The sky above the Realm of Burnt Stars was no sky at all — just a molten haze of swirling fire, flickering constellations, and floating islands of obsidian. Zhen hovered in midair, sweat trailing down his neck, not from exhaustion, but from the heat of the world itself. His cloak, now partially scorched, billowed behind him as he looked down at the cracked platform beneath his feet.
The dimensional trial had not ended in Chapter 36 — it had only evolved.
The System's voice rang again, this time deeper, imbued with pressure:
> [Multiverse System Alert: Worldfire Convergence Trial Initiated]
Objective: Stabilize the converging star cores and ascend past the Sixth Realm Threshold.
Time Remaining: 2 hours.
Reward: Dimensional Core Seed ×1, Sovereign Will Fragment ×2, Skill Awakening – [Phoenix Ascension].
Zhen exhaled slowly. So this is the real test…
He raised his right hand, and the Celestial Riftblade responded immediately. The once-silent weapon had begun to sing — not a tune, but a vibration across dimensions, echoing into realities Zhen had not yet seen. It shimmered with prismatic energy now, not merely star-forged, but reborn from the fusion with the Divine Draconic Crystal he had absorbed in the last realm.
Below, a massive whirlpool of flame erupted. A star core — still forming — hovered at its center, rotating furiously as if fighting for birth. Threads of golden fire twisted around it, each burning with its own will.
"It's sentient," Zhen muttered. "And it's rejecting this realm."
Suddenly, a loud crack split the atmosphere. A hole tore open in the sky above, revealing a jet-black portal that vomited out several figures cloaked in dark purple armor. They wore the sigil of a shattered crown on their chests.
Zhen's eyes narrowed. "The Ruin Sovereignty…"
The leading figure stepped forward. She was tall, with white hair braided down her back and eyes like collapsing galaxies — Lady Azhera, a top-ranked Warlord of the Ruin Sovereignty. She raised her hand, and time around her halted momentarily, the world hiccupping under the force of her presence.
"Zhen of the Forbidden System," she said, voice clear and low. "Step aside. The Worldfire belongs to us."
Zhen didn't respond immediately. His gaze locked with hers — a silent clash of will.
Then he smirked.
"Try and take it."
---
The Battle Begins
Azhera didn't hesitate. With a wave of her hand, seven temporal lances shot toward Zhen, each twisting through timelines and leaving streaks of distorted reality behind. Zhen spun the Riftblade in a sweeping arc, invoking Starbreaker Form, the fifth technique he had mastered under the trial system.
The sky ruptured. Each of the seven lances shattered midair as Zhen released a counterwave of pure dimensional force, cracking the nearby floating platforms and forcing several of Azhera's sub-commanders to erect emergency shields.
"Not bad," she said coolly, stepping forward. "But you're not the only one who's broken past the Sixth Threshold."
She drew her blade — not steel, but crystallized entropy itself, a weapon known across worlds as Evershade's Edge.
They collided.
Sparks erupted with every blow, but these were no ordinary sparks — they were fragments of time, fragments of history, burned into the air like fleeting memories.
Zhen's mind raced. If I let this continue, the Worldfire Core will destabilize completely… I have to sever its link with the collapsing star grid!
He disengaged with a burst of astral propulsion, flaring golden wings — remnants of the Phoenix Trial etched into his soul. As Azhera pursued, Zhen raised his left hand and activated a forbidden rune — one etched into the bones of his left forearm by the Multiverse System itself.
> [System Skill Activation: Rune of Sovereign Extraction]
The rune ignited, summoning a chain of violet light that speared toward the Worldfire Core. In that moment, reality itself slowed — the chain passed through layers of spatial resistance, wrapping the newborn star core in layers of crystallized time, slowing its reaction to the convergence instability.
Azhera's eyes widened. "That rune—! You've started the Sovereign Path."
Zhen didn't answer.
---
A Voice from the Depths
Just as he was stabilizing the core, another voice cut through the realm — not through sound, but directly into Zhen's consciousness.
> "You wield the Sovereign Rune... but are you worthy of the Seed?"
Zhen's vision blurred, and the Realm of Burnt Stars vanished.
He stood now in an endless ocean of gold and white — not water, but liquid reality, flowing like ink across infinite planes. At its center floated a throne made of fractured laws. And sitting upon it…
A silhouette — tall, faceless, glowing with the radiance of countless universes. The original Worldfire Sovereign.
Zhen took a breath. "You're… the first?"
> "No. I am what remains. The Fragment of Will you seek — it is me. But I will not hand myself over to someone who has not been broken, remade, and broken again."
Zhen stepped forward. "Then test me."
The Worldfire Sovereign raised a single finger — and the realm trembled.
---
Trial of Annihilation
Suddenly, Zhen was no longer himself.
He was a child again, kneeling in the ruins of his first village, watching his mother's corpse burn.
He was a teen, chained and forced to fight for food in a multiverse arena.
He was a soldier, leading rebels against the Ancient Sky Clan — and watching them die, one by one, as the heavens rained down destruction.
Pain. Grief. Despair.
Every trauma, every scar, relived in brutal detail. But Zhen gritted his teeth. His hands bled from clenching his fists, but he did not fall.
"Enough," he growled.
Golden runes blazed from his back — the Seven Pillars of Self — system-awarded mental resilience techniques reserved for beings close to breaking into Sovereign Rank.
The illusions shattered.
The throne room cracked.
And the Sovereign laughed.
> "Good. You are worthy."
---
Return to the Worldfire Realm
Zhen's eyes snapped open. The sky had gone blood-red, and Azhera was locked in combat with the star core itself, which had now gained form — a colossal phoenix made of living plasma.
Zhen rose.
Wings unfurled.
Energy surged — beyond all thresholds.
He roared, fusing with the core temporarily, gaining partial control over the Worldfire Phoenix itself. He dove with the creature into Azhera, their clash igniting half the sky and sending waves across distant realms.
In one final, burning attack, Zhen invoked the Phoenix Ascension Technique, his body merging momentarily with pure celestial fire.
Azhera screamed as her armor shattered, and she was flung through a rift into a collapsing dimension.
---
System Notification
> [Trial Complete]
Worldfire Core Stabilized.
Skill Unlocked: Phoenix Ascension
Rank Advanced: Multiverse Sovereign (Unconfirmed – Half-Step)
Reward Claimed: Dimensional Core Seed ×1, Sovereign Will Fragment ×2
Zhen fell to his knees, breathing heavily, surrounded by a sea of flame that now bowed to his presence. The phoenix hovered above him before dissipating into sparks — merging into his core.
He had passed another impossible trial.
But above — far above — new watchers had turned their gaze toward him.
The true Sovereigns were awakening.
Just as Zhen steadied himself, the temple's floor began to shift.
The obsidian tiles beneath his feet fragmented into rotating sigils, spinning faster and faster until a single rune emerged in the center — glowing with iridescent gold and crimson. The air turned dense, heavy, as though time had thickened into syrup.
From the edge of the platform, a figure materialized.
This one was not like the Voidborn. No shadow or monstrous aura. Instead, she walked with elegance — a woman cloaked in flowing robes of silver and teal, her eyes glimmering like twin galaxies.
Her presence silenced everything.
"You are the one who tore the Rift," she said calmly. "Zhen of the Multiverse System."
Zhen's stance hardened. "Who are you?"
"I am Mirael, Keeper of the Forgotten Realms."
He blinked. That title... he'd encountered it in a system memory shard — realms lost in the first Multiversal Collapse. No coordinates, no maps, no access — only theory and caution.
Mirael continued, "You've disturbed a balance that even gods dared not upset. The Beacon you awakened in the Astral Graveyard... it was not meant to be lit."
"You mean the Starcore Beacon?"
She nodded. "It was a failsafe. One that signals the awakening of the Supreme Tribunal. They've begun watching."
Zhen's mind raced. The Tribunal — the entities the system only referred to in encrypted script — were real?
"And what do you want?" he asked.
"To test your right to continue."
She raised her hand, and a beam of starlight surged toward Zhen — fast as thought. He barely brought up the Riftblade to deflect it, the impact blasting him backward through several marble columns. Pain lanced through his body, but he pushed off the debris with a roar.
So this was the level of those who governed the broken layers of reality.
"Good," Mirael murmured as he rose, blood at the corner of his lips. "You're still raw. But you do carry something... different."
Zhen activated Chrono-Frame, time slowing around him as he launched forward, blade aiming not at Mirael — but the rune still glowing beneath her. A sudden intuition told him: this was her anchor, her foothold in this place.
She spun gracefully, deflecting his slash with a fan-shaped artifact that shimmered like moonlight. But the edge of his blade grazed the sigil.
The rune flickered.
A brief distortion pulsed through the temple, and Mirael's expression changed — just for a second.
"You're not bound by one world's fate," she whispered, half to herself. "You're... truly unranked."
Zhen frowned. "What does that mean?"
But she stepped back, fading into particles of light. "Survive the next convergence, and you'll understand."
A new system prompt appeared in front of him.
> [You have triggered: Path of the Unbound]
[Multiverse System integrating 'Eternal Convergence Protocol'…]
[Warning: This path is irreversible.]
Before Zhen could process what that meant, the temple trembled violently. Portals began tearing open around him — not just one, but hundreds. Each showed different worlds, different wars, versions of himself… some victorious, some dying.
The convergence had begun.