I Can Assimilate Everything

The world smelled like scorched starlight.

Achilles stood at the heart of it, suspended in the upper skies above the Adrastia Continent, and behind him, the Imperial Sun of Adrastia roared with silent fury.

Its rotation, slow and impossibly dense, pressed down upon the world like judgment itself. It wasn't a symbol. It wasn't a metaphor. It was a star. A true one. One that obeyed no natural law save his will!

He watched with quiet intensity as the feathers of the Ancient Millennium Acheron Phoenixes sizzled and curled. Their skin blistered. Great beings who once soared with the pride of flames now melted like wax figures placed beside a forge.

He clenched his fists in glorious realization.

Just how terrifying was his lineage, he thought, that the very first stage of its refinement granted him a literal sun and a crown forged of flaming authority?

It was a question that would not leave him.

If this was merely Imperial Embers Initiation and it granted a literal fucking miniature star, how did any Adrastia Emperor King ever fall?

Or... was this power uniquely magnified because he was the last of them?

The thoughts rolled in his mind, filled with weight and vast, as the burning in his blood only intensified.

He knew answers would come, eventually. In dreams. From voices of ancestors long returned. But for now, he had no time to dwell.

He turned to the fading remnants of the phoenix army, his voice rich with the dignity of a crown and the weight of a star.

"You followed your ruler here under orders. Your ruler is dead. Bow your heads in the next three seconds, or you will also be dead."

His words rang out like a proclamation of reality. Of certainty. A king did not plead.

"CAA!!"

The cries came swiftly. Dozens of phoenixes folded their wings mid-air, trembling. They bowed. Their heads lowered. Their auras receded. Their fear was not only of death.

It was of what stood before them.

But some... did not.

BOOM!

The Sun answered.

In a flash, bodies twisted in the air, warping as if their very flesh had been drawn too close to a celestial forge.

Wings folded in on themselves. Bones shattered under invisible pressure. The unlucky ones disintegrated entirely, collapsing into crimson-gold orbs of liquid brilliance.

Each one slid across the air and flew toward Achilles, joining the radiant mass of Azuryan already flowing into his chest.

It was done.

"…"

Silence permeated outwards all around.

Even the skies above seemed to pause.

Achilles did not flinch. He did not gloat. He simply observed.

And in those moments, he saw what the others saw. Even those like Luna and Lancelot. They saw not just fear. Not just power. But something ancient, beautiful, and terrible all at once.

A king who bore a literal sun.

Then, amidst the shock and horror, his eyes found her.

Rose.

She stood in the air with her vibrant green eyes locked onto his. And in them, there was no fear. Only a wild, unconcealed love. As though what he'd done hadn't changed her gaze at all. As if she had always seen him this way.

It calmed him more than anything else ever could.

It reminded him that despite the terror in the eyes of the phoenixes, despite the stunned silence from his allies... there was still someone who could look at him like he was just Achilles.

Just a man. Her man.

He raised his hand above.

The skies obeyed.

Clouds scattered. His Territorial Domain became erased. Winds silenced and the skies cleared!

And then, he turned his eyes toward the vast horizon- toward the direction the phoenixes had come from.

His voice boomed with authority that did not require shouting.

"The Everburn Aerie Continent currently has no ruler. One lies dead here. The other still fights near the Triarcan Keep."

A pause.

"Seems like as good a time as any... to take over one of the Nine Supreme Forces."

...!

The phoenixes who had bowed gasped. Horror bloomed across their faces. They had not imagined such a declaration.

But Achilles' own forces- Dr. Shaw, Aliya, Major David, Lancelot, King Flamewake, and others…they stirred.

He could feel it through the Primordial Energy humming in their veins, through the Evolutius Energy singing in their bones. They were growing a little fearful of him, yes.

But far more than that... they admired him.

They believed.

"OOOH!!"

A cry of war.

One of the Dharma Kings Humans below raised his weapon.

Another followed.

And then they all did.

Roars echoed. Fists clenched. Bodies surged with radiance. The air burned with the heat of victory.

And like a tide, his army, albeit small, began to move.

Toward conquest.

Toward legacy.

Toward something none of them had ever imagined possible.

Achilles floated above it all.

And then... he turned and appeared beside her.

Rose.

Her flaming wings curled softly as she looked at him with an expression that no one else in the skies could ever wear.

"You really have to stop becoming so ethereal and otherworldly," she said, voice low, teasing, and burning, "or I won't be able to keep my hands off of you."

...!

He smiled.

A soft, real smile.

Of course she would say that. Of course she would ground him. It was why he needed her. Not as a tool, not as a lover alone, but as an anchor. A reason.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her.

Deeply.

Her lips tasted of fire and glory!

When he pulled away, her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes glittered.

He held her hand.

"Let's go," he said. "So I can gift you the ancestral lands of the Phoenixes."

...!

Rose didn't reply immediately.

She just leaned forward, forehead pressed against his chest.

Then a quiet, mischievous, "Mmm..." came from her lips.

The two of them began to float away together, hand in hand.

And above them, the Imperial Sun of Adrastia burned.

A beacon.

A warning.

A promise!

A promise of glory nobody could even imagine!