I almost spat my drink out when I heard that part.
"Damn... she really is something else," I muttered, wiping my mouth.
Knight nodded. "That’s everything he knew. He has no idea what this Plan B could be."
I leaned back in my chair, letting the drink settle while my thoughts churned.
Honestly, I didn’t care much about Lana’s schemes after everything she already did to Primus. I would tell him what Knight had learned, and after that, it would be his choice how he wanted to deal with her. It was his past, not mine.
What mattered to me was the Transcendent who had inserted himself into all of this. Someone that strong, manipulating Armus from the shadows, was a problem I couldn’t ignore.
If Lana was a tool, then this demon was the hand guiding the blade.
And if he wanted to control Armus... then he would eventually get in my way.
I already planned to take over the world core. I couldn’t let another high-rank demon claim influence here.
I stood up from the stone chair and looked at Knight and Silver.
"Alright," I said, finishing the last of my drink. "I’m leaving Horus to both of you. Keep an eye on the Envoy. Make sure he doesn’t kill anyone from Primus’s family. And if the war starts while I’m gone, make sure the Bloodreavers win overwhelmingly."
Silver perked up. "How overwhelmingly?"
"Enough that Primus and his human friends are seen as the ultimate heroes."
Knight narrowed his eyes slightly. "Where are you going?"
I smirked.
"To check the portal the Phantom came from," I said. "I want to see who or what is hiding on the other side."
Without waiting for another question, I vanished from the place.
*****
I arrived above the skies of Horus, and flashed straight into the drifting pocket space. I descended toward the teleportation circle and studied it closely.
The last time I had seen something like this was in the realm I took over from the Holts. The design was different, but the structure... the concept... it felt familiar. Almost inviting.
A thought slipped into my mind.
Could I make one of these myself?
I closed my eyes.
Letting the world fall silent, I reviewed every detail in front of me, every rune, every carved groove, every shift of space around the circle. The gears in my mind began turning on their own, grinding through logic, memory, and intuition.
It didn’t take long.
I realized I could create something like this.
These runes weren’t random symbols. They were simply physical representations of various pieces of my own understanding. Expressions of minor laws: Space, Direction, Vibration, Weight, Motion. Each rune was a small piece of a natural law, arranged like a puzzle to build a pathway.
What held the puzzle together... was soul energy.
Soul energy was the anchor. The glue that bound the laws. The silent force that told space to obey.
Someone could use their own soul energy to carve the runes, or they could pour the soul energy from artifacts, tools, or rare materials to bind the circle in place. Either way, the requirement was the same:
Soul power.
Without it, the circle collapsed.
I opened my eyes again, staring at the teleportation formation with a new level of clarity.
This wasn’t beyond me. In fact, it was something I could recreate easily, perhaps even improve.
I slowly smiled and infused Essence into the circle. The runes lit up, humming, and the entire formation flared. A heartbeat later, my body vanished.
The world twisted.
A tunnel of color swallowed me, streaking past like torn ribbons of space. I could feel the pull behind the teleport, it wasn’t short, it wasn’t even medium distance. This was a jump across worlds.
When the tunnel spat me out, I stumbled forward through a massive circular gate and agony exploded behind my eyes.
White flashes burst across my vision. My skull felt like it was being crushed from the inside. And amid the blinding pain, I saw something flicker in front of me.
A system window.
Distorted. Broken. Flickering.
Then it vanished the next instant and the pain vanished with it.
I sucked in a breath.
"What the hell was that...?"
But I didn’t get time to think.
My perception exploded outward on instinct and my eyes widened.
A Transcendent Phantom stood right in front of me.
Tall. Twisted. Radiating deathmist thick enough to choke the air.
I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe.
I simply stepped once and space folded. I appeared behind it in the next instant.
My hand shot forward, piercing clean through its back. My fingers wrapped around its core and crushed it without hesitation.
Shadows burst out of my body, swirling like ravenous serpents, binding the Phantom before it could regenerate. They tightened, constricted, dragged, and devoured.
In seconds, nothing remained. Just fading mist and silence.
I hid myself immediately, slipping into the surrounding space, burying my presence until not even a ripple remained. Only then did I let myself exhale.
"That was too close."
I tried to pull my status up.
Nothing happened.
A sharp, needle-like pain stabbed the back of my head, like the system was trying to respond but couldn’t reach me.
I lowered my hand slowly.
"So... the system doesn’t work here."
Then I finally took a proper look at where I had arrived.
The place was an asteroid, huge, flat, drifting through a dead corner of the cosmos. A fortress rose from the center of it, tower-like and carved entirely from obsidian-black stone. Sharp spires pierced the sky.
And there was deathmist everywhere so thick it clung to the ground like a rolling fog, rising all the way up to my knees.
Inside the fortress were three enormous teleportation gates, each one the same size through which I came. They pulsed faintly with silvery light. One of them was the gate I had just exited.
But that wasn’t what made my breath catch.
Nine Transcendent Phantoms wandered inside the tower. Each one more stronger than the other, clearly establishing a hierarchy.
Outside, the asteroid surface crawled with movement. Abominations roamed in every direction. At least a million of them. Maybe more. Like a dense nest of crawling creatures.
And among them, walking calmly through the fortress halls, working in rooms and offices like employees of some nightmarish company, were dozens of beings from different races.
Ferans, Nagas, even Elementals.
All working together.
All wearing the same insignia, a symbol carved on their uniforms, banners, and even the fortress walls:
A hollowed star. A star with its center carved out completely, leaving only an empty ring.
Below the insignia, carved in harsh jagged letters, was a name.
HOLLOW STAR.
I narrowed my eyes slowly.
"So this... is where the Phantom army came from."