Chapter 130: Target Maya
The system interface was still flashing a glaring, blood-red across Zen’s vision.
**[Warning: Specialized S-Rank Void Assassins spawned. Target locked on the weakest lifeform in the immediate vicinity.]**
**[Target: Maya.]**
The ground beneath them didn’t just shake; it lurched violently. But the real threat wasn’t outside. It was right there in the room with them.
When Zen had brutally severed the soul fragment from Lyra, he had literally torn the fabric of reality. That jagged, bleeding crack in space hovering in the middle of the tent hadn’t closed. It was widening.
Outside, the night suddenly erupted into absolute chaos.
The shockwave of the weakened planetary seal had ripped the sky open right above the camp. Zen could hear the sudden, terrified screams of the Ares and Crown troops. The explosive roar of Aurelia’s golden flames shook the earth, immediately followed by Valeria’s booming battle cries.
A massive, localized Void storm had just dropped on top of their army. The Goddesses and the elite troops were instantly bogged down in a frantic frontline battle. They had no idea the real threat had bypassed the perimeter completely.
The Abyssal Trench didn’t send its assassins marching through the camp. They used the Paradox tear to spawn directly inside the tent.
Zen didn’t panic. He didn’t even blink.
With a single, effortless thought, he tapped into his newly stabilized Low A-Rank Aether core. He didn’t need to scramble for his clothes. He just reached into his spatial storage and pulled the concept of his armor directly into reality.
A flash of crackling indigo data and intense spatial distortion wrapped around his bare, muscular body. Liquid metal and heavy black fabric materialized out of thin air, snapping into place with sharp, mechanical clicks. In less than a second, Zen went from completely naked to fully armored. His imposing Imperial battle gear locked around his chest, and his dark cloak billowed out behind him in the shifting gravity.
Lyra reacted just as fast. She might have lost the bulk of the fragment, but that remaining thirty-three percent was permanently fused to her soul. She was still the Goddess of the Aether Domain.
With a flick of her wrist, her star-woven silk dress materialized back onto her body. She didn’t even look at the spatial tear. Her violet eyes locked entirely on the corner of the tent. She threw her hands forward, pushing every ounce of her remaining mana into the sensory ward surrounding Maya’s cot.
The invisible bubble instantly hardened, shifting into a dense, shimmering purple gravity shield.
Just in time.
Three S-Rank Void Assassins pulled themselves out of the jagged tear in reality. They weren’t mindless, roaring monsters. They were horrifyingly silent.
They looked like sleek, humanoid shadows. Their bodies were made of shifting anti-matter that seemed to literally absorb the light in the room. They had no faces, just smooth, pitch-black visors and long, jagged blades extending from their forearms.
They didn’t even look at Zen or Lyra. The system had given them a singular directive: eliminate the weakest link. Kill the paradox anomaly.
In perfect, terrifying unison, the three assassins blurred into motion. They bypassed the physical space entirely, phasing through the shadows to strike directly at Maya’s cot.
But Zen was the First Mortal Ruler. He had his logic back, and he was done playing with fire.
Before the lead assassin could even raise its blade, Zen flexed his aura. He didn’t use the chaotic, explosive fire of his monster cores. He used pure, god-like spatial mathematics.
"Sit down," Zen commanded.
He snapped his fingers.
The space around the lead assassin simply stopped. Zen placed a localized, absolute gravity lock right on top of the creature. The crushing force was so intensely dense that the assassin was instantly slammed face-first into the dirt floor. The obsidian table nearby shattered into dust just from the sheer gravitational backwash.
The creature’s anti-matter body writhed, trying to phase away, but Zen’s Aether held it perfectly in place. He pinned an S-Rank entity like a bug under glass.
The other two assassins didn’t hesitate. They instantly split up, darting into the darkest corners of the tent to avoid Zen’s spatial lock. They were incredibly fast—far too fast for a normal A-Rank to track.
But they had just jumped into the shadows. And that space was already occupied.
Nyx stepped out of the absolute darkness directly behind the second assassin. Since Void entities relied on shadows to move, the Goddess of the Night was their natural, apex predator.
Nyx didn’t say a single word. She just spun her twin daggers, completely wrapped them in consuming darkness, and drove them straight through the back of the assassin’s neck.
The creature let out a silent shriek as Nyx’s pure shadow magic devoured its anti-matter core from the inside out. It dissolved into a puddle of black sludge before it even hit the floor.
The third and final assassin realized the shadows were compromised. It materialized right above Maya’s cot, raising its jagged blade high to pierce Lyra’s hardened gravity shield.
Lyra gritted her teeth, a drop of blood sliding down her nose as she held the barrier. The anti-matter blade struck the shield, sending a violent, ringing shockwave through the tent. The shield held, but a web of cracks spread across the purple dome.
"Zen!" Lyra yelled.
Zen was already there.
He stepped right into the assassin’s personal space. The creature turned to strike him, but Zen was endlessly faster. He reached out and grabbed the assassin by its smooth, faceless head.
His indigo aura flared blindingly bright.
"Fold," Zen whispered.
He used his Aether magic to literally fold the space occupying the creature’s head. The air warped and shrieked. The assassin’s head was violently crushed into a space smaller than a marble, instantly collapsing into a miniature black hole before popping out of existence entirely.
The headless body of the S-Rank assassin dropped to the floor, immediately melting into a harmless pile of high-density void residue.
Zen let out a slow, steady breath, casually brushing a speck of ash off his Imperial tunic. The chaotic monster energy in his chest hadn’t even sparked. His new foundation was absolutely flawless.
Through it all, Maya was still fast asleep, completely oblivious to the fact that three S-Rank entities had just been slaughtered mere inches from her pillow.
**[System Alert: Paradox Threat Eliminated.]**
**[Rewards Calculating...]**
**[Bonus Multiplier applied for defeating System-spawned S-Rank anomalies.]**
**[Loot Acquired: 3x S-Rank Paradox Cores, 1x Void Blueprint.]**
**[Notice: You have survived a designated impossible event. A Massive Rebate Gacha pull has been awarded.]**
Zen glanced at the blue screens, a dark, satisfied smile playing on his lips. The system was basically handing him the exact resources he needed to fund a war.
Nyx wiped her daggers clean and stepped fully into the light. She looked at Zen’s fully armored form with quiet, calculating approval.
Lyra dropped the gravity shield and slumped against the wall, utterly exhausted. She stared at the puddle of void residue on the floor, her sharp mind already running complex calculations.
"Zen..." Lyra said, her voice tight with sudden realization. "They didn’t just stumble in here. When you took the fragment, it acted like a beacon. The planetary seal weakened, and it broadcasted our exact coordinates to the Abyssal Trench."
Before Zen could answer, a massive, suffocating pressure descended over the entire camp. The air inside the tent grew freezing cold.
Outside, the chaotic sounds of battle suddenly went dead silent.
The tent flap violently tore open. Aurelia stood there, her radiant golden armor covered in black void blood. Her eyes were wide with uncharacteristic alarm.
"Emperor," Aurelia breathed, gripping her massive sword tightly. "You need to see the sky. Right now."
Zen stepped past her and walked out into the war-torn camp.
High above them, floating in the dark, unnatural clouds, was a massive, shifting projection of a Void Commander. The S-Rank assassins had just been a surgical strike. This was a full-scale Abyssal Siege, and it had just locked onto their exact location.
Zen looked up at the terrifying anomaly, his newly stabilized Aether core humming steadily in his chest. He didn’t feel a single ounce of fear.
He just opened his system interface. It was time to roll the Gacha.
He stepped right into the assassin’s personal space. The creature turned to strike him, but Zen was endlessly faster. He reached out and grabbed the assassin by its smooth, faceless head.
His indigo aura flared blindingly bright.
"Fold," Zen whispered.
He used his Aether magic to literally fold the space occupying the creature’s head. The air warped and shrieked. The assassin’s head was violently crushed into a space smaller than a marble, instantly collapsing into a miniature black hole before popping out of existence entirely.
The headless body of the S-Rank assassin dropped to the floor, immediately melting into a harmless pile of high-density void residue.
Zen let out a slow, steady breath, casually brushing a speck of ash off his Imperial tunic. The chaotic monster energy in his chest hadn’t even sparked. His new foundation was absolutely flawless.