The Box: Fate
Chapter 62 — The Star-Weaver's Trap
The heavy golden doors of the throne room slammed shut behind the Sovereign Vanguards with a deafening, metallic echo. The sound was flat, completely devoid of natural resonance, as if the massive marble hall was sealed in a vacuum.
Kataki stood at the front of the group, his silver eyes locking onto King Sharon. Beside him, Vahn's level 65 aura fluctuated violently, his breathing shallow as his knuckles turned white against his sword hilt. Behind them, Murasaki, Akira, Monk Fish, and Mikochi formed a defensive semi-circle.
"You say you have been waiting for us, King Sharon," Kataki spoke, his voice cutting through the hollow silence of the room. "But your city is blind. The Seven Demon Lords are gathering at the volcanic borders, and a system-ending entity is waking up beneath your feet. We aren't here to pay respects. We are here to mobilize your armies."
King Sharon smiled, but the expression didn't reach his cold, glassy eyes. He didn't look like a flesh-and-blood ruler; his skin had a faint, iridescent sheen, like polished porcelain.
"Armies?" King Sharon chuckled, a sound that felt entirely synthetic. "Why would I waste the blood of my knights on a script that has already been written? You speak of the Demon Lords and the unravelling of reality as if they are tragedies. To the Throne, they are simply... necessary milestones."
Vahn stepped forward, his massive iron-plated boots cracking the pristine marble floor. "You treacherous bastard! Ten years ago, you said the same thing to my squad! You told us to advance into the Zero Zone to 'save the kingdom,' and then you sealed the gates behind us! You let Rin dissolve into static!"
King Sharon's smile didn't fade. He slowly stood up from his throne of solid starlight.
"Ah, the survivor of the Iron-Heart," the King murmured, stepping down the marble dais. "You always were a faulty unit, Vahn. Too much emotional variance. You survived the deletion zone because your code was stubborn, but you still don't understand the nature of your existence."
The King turned his gaze to Kataki.
"You think you are a leader, silver-eyed boy. You think your 'Sovereign Vanguards' are rewriting the rules of this world. But let me ask you—why did you come here? Who planted the idea in your head to seek an audience with the Crown?"
Kataki froze. His mind flashed back to the ledger in the Liya Guild hall. The missing hunter, Gideon... the path that naturally led them straight to the Capital. It hadn't been a strategic choice. It had felt like the only logical path. A railroad.
"Mikochi! Scan the room!" Kataki commanded sharply.
Mikochi instantly closed her eyes, her sensory networks expanding through the air. A second later, her eyes snapped open, filled with pure horror. "Kataki! The walls... the floor... they aren't made of stone! There's no natural mana here! It's all a massive, hyper-dense barrier of structured light! We're inside a containment unit!"
"Correct," King Sharon said, his voice suddenly losing its human pitch, shifting into a cold, layered, synthesized tone that echoed from everywhere at once.
**"INTERFACE COMMAND: CONFINEMENT SEQUENCE OMEGA."**
The white marble walls instantly dissolved into grids of blinding golden code. The rows of royal knights didn't draw swords; their bodies glitched, turning into identical, faceless sentinels made of hard-light data. A massive, suffocating gravity field dropped from the ceiling, slamming into the players with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
Monk Fish dropped to one knee, his jade-shield aura cracking instantly under the pressure. Akira choked, his katana slipping from his grip as the gravity threatened to crush his chest.
"Ren-sama has ordered the containment of the primary targets," King Sharon's puppet mouth moved mechanically, his porcelain face cracking open to reveal hollow white light inside. "The soul-bound cards must be extracted before the Demon King enters the sector. Your compliance is mandatory."
"Kataki! Use the Angel skill! Now!" Vahn roared, his body bursting into a desperate, roaring obsidian flame as he fought against the gravity field to shield the teenagers. "Don't let them rewrite your soul!"
Kataki didn't panic. Through the crushing pressure, his silver eyes glowed with an absolute, terrifying brilliance. The silver sight didn't just see the golden grids of the trap—it saw the structural flaws where the code was forced to bend.
"We aren't your chess pieces," Kataki whispered, his fingers gripping the hilts of **The Twin Fangs of the Eclipse**.
He didn't activate a standard system skill. He reached into the core of his silver eyes, pulling on the raw, unrefined power that allowed him to see the world's blueprint. The twin daggers erupted into a violent, void-black aura that began to aggressively eat away at the golden constraints around his wrists.
"Murasaki! Hina! Prepare your full output!" Kataki shouted, his voice breaking through the system's dampening field. "We aren't fighting a king. We're breaking a firewall!"
Outside the palace, the grand spires of Aethelgard began to flicker like a dying hologram against the purple sky. The illusion of the capital was dropping, and the real war against the Architects had just breached the throne room doors.