It did not take long for my summons to gather the information I needed.
Lyrate was the first to return. She landed lightly on the top floor of the tower where I was waiting. There was a faint crease between her brows, the kind she only wore when the situation was more complicated than it first appeared.
"This place isn’t important on its own," she said without preamble. "But it’s not meaningless either."
Knight arrived a moment later, shadows peeling off his body as he stepped forward. Ragnar followed, dragging one of the surviving traitors behind him like excess baggage. Aurora and the others fanned out nearby, already comparing notes in low voices.
I gestured for Lyrate to continue.
"This base," she said, "is a local node. One of many. It exists to move personnel, resources, and corrupted forces within a limited range. Nearby systems and rifts. Places like this." She glanced around the hollowed basin. "It’s expendable."
"That matches what we’ve seen," I replied. "The last one felt the same."
Knight nodded. "Low commitment. High volume. They don’t expect these places to survive forever."
Ragnar snorted. "Which explains why the defenses were annoying but not desperate."
I looked toward the tower, now half-collapsed. "And the portals?"
Knight gestured with his tail toward the four frozen gates, the blade at its tip tracing a slow arc through the air.
"These are local gates," he said. "You find them on bases like this. Their destinations are limited and fixed, cycling through the same few locations over and over. They’re meant for routine movement, not anything critical."
Steve glanced at him, wiping the dark residue from his blade. "And you’re sure they don’t lead anywhere important?"
Knight’s smile was faint but confident. "Because the traitors working here didn’t know anything beyond their immediate assignments. And more telling than that, the phantoms never acted nervous."
That made me look at him more closely. "Go on."
"They fought me," Knight continued evenly, "but there was no desperation. No panic. Even when the base started collapsing and the portals froze, they didn’t react like something irreplaceable was being lost. That tells me they never believed this place actually mattered."
North crossed her arms, her gaze drifting briefly toward the tower’s remains. "Then where does it matter?"
Aurora spoke before anyone else could, her tone calm but certain.
"At the relay gates."
"Relay gates work very differently," Lyrate continued, her voice steady as she laid it out. "They aren’t scattered everywhere like these local ones. There are far fewer of them, and every single one is heavily protected. They don’t send traffic sideways or outward. Everything moves in one direction."
Steve frowned slightly. "One direction how?"
"Closer to the center," Aurora said as she stepped nearer, her eyes flicking between the frozen gates and the ruined tower. "Not straight to headquarters, but closer than anything we’ve seen so far."
I nodded, the picture aligning in my head. "They sit between the disposable layers and the core. Everything unimportant gets filtered out before it ever reaches that point."
Ragnar gave a low grunt. "Which probably means this place doesn’t have one."
"No," Lyrate agreed. "There’s no relay gate here. But this base knows they exist."
She gestured toward what remained of the tower. "We found partial records. Routing logic that doesn’t make sense unless something higher up exists. Most of it is locked behind phantom authority or encrypted beyond what the traitors could access. But one thing stood out clearly."
She paused before continuing. "Relay gate coordinates are never written down."
North looked at her sharply. "Then how does anyone use them?"
"They’re memorized," Lyrate said, her expression hardening. "Passed directly to specific individuals."
Knight picked up from there. "Tier Three upper Transcendent phantoms, to be exact. Each one only knows a small number of relay coordinates. Just enough to move where they’re told. Not enough to understand the full network."
I let out a slow breath.
"So the phantom I killed earlier," I said, "was one of those gate custodians."
"Yes," Knight confirmed without hesitation. "And now that he’s dead, whatever he knew died with him."
Steve glanced at me sideways. "Unless you pulled that information out of him first."
I didn’t respond right away.
Instead, my gaze shifted to the traitors Ragnar had dragged forward. They were on their knees now, shoulders slumped, fear written openly across their faces. Masters. A couple of Grandmasters.
"Let’s organize this properly," I said, mostly to myself. "There’s a clear hierarchy here."
Aurora tilted her head slightly. "You already see it?"
"I do now."
I turned back to the group and spoke slowly, making sure everyone followed.
"Tier Five sits at the bottom. Traitors, mercenaries, local collaborators. Expendable assets. They’re given tasks and nothing else. No context. No long-term knowledge."
"Tier Four comes next," I continued. "Field operatives. Phantoms and handlers assigned to bases like this one. They understand local gate routes, but they don’t know why those routes exist."
Knight gave a small nod. "Authority without insight. Enough power to enforce orders, not enough to question them."
"Tier Three," I said, "are the upper Transcendent phantoms. Gate custodians. They memorize relay coordinates. They don’t know where headquarters is, but they know how to move closer to it."
"And Tier Two?" North asked.
"Strategic commanders," Lyrate replied. "Generals, essentially. They oversee multiple relay nodes, coordinate movements across entire regions, and answer directly upward. They never touch local operations."
Steve’s voice dropped slightly. "Which leaves Tier One."
"The true core," I said. "The ones who sit at the top of the structure. They don’t manage routes or bases. They decide direction. Policy. Targets. They’re the authority everything else answers to."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Aurora said quietly, "And then there is the trunk gate."
"That’s the choke point," I replied. "Every system has one. Hidden. Heavily guarded. It’s the only way to move from the relay network into the heart of the organization.
Local gates feed into relay gates, relay gates converge on a trunk gate, and the trunk gate is the only path that leads beyond."
Knight’s eyes narrowed in understanding. "So if we control a trunk gate—"
"We don’t just disrupt their operations," I said. "We take control of them."
Ragnar let out a low, satisfied laugh. "That sounds a lot better than smashing bases one by one."
I turned back toward the kneeling traitors. "Good. Because now we ask questions."
They broke faster than expected. Without phantoms looming over them, fear did the rest of the work.
From them, we confirmed what we already suspected. This base connected to six other local nodes spread across two nearby systems. No one here had ever seen a relay gate. They only knew when to move and when not to ask questions.
When the last piece settled into place, I straightened.
"So," Steve said as he slid his sword back into its sheath, "what’s next?"
I looked at the frozen gates, the ruined tower, and then at my group.
"We stop tearing things down blindly," I said. "That was the beginning."
Knight’s smile widened slowly. "Now we climb."
"Yes," I replied. "We capture a Tier Three phantom alive. We extract relay coordinates. We take a relay gate."
"And after that?" North asked.
I met her gaze. "After that, we find the trunk gate."
Ragnar rolled his shoulders. "And headquarters?"
I smiled, the answer already decided.
"That comes last."
The Hollow Star believed its layers made it untouchable. It believed secrecy was enough.
It was wrong.
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Bonus release: 1 bonus Chapter every 100 GT