The orange light bleeding from the Bastion's ceiling wasn't light anymore; it was liquid pressure. The "World-Crush" was a planetary-scale execution, a tuning of the Taurus Array that transformed the atmospheric nitrogen into a crushing, incandescent weight. In the Sump, the air grew so dense it felt like breathing warm mercury.
"Thermal levels at 400%!" Sia's voice shrieked over the groaning of the iron supports. She was anchored to the central pillar by dozens of light-filaments, her fingers flying across a holographic display that was flickering with static. "Kael, the ceiling is losing its structural integrity! The Overlord isn't just trying to crush us—he's trying to fuse the Sump into the planet's mantle!"
The 128 veterans of the Sump-Legion were on their knees. Despite their new Inertia-Plating, the sheer magnitude of the 100x gravity was pressing their boots inches deep into the Runic glass floor. Every breath was a battle; every heartbeat sounded like a hammer against a drum.
Kael stood at the center of the core, his Sovereign Vanguard mantle now burning with a pure, white-hot platinum radiance. He wasn't on his knees. He was the only thing in the cavern that remained perfectly upright, a vertical line of defiance against a horizontal world.
"Jax," Kael's voice vibrated through the neural link, calm and heavy as a mountain. "The training is over. You are the Anchor now. Show them the weight of a Sovereign."
Jax "The Iron-Lung" stepped forward. His new Taurus-Vanguard armor was groaning, the matte-black plates turning a dull, glowing cherry-red as they absorbed the heat of the friction. He walked to the primary structural support—a massive iron rib that spanned the width of the cavern—and slammed his hydraulic gauntlets into the metal.
"TAURUS... WORLD-ROOT!"
Jax didn't just anchor himself to the floor. He funneled his Runic bellows into a total system-overload. His lungs didn't emit steam; they emitted a roar of pressurized energy that shook the foundations of the Bastion. His trait, evolved by the Year 3 energy Kael had shared, expanded. Jax became a Living Pillar.
His weight didn't just surge to five tons; it became infinite. He became the physical center of gravity for the entire Sump. The ceiling, which had been buckling downward under the 100x pressure, stopped. The iron rib groaned, the metal screaming under the stress, but Jax didn't budge. He stood with his back against the sky and his feet in the core, holding the weight of the entire Terra Sector on his shoulders.
"His heart rate is hitting 300!" Lyra's voice warned from the outpost. "Kael, Jax can't hold 100x alone! His biological marrow is starting to crystallize!"
"He's not alone," Kael said.
Kael raised his hands toward the ceiling. His platinum eyes weren't looking at the iron; they were looking at the Energy Vectors of the World-Crush. To the Overlord, this was a weapon of mass destruction. To Kael, it was a massive, untapped battery.
[ZODIAC ALIGNMENT: TAURUS — 12%] [ABILITY: DIRECTIONAL VECTOR — KINETIC SIPHON]
"You want to give us your power?" Kael's voice echoed through the Bastion, amplified by the Runic core. "I accept."
Kael didn't reverse the gravity this time. He siphoned it. He turned his own body into a vacuum for the 100x pressure. The orange light above began to swirl, drawn toward Kael's raised palms like a vortex.
The Sump-Legion looked up in awe. The crushing weight that had been pinning them to the floor began to lift. The air grew lighter, the heat dissipating as Kael pulled the energy into the Sovereign Star Protocol.
[SYNC RATE: 18%] [ENERGY RESERVES: 150%... 300%... 600%... OVERFLOW]
"Sia! The secondary batteries!" Kael roared, his voice cracking with the strain of holding enough energy to level a continent. "Divert the overflow into the Bastion's defenses! If we're going to be a city, we need a shield!"
Sia didn't hesitate. She wove a web of filaments that connected Kael's aura to the Bastion's outer walls. The excess "World-Crush" energy—the very power intended to destroy them—was redirected.
The jagged, rusted walls of the Sump were suddenly encased in a shimmering, amber-gold Gravity-Shield. The Bastion didn't look like a hole in the ground anymore; it looked like a sun buried in the earth.
Far above, in the High Overlord's Spire, the sensors shrieked. The "World-Crush" was being drained. The High Overlord, a man whose body was a mountain of grafted muscle and Runic stone, watched his monitors in stunned silence.
"He's... he's eating the Array," the Overlord whispered, his voice a tectonic rumble of fear. "He's using my own weapon to power his city."
Back in the Sump, the orange light finally flickered and died. The World-Crush was over.
Jax collapsed to one knee, his Runic bellows glowing a dull, exhausted blue. His armor was scarred and blackened, but he was laughing—a dry, triumphant sound. "Did you see that, boss? The sky tried to sit on me, and I didn't even blink."
Kael lowered his hands. He was wreathed in a permanent, shimmering platinum-amber aura. The siphoned energy had permanently altered his resonance. He looked at the 128 veterans, who were now standing tall, their eyes filled with a fanatical, divine loyalty.
"The Overlord is empty," Kael said, his voice carrying through the now-peaceful silence of the Bastion. "He spent his energy trying to erase us, and instead, he gave us a permanent sun. Sia, activate the Sovereign Market signals. I want the world to know: the Sump is no longer a graveyard. It is the capital of the New World."
Rin stepped out of the shadows, nodding once toward Jax in a rare sign of respect. The Mute had spent the entire battle silencing the internal structural failures, preventing the noise of the struggle from collapsing the tunnels.
Kael walked to the edge of the new city and looked at the iron gates. They were no longer just gates; they were the entrance to a legend.
[DEAD MAN'S SWITCH: 07:15:30] [SYNC RATE: 20% (TAURUS)] [NEW TITLE: THE ANCHOR OF NATIONS] [BASE STATUS: TIER 2 — 'THE GOLDEN BASTION']
The High Overlord had failed. The "World-Crush" had only served to forge Kael's legend in the one place the Bloodlines never looked: the very ground they walked on.