Chapter 55: The First Maw
The first Sun-Eater arrived at the edge of the Styx-7 system like a nightmare birthed from the void. It was an obsidian-scaled leviathan, larger than three Dreadnoughts combined, its "Maw" a singularity of cold fire capable of swallowing moons. Behind it trailed the Imperial Crusade Fleet, ten thousand ships strong, led by the Emperor's eldest son and heir, Crown Prince Valerius II.
"Target the core," Valerius commanded from his flagship, the Sun-Sovereign. He was a man of cold logic, a Level 15-Peak warrior who believed in the supremacy of the machine over the "anomaly" of the individual. "McCain is a Level 16 ghost, but even a ghost cannot fight a parasite designed to digest his very essence. Deploy the Void-Hooks."
The Sun-Eater opened its massive, toothless maw, and a beam of absolute darkness—Anti-Matter Qi—shot toward the Styx-7 star. It was designed to neutralize the "Synthesis" and drain the star's energy until the core became a hollow shell.
Inside the star, Carson felt the intrusion. It felt like a cold needle pricking the center of his soul. He didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his blade. Instead, he channeled the 34th Strand through the star's spinning magnetic field lines.
"Sovereign Technique: The Solar-Loom."
The emerald-violet light of the star didn't just resist the darkness; it wove around it. Carson used the Sun-Eater's own suction against itself. The Solar-Loom turned the gravity-well into a trap. The leviathan, designed to consume, suddenly found itself being "Pulled" into the star with a force that crushed its obsidian plates like tinfoil.
"What is happening?" Valerius roared as he watched his ultimate weapon being dragged toward the star's surface. "Reverse engines! Break the tether!"
"It's too late, Prince," Carson's voice echoed through the bridge of every Imperial ship, bypassing their encryptions with ease. "You didn't come to a harvest. You came to a forge... and your monsters are just fuel for my fire."
The Sun-Eater hit the star's corona and was instantly vaporized. But it didn't turn to ash; its energy was converted into pure, Ascendant Qi that fed directly into Carson's Spirit-Blade. The star grew brighter, its resonance expanding to cover the entire system in a protective dome. The God-King was no longer just defending his throne; he was consuming the Empire's weapons to fuel his own evolution to Level 17.