Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 171: The Gravity of the Situation

The world didn’t just turn upside down; it broke.

When the Void Sovereign reversed gravity, the Capital became a nightmare of floating debris. Broken pillars, golden statues, and screaming Lion Guards drifted upward into the purple sky.

Rurik flailed his arms, kicking at the air. "I hate flying! Put me down!"

Rajah tried to ignite his sword for propulsion, but without the ground to push off, he just spun in a circle like a fiery top. "This is undignified!"

Caspian, used to three-dimensional movement underwater, was the only one not panicking. He swam through the air, grabbing a floating Leonora by the ankle before she drifted into a black cloud.

"Orient yourselves!" Caspian shouted. "Treat the air like water! Use mana to push!"

Primrose wasn’t drifting. Her Nine Silver Tails acted like rudders, keeping her stable in the chaos.

She looked down—or was it up?—at the Sovereign. He was walking on the air as if it were solid ground, tapping his cane on invisible steps.

"You’re cheating!" Primrose yelled, firing a bolt of silver lightning at him.

The Sovereign swatted the lightning away with his hand. "It is not cheating, Fox. It is Authority. In my domain, down is a suggestion."

He pointed his cane at Prince Bastion, who was floating helplessly near a tower.

"Fall."

Gravity reasserted itself for Bastion alone—but sideways. The Lion General was yanked violently to the left, smashing through a marble wall.

"Dad!" Ellia screamed from the Throne Room window.

Inside the Throne Room, gravity was normal. The ancient stabilizing runes of the Palace kept the interior safe... for now.

The kids were huddled by the window, watching their parents get tossed around like ragdolls.

"They can’t fight like this," Arjun said, his hands shaking as he adjusted his glasses. "Their combat styles rely on leverage and friction. In zero-G, their kinetic output is reduced by 80%."

"We have to help," Vali growled, his eyes flashing red. "Let me out! I’ll bite his face!"

"No," Silas said, grabbing Vali’s collar. "If we go out there, we float too. Then we are just snacks."

Jasper was pacing. He was looking at a panel on the wall covered in ancient diagrams.

"The Sovereign is manipulating the localized graviton field," Jasper muttered, tapping the wall. "He isn’t using magic; he is rewriting the physics of the area. But the Palace... the Palace is resisting."

He looked at Emperor Leonis, who was currently busy holding the door shut against a squad of Void-Beasts.

"Your Majesty!" Jasper called out. "The Palace Stabilization System! Can it be inverted?"

Leonis grunted, skewering a monster. "It’s an ancient defense mechanism! It only keeps us grounded! It wasn’t designed to project gravity outward!"

"But the conduits are connected!" Jasper argued, pulling a panel off the wall to reveal glowing golden crystals. "If we overload the core, we can create a gravity pulse! We can slam everything outside back to the ground!"

"Overload the core?" Leonis looked horrified. "That could blow up the Throne Room!"

"Do we have a better plan?" Luna asked, brandishing her frying pan at a shadow trying to squeeze under the door.

Leonis looked out the window. He saw Primrose dodging debris. He saw his brother Bastion bleeding.

"Do it," Leonis commanded. "Snake boy, you have the conn."

Jasper cracked his knuckles. "I require assistance. Arjun, I need you to calculate the mana overflow. Orion, I need you to act as a heat sink."

Arjun nodded, his fear replaced by focus. He ran to the panel. "Calculations initiating."

Orion sighed, putting down his cracker. "Fine. But I demand hazard pay."

The kids went to work. Jasper rewired the crystals. Arjun shouted numbers. Orion sang a low, cooling note to keep the crystals from exploding.

Silas and Vali stood guard at the door, growling at any shadow that dared to get close.

Outside, the battle was going poorly.

Primrose was holding her own, but she was on the defensive. She was using her Silver Tails to shield the floating Warlords from the Sovereign’s attacks.

"I can’t keep this up!" Primrose grit her teeth. "He’s too strong! He’s playing with us!"

The Sovereign laughed. "Playtime is over."

He raised his cane. The Black Eye in the sky began to pulse. A beam of pure annihilation energy started to charge up.

"Goodbye, Capital City."

Prince Bastion pulled himself out of the rubble of the tower. He was bleeding from a head wound. He saw the beam charging. He saw Primrose’s shield starting to crack.

He looked at the Throne Room window. He saw Ellia.

"Not today," Bastion whispered.

He gripped his claymore. His golden aura flared—not bright yellow, but a deep, burning orange.

The Forbidden Art: The Lion’s Last Roar.

It burned the user’s life force to create a single moment of invincible power.

"Bastion, don’t!" Leonora screamed, floating nearby.

Bastion ignored her. He kicked off the wall, launching himself like a missile straight at the Sovereign.

"FOR THE EMPIRE!" Bastion roared.

He collided with the Sovereign mid-air. The golden explosion was blinding.

For a second, the Sovereign stumbled. The beam in the sky flickered. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

But then, a black hand grabbed Bastion by the throat.

"Brave," the Sovereign whispered. "But foolish."

He slammed Bastion down—not to the ground, but into the air, suspending him in a stasis field of pain.

"Watch him die," the Sovereign commanded the Warlords.

Inside the Throne Room, Jasper connected the last wire.

"Pulse ready!" Jasper shouted. "Everyone hold onto something heavy!"

Arjun grabbed Ellia. Silas grabbed a pillar. Vali grabbed the rug.

"NOW!" Jasper yelled.

He slammed his hand onto the crystal core.

THOOM.

A shockwave of golden gravity erupted from the Palace. It didn’t push out; it pulled down.

Outside, the Sovereign’s anti-gravity field shattered.

"What?" The Sovereign looked down.

Physics returned with a vengeance.

Primrose, the Warlords, the Void-Beasts, and the Sovereign all dropped out of the sky.

They fell fifty feet and slammed into the marble courtyard.

CRASH.

"Ouch," Rurik groaned, pulling his face out of the dirt. "Okay. Gravity is back. I like gravity."

Rajah rolled to his feet, spitting blood. "He dropped us. That was rude."

Primrose landed gracefully—mostly—using her tails to cushion the fall. She looked up.

The Sovereign had landed on his feet, but he looked annoyed. His suit was dusty.

"You kids act like gravity solves everything," the Sovereign dusted off his shoulder.

But he didn’t see Bastion.

Because Bastion, released from the stasis field, was falling from much higher up. And he was coming down with the momentum of a meteor.

"RAAAH!"

Bastion slammed his claymore into the Sovereign’s shoulder.

CRACK.

The Sovereign’s void-shield shattered. The blade bit into the black substance of his body.

The Sovereign hissed in pain—real pain.

"ENOUGH!"

He blasted Bastion away with a wave of force.

But the damage was done. The Sovereign was bleeding—leaking purple starlight.

The Sovereign looked at his wound. He looked at the Warlords, who were standing up, weapons ready. He looked at Primrose, whose Silver Tails were glowing brighter than ever.

And he looked at the Throne Room, where the kids had just hacked his physics.

"You are annoying," the Sovereign decided.

He pointed his cane at the sky.

"This world is stubborn. I will have to break it properly."

A beam of light shot up from his cane, hitting the Black Eye.

The Eye began to widen. The rift in the sky tore open further, revealing not just ships, but a massive, planet-sized silhouette descending toward them.

"I summon the Void Core," the Sovereign announced. "If I cannot harvest the seeds... I will simply swallow the planet whole."

He vanished into a cloud of smoke, retreating back to his ship.

The battle paused. The Void-Beasts retreated into the shadows.

Bastion lay on the ground, breathing heavily. Leonora and Leonis ran to him.

"I’m alive," Bastion wheezed. "Mostly."

Primrose looked at the sky. The Black Eye was now huge. It covered the entire horizon.

"He’s bringing the Void Core here," Lucien said, walking up to her. "That isn’t a ship. It’s a planet-eater."

"We have time," Primrose said, her silver eyes narrowing. "He retreated to heal. We hurt him."

She looked at the Throne Room window, where the kids were giving her a thumbs up.

"Jasper hacked his gravity," Primrose smiled proudly. "Bastion cracked his armor. And I have nine tails."

She turned to the Warlords.

"We have the Elements. We have the Army. And we have the smartest kids in the universe."

She clenched her fist.

"Next time he comes down... he doesn’t go back up."