The first tier of the Sept-Layer Tapestry burned with an obnoxious, unyielding noon. Down here in the Solar Heavens, the Law of Light grew so heavy it fell as golden rain, though the drops evaporated into stinging Qi long before they could strike the dirt. Caelum crested the final ridge of the newly-grafted continent and immediately hit a physical wall of heat. The ambient temperature boiled the lavender grass of his father's realm into a puddle of grey ash.

  He ignored the idea of waiting for a strategy. As the eldest and the bearer of the Dragon-Yang, Caelum had already decided the responsibility for this entire war rested squarely on his bronze-scaled shoulders. He wanted the weight. He needed to be the bulwark the younger kids could cower behind, even if it meant cooking himself alive.

  His opponent waited in the center of that golden mist.

  The Solar Dragon spanned thirty feet of solidified solar flare, covered in scales of hyper-compressed plasma humming like a dying star. This beast skipped the entire concept of cultivation. It was simply the physical manifestation of the Law itself. Two white-hot singularities served as its eyes, staring down at the boy with the bloated arrogance of a celestial edict.

  Caelum roared. The sound carried the exact same primal hunger he had inherited from Jian. Bronze scales tore through the skin of his chest and jaw, hissing with steam and dragon-fire. He lunged as a streak of orange light and slammed head-on against the beast's golden radiance.

  The impact actually set the local sky on fire. Caelum’s fists hammered the dragon’s claws in a grinding thermal struggle, throwing off sparks dense enough to level a mortal town. His Nascent Soul pulsed with awakened draconic blood, pushing his raw strength higher than ever before. But the Solar Dragon belonged to the foundation of the world. This wouldn't be a quick execution. They were locked into a brutal battle of attrition that would rage in the background for days—a constant, flickering supernova sitting on the horizon.

  A mile back, the other children watched the explosion from a high ridge overlooking the boundary.

  Lyzara rested her hand on the hilt of her wind-dagger while her spirit-hawk traced nervous circles overhead. The twins, Mei and Rin, shimmered in and out of focus with cold analytical precision. The younger ones, Varrick and Rhea, just stared in silence. The sheer scale of the task ahead was finally sinking in.

  Jian’s internal soul-world had bloated into a civilization of three billion people over decades of temporal manipulation. It was a thriving society born from the Oakhaven survivors and whatever stray groups Jian had acquired along the way. But the Sept-Layer Tapestry they had just stolen presented a completely different problem. It was a fully mature system. Trillions of lives were spread across seven distinct layers of reality down there.

  "How do we even handle the other layers?" Varrick asked. His voice carried a quiet, metallic resonance. "Trillions of soldiers, mages, and lords who think we’re a demonic invasion."

  Rhea looked down at the bruised purple clouds of the stolen Underworld layer far below. "Did Father clear all of them by himself when he was wandering? They say the Fox Spirit came from the fifth layer of the deep. They say Father just walked in, grabbed her by the heart, and dragged her back like she was a loud annoyance."

  Lyzara met her siblings' gazes, her own golden eyes reflecting the distant solar fire. "Father didn't have an army back then. He just had hunger. We have each other. And we have the Queens."

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  Mei nodded, her form solidifying for a fraction of a second. "She's right. We figure it out as we go. If Caelum wants to punch the sun, let him have it. We’ll take the air, the mist, and the dirt."

  They hiked down the ridge toward the central pavilion. Zelari stood waiting in full commander’s plate, her hair tied back. Her green eyes scanned tactical maps getting updated in real-time by goblin scouts. Saphra stood nearby, her hands heavily stained with the violet dyes of high-tier toxins.

  "Mothers," Lyzara said with a respectful bow. "We are ready. But the scale of the trillions... we need the legions."

  Zelari looked up with a thoroughly dangerous grin. "We’ve waited thirty years for a reason to call the banners, Lyzara. Did you think we spent that time knitting sweaters?"

  She turned to her generals. "Mobilize the three billion. I want the Iron-Ash vanguard in the mortal tier by nightfall. Saphra, saturate the air of the second immortal tier with the Frost-Soul vapor. We’ll clear the path for the kids to hit the High Lords."

  "Happily," Saphra murmured. Her eyes practically shone with lethal clinical excitement.

  The children watched in quiet awe. The mothers they knew for warmth and discipline transformed seamlessly into architects of absolute ruin. They finally understood their true heritage. They were heirs to an entire system of violence.

  High above the lavender sky, Jian sat cross-legged on a beam of solidified nothingness. He watched the mobilization unfold. He heard his son's distant roar, the hawk's screech, and the rhythmic pounding of three billion boots grinding the war machine into gear. He let out a low wheezing laugh that sent ripples through the internal realm’s atmosphere.

  "Look at them," Jian rasped, his eyes turning a swirling cocktail of copper and void. "Trying to circumvent the script. They honestly think planning avoids the tragedy. They’re so earnest. It almost breaks my heart to let them bleed."

  He admired how they dictated their own tempo. But he knew the technical truth of the Fourth Step. To become a real person—a being existing outside the Heavens' imagination—they had to be baptized in their own accomplishments. They needed to advance under the heavens through the raw friction of their own will, even if those heavens belonged to his internal world.

  If they failed to subjugate a single seven-layer tapestry, the true High Immortal realm outside would crush them into paste.

  "They'll do it," Jian muttered. A terrifyingly proud smile touched his lips. "The blood is too spicy for them to fail."

  He stood up. His rags fluttered in the vacuum of his high perch. The familiar hunger returned, a sharp electric itch in his meridians that local wine couldn't scratch. His foundation felt stable, but it needed more weight. He required fresh ingredients from the outside world.

  Jian pulled his focus away from the war in his gut. He performed a Nothingness Blink. His presence flickered out of the soul-realm and reappeared in the Outside, the High Immortal realm he had recently invaded.

  He hit the ground in a barren valley bordering the Silver-Thread territory. The air ran thin here, stripped of immortal energy and smelling heavily of neglect. The High Sovereigns rarely looked at these Outlying Regions. The harvest was simply too small to warrant the effort.

  "Easy pickings," Jian whispered. He took a deep sniff.

  He smelled Natural Treasures buried in dry riverbeds. They were unrefined seeds of Law completely overlooked by local sects. He sensed Rogue Immortals hiding in the cave networks. Desperate people who fled the scripts of the big empires to play king on their own little piles of dirt.

  The High Immortal system labeled these people rejects. Jian considered them the perfect hors d'oeuvres.

  He ambled toward a series of dark caves at the base of the cliffs. No drawn sword. No flared aura. Just the slow gait of a man heading to the market.

  "I wonder," Jian muttered to the wind. His nostrils flared, catching the thick scent of a Boulder-Ape spirit lurking in the shadows. "I wonder if a rogue immortal tastes better when they honestly think they’ve escaped the play."

  He let out a dry rhythmic cackle that fractured the nearby rocks. The war for the Tapestry was in good hands. The Calamity was going shopping for the next course.