The river wasn't a grave; it was an oven.
I should have been dead. The physics of a forty-story drop into water are unforgiving—it's like hitting a slab of reinforced concrete at nearly eighty miles per hour. My ribs had been splinters, my lungs collapsed bags of fluid, and my heart a stalled engine. But the "Celestial Anchor" hadn't just shattered; it had dissolved into my skin, and now my blood was turning into liquid sun.
"Agh—!"
The scream died in my throat, replaced by a surge of boiling water. I was trapped in a cocoon of pulsating golden light twenty feet below the surface.
[Warning: Divine Marrow Reconstruction in progress.]
[Status: Dissolving mortal calcium structures. Replacing with Celestial Essence.]
"Stop... stop it..." I clawed at my own chest. It felt like a thousand needles were stitching my muscles back together with white-hot wire. Through the murky water and the golden haze, I saw my own arm. The skin was peeling away in gray flakes, revealing something shimmering and metallic underneath. It wasn't bone. It was a dark, obsidian-like substance that hummed with a low-frequency vibration.
[Nervous System Overload. Pain suppressors: OFFLINE.]
[Body Forging Progress: 4%.]
"You've got to be kidding me!" I thrashed, my boots kicking against the crushing pressure of the deep. Every cell in my body was being ripped apart and reassembled. The "worthless" heirloom my father had given me wasn't a piece of jewelry; it was a cage. A seal. And Marcus Thorne had just smashed the lock.
"Marcus..." The name ignited a different kind of fire in my gut. I saw his face again, the smug twist of his lips as he let me go. I saw Clara's bored expression as she traded my life for a bigger diamond.
If I'm going to die, I'm going to die biting their throats out!
[Willpower Detected. Synchronizing with the Hegemony Core.]
[Forging Speed: Accelerated.]
The heat intensified. I felt my spine elongate, my muscles dense-packing until I felt heavy enough to sink to the center of the earth, yet light enough to move like lightning. The pain reached a crescendo—a silent, underwater explosion of agony that forced my eyes wide.
My vision shifted. I wasn't seeing the dark river anymore. I was seeing thermal signatures, sound waves, and the structural weaknesses of everything around me. I could see the silt on the riverbed five miles down-current. I could hear the heartbeat of a rat on the pier three hundred yards away.
[Body Forging: 100% Complete.]
[Tier 1 Sovereign Body: Manifested.]
[Note: Bloodline Seal remains at 99.99%. Host is currently 'Fragile'.]
Fragile? I felt like I could punch a hole through a mountain.
I kicked. The movement wasn't human. I didn't swim; I launched. The water around me cavitated, creating a vacuum sleeve that shot me toward the surface like a torpedo.
I breached the water with a roar, the cold night air hitting my lungs like a shot of pure oxygen. I didn't gasp; I inhaled with the force of a vacuum. I stood upright in the water, my feet buoyed by a swirling vortex of golden energy I didn't understand.
I wiped the river water from my face, expecting to see the empty, dark skyline of the industrial district.
Instead, I was looking into the muzzles of a hundred high-caliber railguns.
A fleet of twelve black stealth-ships, sleek and silent as sharks, had surrounded the impact zone. They had no flags, no markings, and they didn't show up on any civilian radar. These weren't police boats. These were warships. Above them, three heavy-lift gunships hovered, their rotors whispering with a sound like tearing silk.
"Don't move!" a voice boomed over a localized comms channel.
I narrowed my eyes. My new vision zoomed in on the lead ship. A man stood on the bow. He was massive, draped in a charcoal-grey trench coat over a high-collared military uniform adorned with medals I didn't recognize. His hair was iron-gray, his face scarred by a dozen battles.
"Target identified," the man said, his voice carrying across the water without the need for a megaphone. "The Anchor has broken. The signal is confirmed."
I tensed, my fingers curling into claws. "Who are you? Marcus sent you to finish the job?"
The big man's eyes widened. He looked at me—really looked at me—and his stern expression shattered into something resembling awe. He didn't fire. He barked an order into his wrist-com.
"Power down! All units, safeties on! If you so much as sneeze in his direction, I'll have your heads!"
The ships went dark instantly. The red targeting lasers vanished from my chest.
The man turned to his crew, then stepped off the bow of his ship. I expected him to splash into the water, but he walked on the surface, his boots clicking against the waves as if they were solid marble. He stopped ten feet from me.
Behind him, hundreds of soldiers in matte-black tactical gear filed onto the decks of their ships. In a single, synchronized motion, they all snapped to attention. The sound of their boots hitting the metal decks was like a clap of thunder.
The scarred General reached me and, without a word of explanation, dropped to one knee. He bowed his head so low I could see the silver crest on his collar—a roaring lion coiled around a broken anchor.
"Sire," the General rasped, his voice thick with emotion. "Twenty-five years. We have searched every corner of this wretched planet for twenty-five years."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, my voice sounding deeper, more resonant. "My name is Elias. I'm an associate at Thorne Financial. Or I was, until an hour ago."
The General looked up, a grim smile touching his lips. "Thorne Financial? You mean the shell company managed by the collateral branch? Marcus Thorne is a servant who forgot his place. He is a dog playing in a master's house."
I froze. "Marcus works for... you?"
"Marcus works for the Thorne Hegemony, Sire. But he is a cadet. A peasant. You?" The General stood up, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying loyalty. "You are the only direct descendant of the High Sovereign. You are the true blood. The King of the Deep, the Master of the Anchor."
He gestured to the fleet, then to the glowing city skyline behind me.
"The man who threw you off that balcony just signed a death warrant for his entire lineage. We awaited the breaking of the seal. Only the true heir could survive the Anchor's transition."
I looked at my hands. The golden glow was receding into my skin, leaving behind a faint, intricate pattern of runes that shimmered under my pores. I felt a power humming in my marrow that made the city's power grid look like a AA battery.
"You're saying... I own all of this?" I whispered.
"The Hegemony doesn't just own companies, Sire. We own the tides. We own the commerce of the seven seas. And as of this moment," the General stepped aside, gesturing toward the tallest building in the city—the Thorne Financial Tower. "You own the life and death of every person who has ever crossed you."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a sleek, obsidian tablet, sliding it across the air toward me. It floated on a cushion of static.
"The first order of business, Sire? Marcus Thorne is currently celebrating your 'death' at a victory gala at the top of that tower. He has just announced his engagement to your wife."
A cold, predatory calm washed over me. The pain was gone. The confusion was gone. There was only the hunger.
"General," I said, my voice as sharp as a guillotine.
"Yes, Sire?"
"I want my ring back. And I want the hand that took it."
The General bowed again, a dark, satisfied grin on his face. "The fleet is at your command. How shall we begin the reclamation?"
I looked up at the 40th floor, where the lights were bright and the music was playing.
"We don't need the fleet for this," I said, feeling the Sovereign power surge in my legs. "Just get me to the balcony. I have a promotion to hand out."
"As you wish," the General said, but then he paused, his eyes flicking to the horizon. "But be warned, Sire. Now that the Anchor has signaled, the other Hegemonies will be coming. They felt the pulse. They know the King has returned."
Before I could ask what he meant, a massive shadow eclipsed the moon. Something even larger than the stealth ships was emerging from the depths of the river—a submersible the size of a cathedral, dripping with ancient, bioluminescent symbols.
"Sire," the General whispered, "look."
From the dark water, four more figures emerged, walking on the surface toward us. They weren't soldiers. They wore flowing white robes that shimmered with their own internal light, and they carried staves tipped with jagged blue crystals.
They didn't kneel. They stopped twenty paces away, their eyes glowing with a faint, predatory blue.
"The Council of Tides," the General hissed, his hand moving to the hilt of a humming vibro-blade. "They aren't here to welcome you. They're here to see if the heir is strong enough to keep his head."
The lead figure in white raised a staff, pointing it directly at my heart.
"Elias of the Broken Anchor," the figure intoned, the voice vibrating the very water beneath my feet. "Prove your blood, or feed the deep."