whispered into the wind.