CHAPTER 423: CONSEQUENCES! III

Achilles proceeded ahead calmly, his eyes observing the magnificent wealth and power that surrounded them while his consciousness remained focused on far more fundamental objectives.

This entire Sovereign Void Imperium was only a force that had aided in his Father’s destruction...especially the Grand Emperor.

Since he didn’t plan to destroy thousands of stellar bodies filled with innocent lifeforms, he would pick and choose those specifically responsible. Apart from the Emperor, he knew every single entity deserving of consequences from Ashfall’s assimilated memories...and from Ethemia!

The gaze of the Cosmic Singularity was terrifying as he knew all faces and names.

The corridors ahead pulsed with accumulated authority while palace guards moved.

Each figure radiated power at levels at Empyrean Star Nexus Transcendence or Stellar Genesis Embodiment Marshals leading them, but Achilles evaluated them with the detached interest of someone cataloguing potential obstacles rather than genuine threats.

Achilles walked forward with measured steps, his disguised form maintaining the careful balance of injury and determination that characterized Marshal Ashfall’s legendary resilience.

Behind him, the three surviving Marshals moved with the precision of entities approaching the seat of authority.

On both sides of the central approach, a dozen Marshals stood at attention with their personal forces arrayed in perfect formation.

Each figure radiated power that would have been impressive under normal circumstances...Stellar Genesis Embodiment entities whose capabilities had been earned through centuries!

Their uniforms bore the accumulated honors of campaigns across the stars!

The throne room opened before them like a cathedral built to honor the concept of absolute authority itself.

At its heart, elevated on a dais that seemed to exist partially outside normal dimensional constraints, sat the seat of power that had coordinated policy across star sectors for years.

The Grand Emperor’s throne was a masterwork of engineering. Moons had been compressed into the armrest...actual celestial bodies reduced to manageable size while retaining their essential gravitational properties!

The backrest contained fragments of captured suns, their nuclear fires contained within crystalline matrices that pulsed with restrained stellar energy.

Smaller thrones surrounded the imperial seat in careful hierarchy, half filled at this moment.

But it was the figure seated upon the central throne who commanded absolute attention through sheer force of contained power.

The Grand Emperor of the Sovereign Void Imperium appeared middle-aged by conventional standards, but his eyes held depths. They were unfathomably sharp, intelligent in ways that transcended mere calculation!

His features were aristocratic without being delicate...the face of someone who had been born to command but had earned the right through methods that sought no challenge.

His power radiated outward in waves that made nearby space-time ripple with acknowledgment.

This was someone who had transcended even the peak of Stellar Genesis Embodiment.

He stood at...Galactic Nexus Embodiment.

A stage where one did not focus on embodying a single stellar body...but were forging multiple stellar bodies within themselves as they sought to mimim...a galaxy!

Empyrean Star Nexus Transcendence, Stellar Genesis Embodiment, and then Galactic Nexus Embodiment!

To his right and left, two younger beings maintained positions.

Sector Crown Prince Litchfield possessed his father’s aristocratic features but with sharper edges that suggested ruthlessness.

His power burned at the beginning levels of Galactic Nexus Embodiment- impressive by any conventional measure, yet clearly subordinate to the force that had sired him.

Princess Miara carried herself with fluid grace. Her capabilities matched her brother’s...formidable, but clearly operating within hierarchies.

Standing before the imperial family, the Royal Imperium Guards maintained positions. Each one radiated authority equivalent to the imperial progeny.

Achilles looked back at them as he took in every detail while his consciousness processed information that Ethemia had provided about them.

He felt like he knew them already...their strengths, their weaknesses, their psychological patterns that had been shaped by authority spanning impossible timescales.

The Grand Emperor raised his hand with movements that carried their own gravitational signature, and immediate silence settled over the throne room like atmospheric pressure from a collapsing star!

He looked at Achilles closely.

When he spoke, his voice resonated!

"I would ask you for the report that required this emergency meeting," the Emperor began, his tone carrying casual authority mixed with growing analytical interest. "But you... are not Marshal Korvain Ashfall."

BOOM!

The words struck the throne room like gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars.

Immediate alarm rippled through the assembled forces as understanding crashed through their consciousness.

The Marshals who had accompanied Achilles moved backward, while those surrounding the throne began radiating enhanced power!

Gravitational fields erupted throughout the chamber as dozens of enhanced beings focused their capabilities on the figure who had somehow penetrated their most secure installation!

The combined pressure should have been sufficient to flatten any being below the peak of Stellar Genesis Embodiment...force equivalent to multiple stars attempting to occupy the same dimensional space.

And yet Achilles remained perfectly calm, his disguised form showing no strain whatsoever as spatial forces pressed against his enhanced physiology!

The display was impossible and terrifying in its implications...a being who could casually resist pressure that should have reduced him to component atoms.

Those watching began reassessing his capabilities with growing alarm. If he could withstand such overwhelming gravitational manipulation without visible effort, then he possessed power at the same level as The Grand Emperor!

Achilles looked directly at the Grand Emperor with eyes that held depths beyond the disguise he maintained, his voice carrying quiet curiosity mixed with genuine interest.

"How did you realize?" he asked. "I was certain everything was perfect."

The Emperor’s response came with the measured precision of someone who had spent eons learning to read the subtle patterns that revealed truth beneath carefully constructed deceptions.

"The eyes," he said simply, "They are windows to essential nature, regardless of whatever external modifications might be employed to obscure identity. Yours are steady, arrogant, and showed not a shred of respect or fear toward me...emotions that would be impossible for the genuine Marshal Ashfall to suppress, given our relationship and the circumstances that brought him to imperial attention."

...!

The eyes.

The eyes!