S Ranked Reincarnation: My Infinite Leveling System-Chapter 25: The Sovereign War (1)

The sky was the first to shatter.

Not with a bang, nor with flame, but with a slow, terrible groan — like a world pulling itself apart at the seams. Clouds fractured into mirrored shards. Lightning stitched the heavens together with silver thread. The Riftstorm had begun.

Ning Que stood on the fractured platform above the Third Gate, wind screaming around him like a creature in mourning. Below, the sea churned into impossible spirals, as if the ocean itself were convulsing in confusion. And beside him — collapsed, threadbare — lay Mireya.

Her body flickered between light and transparency, as if the very reality that tethered her was unraveling.

"No, no, stay with me," Ning whispered, falling to his knees. He cradled her head gently, brushing her damp hair from her face. "Mireya, look at me."

Her eyelids fluttered. A weak glow pulsed in the hollow of her throat — where the last piece of her thread clung like a dying flame. Her breath came in gasps.

> {System Alert: Thread Severance 82%. Temporal Anchor unstable. Emergency interface override suggested.}

Ning clenched his teeth. "Override it. Transfer core stability to me."

> {Warning: This action will compromise Reclaimer Sovereign balance. Memory integrity at risk.}

"Do it anyway."

His body convulsed as a shockwave of golden energy surged from Mireya’s chest into his. For a heartbeat, he saw everything — her past, her fears, her moments with him. Their first meeting. The warmth of her laugh. The pain she buried under strength.

Tears burned down his cheeks.

She had always carried the weight of his memory.

Now he carried hers.

Aeris stood near the edge of the platform, one arm shielding her face as Riftwind slashed around her. Lyra crouched beside a fragmenting stone pillar, holding her spear close and watching the sky with narrowed eyes. Viera’s hands glowed with pale light as she maintained the barrier shielding their group — but even that shimmered with strain.

"This isn’t a gate breach," Viera said, voice trembling. "It’s a rewrite. The Rift is trying to overwrite reality."

The wind changed pitch — not whistling, but howling in words none of them could understand.

Lyra pointed across the sea. "There—look!"

Towers in Jiayuan collapsed sideways and then stood up again, as if time itself had skipped a step. Trees split into dozens of copies. The streets below bent into rings. Reality no longer obeyed gravity, or logic, or memory.

Ning stood slowly, Mireya still in his arms. The golden light between them had faded, and her body was more stable now — but cold.

"Did it work?" Aeris asked.

Ning nodded faintly. "She’ll live. But she won’t remember everything."

"Neither will the world if this keeps going."

Guild HQ – Central Command

Panic spilled through the command center. Technicians shouted over one another. Magic screens blinked with corrupted coordinates. The northern provinces reported sudden Rift zones opening without warning.

Tao Cheng stormed into the chamber, robes tangled, voice sharp. "Where’s Project Aetherlock?!"

"We’re preparing the lattice ring now," one of the commanders stammered. "But sir, the Sovereign anomaly—"

"I don’t care about the anomaly!" Tao’s voice cracked like thunder. "We sever the coordinates now. Before he destabilizes the planet’s inner leyline."

The masked man stood near the observation screen. Quiet. Watching.

"You’re talking about erasing him," he said softly.

Tao turned. "He’s a weapon we can’t control. He made his choice."

"No," the masked man replied. "You made yours long ago."

Behind them, a screen pulsed with one final confirmation: freēnovelkiss.com

> PROJECT AETHERLOCK INITIATED

Target: Ning Que

Status: Dimensional

Collapse sequence – pending.

Third Gate Platform

Ning’s body tensed.

A sudden stillness dropped over the Rift, like breath before a scream. Then the ground beneath him rippled — not physically, but ontologically. He staggered.

"They’re trying to erase me," he said.

Aeris turned. "What do you mean?"

"They’re collapsing the dimensional field around my signature. It’s a containment spell mixed with total erasure. They’re cutting me out of the system—of the world."

> {System Failsafe: Sovereign Override permitted at 47% Synchronization. Initiating deeper anchor... into The Realm Between.}

The wind stopped.

Ning’s pupils dilated. He fell forward—

—into nothing.

The Realm Between

It was not light or darkness. Not sound or silence. It was the space where thoughts that never formed gathered like dust. The core between truths.

Ning stood on a sheet of glass suspended in a void. Below, memories swirled like clouds — his, others’, possible futures.

One memory rose.

Himself. Holding a blade to the throat of another Reclaimer.

A voice echoed around him.

"They crowned you before you asked. So now you must choose what crown you wear."

A shadow moved behind the veil of stars. Thousands of forms — not monsters. Sovereigns. Fully armored. Wings of memory. Eyes of flame. Waiting.

One stepped forward.

"We heard the signal. You diverged. You woke us."

"I’m not your king," Ning said, voice shaking.

"Then you are our rival," it replied. "Either way... we walk."

Reality – Third Gate

Aeris watched in horror as the sky cracked again. Silver roots of light stretched down toward the ocean. The seal was breaking faster now — not from outside force, but from inside rejection.

Then Ning’s body arched. Riftlight erupted from his spine, blasting outward in a golden storm.

The Aetherlock shattered.

Across the world, technicians screamed as containment barriers collapsed.

He had pushed back.

He had chosen to remain.

Mireya stirred in Lyra’s arms.

Viera’s eyes filled with tears.

The Riftstorm began to slow, like a tide held back by a hand larger than time.

Then a message flashed in the system of the Guild’s deepest spy ring:

> "The Sovereign lives. War is inevitable."

And in a dark chamber across the ocean, the woman in black smiled.

"The world just remembered its deepest fear."

As the golden Riftlight dimmed, Ning Que fell to one knee, breath ragged, hands trembling. The ocean below returned to stillness, but the silence was eerie — not peaceful, but watchful.

Mireya stirred beside him, her voice barely a whisper. "You brought the world back..."

He shook his head, eyes distant. "No. I only paused its collapse."

Viera stepped forward, her gaze heavy. "Then we need to move. The Sovereigns won’t wait long."

Ning rose slowly, the weight of memory and rebellion etched into his bones. "Let them come," he said.

"This time, I remember everything." The sky above held its breath.

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