Chapter 237: Let them march

The absolute silence inside the shadowed veil stretched for a long, heavy beat.

Barnaby, still trembling from the aftershocks of a third climax, blinked her half-lidded golden eyes. Her lips were parted, her chest heaving against his sternum, her hands still clutching the muscle of his shoulders as if preparing for a fourth wave. The words hung in the warm, heavy air between them, ringing with a blunt, undeniable reality that shattered the ethereal atmosphere.

"What?" Barnaby croaked, her voice a wrecked, raspy whisper.

"I said," Vince repeated, his tone deadpan, smooth, and utterly devoid of strain as he rested his forehead against hers, "there is no sperm left, Barnaby. Biological limits still exist, even if the Sovereigns don’t."

Barnaby stared at him. For the first time since Vince had met the ancient spirit-entity, her composed, sultry facade completely disintegrated. Her jaw slackened slightly, her golden eyes widening as her mind tried to process the mundane, practical boundary that had just halted her divine core’s boundless appetite.

"You..." Barnaby stammered, a flush that had nothing to do with arousal crawling up her chest and into her cheeks. "You just unwritten six gods! You collapsed a six-thousand-year-old Obelisk! You rewrote the fundamental laws of reality without breaking a sweat! And this is where your limit is?!"

"Demolishing a cosmic hierarchy takes authority," Vince noted calmly, shifting his weight and slowly pulling back. "Generating raw physical matter takes time. Unless you want me to start converting ambient mana directly into seminal fluid, the reservoir is dry."

A soft, wet sound echoed beneath the veil as he withdrew completely, stepping back onto the obsidian floor.

Barnaby let out a sharp, breathless gasp as the sudden cold air hit her overheated skin. She lay sprawled across the center of the ruined dais, her legs still parted, her body glistening with a mix of sweat, residual domain light, and the glossy evidence of their three uninterrupted rounds. In his pocket dimension, the lotus core hummed with a rich, radiant glow—far brighter than it had been in millennia, its petals unfurled wider than ever before—yet it remained stubbornly, tantalizingly incomplete.

"You’re impossible," Barnaby grumbled, rolling onto her side with a dramatic, exhausted groan. She draped one arm over her face, her heavy breasts resting against the cool stone as her long, pale hair fell in a messy, shimmering cascade across her shoulders. "Do you have any idea how maddening it is to have a divine core sitting at eighty percent capacity?"

"It gives you something to look forward to," Vince said.

With a simple, casual flick of his wrist, he channeled a faint thread of his Inward Absolute Domain. A soft wave of dark-gold energy washed over both of them. Instantly, the sticky, lingering moisture vanished from their skin, the torn silk of her gown was restored to pristine, flowing silver mist, and his own dark coat settled smoothly over his broad shoulders, completely immaculate.

Barnaby sat up slowly, her bare feet tucking under her as she adjusted her gown. The sultry, demanding aura from moments ago had settled into a deep, cozy satisfaction. She looked up at Vince, her golden eyes softer now, glowing with an unshakeable, permanent warmth that went far deeper than their previous alliance.

"I suppose I can wait," she murmured, stepping up beside him and leaning her head lightly against his shoulder. "Though next time, we aren’t stopping until the lotus blossoms completely."

"We’ll see," Vince replied, a faint smirk touching his lips.

With a sweeping gesture of his hand, he dissolved the dark veil of shadow.

The star-lit expanse of the unraveled Upper Realm reappeared around them. The sky was clear, painted in deep amethyst twilight and shimmering silver nebulae. The oppressive, crushing weight of the Sovereigns was gone, replaced by a quiet, open void that acknowledged Vince as its sole, undisputed monarch.

"Right then," Barnaby said, shifting back into her familiar, floating stance beside his left shoulder, though her posture remained comfortably close. "The afterglow was lovely, but your soul-lattice has been vibrating for the last twenty minutes. Elena and Vetra are probably hyperventilating down in the Sanctum."

Vince closed his eyes for a brief second, extending his awareness through the silver filigree and golden lattice embedded deep within his spirit. Down in the lower realm, the two anchors were burning bright—not with pain or danger, but with intense, restless anxiety. And because of their shared spiritual connection, they had undoubtedly felt every spike in his core’s temperature, every pulse of domain heat, and every surge of energy transfer over the last hour.

"Let’s go," Vince said.

He reached out, catching the spatial coordinates of the Sanctum of the Waypoint. With a single step forward, the space beneath their boots folded, wrapping them in a silent, instantaneous shift.

Inside the central command hub of the Sanctum, the atmosphere was at a boiling point.

Dozens of holographic spatial mirrors floated in a chaotic circle around the main dais. Red warning runes flashed rhythmically across the walls, signaling the complete, catastrophic breakdown of the lower realm’s monitoring grids. Reports from every major province were pouring in: regional warlords mobilizing their private armies, high-tier sects declaring emergency lockdown, and religious cults taking to the streets as the sky above changed from divine gold to deep amethyst.

"The monitoring network isn’t just offline, Elena!" Vetra barked, pacing back and forth across the marble floor like a caged dragon. Her silver scales flickered with a violent, restless crimson light, and her hand remained white-knuckled on the hilt of her heavy broadsword. "The spatial anchors are gone! The Obelisk’s signal didn’t drop—it ceased to exist!"

Elena stood before the primary console, her fingers flying across the glowing rune-keys as she tried to stabilize the local arrays. Her face was pale, but her golden eyes were sharp, focused, and intensely flushed.

"I know, Vetra," Elena said, her voice carrying a subtle, breathless tremor. She pressed a hand against her chest, right over her heart. "I can feel it through the soul-lattice. The Sovereigns are gone. All of them."

"Then why isn’t he back?!" Vetra demanded, spinning on her heel to face her. "The battle ended half an hour ago! But for the last thirty minutes, his core has been pulsing like a continuous furnace! The lattice was leaking so much residual heat I felt like my blood was boiling! What the hell was he doing up there?!"

Elena’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade of crimson. She cleared her throat softly, glancing away toward the spatial mirrors. "Vetra... the energy signature passing through the lattice wasn’t combat mana. It was... localized energy transfer."

Vetra blinked, her brow furrowing. "Localized energy trans—"

Before she could finish the thought, the air in the center of the command hub folded.

There was no burst of pressure, no tearing sound, and no warning chime. Vince simply materialized on the central dais, stepping casually out of the shifting air as if he had never left. Barnaby floated right beside his left shoulder, looking thoroughly refreshed, her pale lips curved into a smug, feline smile that practically radiated satisfaction.

The entire command hub fell deathly silent.

Vetra froze. Her sharp amber eyes locked onto Vince, scanning him from head to toe. His dark coat was spotless, his hair neatly set, and his deep amethyst eyes burned with a calm, velvet light that seemed to swallow the room’s frantic red warning lights. But more than that, the sheer, absolute weight of his presence was overwhelming. He didn’t project power; he simply was the space they stood in.

"Vince," Elena whispered, stepping away from the console.

Without hesitation, Vince stepped off the dais. He didn’t offer a speech or a grand declaration. He closed the distance in two long strides, reaching out to catch Elena around the waist, pulling her flush against his chest, while his other arm wrapped firmly around Vetra’s waist, dragging the fiery dragon-kin into his hold.

Vetra let out a sharp gasp, her sword clattering against the marble floor as his arms locked around her.

"You’re back," Vetra grunted, her face burying into his shoulder for a split second before she snapped her head up to look at him, her amber eyes burning with fierce, possessive relief. "You actually killed them. You erased the whole damn court."

"The Hold is gone," Vince said softly, his voice echoing with a deep, comforting resonance that settled through the soul-lattice like a soothing wave. "The Obelisk is dust. The realm is ours."

Elena leaned into his side, her forehead resting against his collarbone as she let out a long, shuddering breath. "Vince... the lower provinces are panicking. The lords think the celestial throne is vacant. They’re preparing to march on the Spire to claim the core."

Vince looked up, his dark amethyst gaze turning toward the massive crystalline viewscreen overlooking the churning clouds of the lower realm. A cold, dark smirk touched the corner of his lips.

"Let them march," Vince said smoothly, his hand tightening around both of their waists. "They’re about to find out who holds the pen."