******* [Billion’s PoV]
It took me twenty-three seconds to finally understand how that ancient rune was meant to function when layered together with the others I already knew.
Not as a standalone construct. But as a stabilizer, something that could momentarily align incompatible systems without tearing them apart.
The realization clicked into place.
And the result was immediate.
Just before the massive deathmist beam fired from the ship could crash into my defensive dome, I forced my domain to surface.
I let it exist.
The effect was instantaneous.
From my perspective, the incoming attack slowed to a crawl. What had been a space-fracturing torrent of deathmist became a thick, dragging wave, every particle resisting forward motion as if time itself had turned viscous.
That was all I needed.
I activated the Star of Origin.
The void behind my palm opened, silent and absolute. The devouring pull took hold immediately, stripping the beam apart layer by layer. Deathmist screamed as it was torn from its structure, swallowed whole, redirected into the core where it belonged.
Within a heartbeat, the attack was gone. Totally Consumed.
The Star of Origin flared once, saturated with newly absorbed deathmist, then settled back into a steady, contained pulse.
I lowered my hand.
"It’s done," I said calmly.
The pressure around us eased. The violent tremor in the air faded.
Steve exhaled sharply beside me, finally letting his guard drop. The lightning coiling around his arms dimmed, retreating back into his channels as he rolled his shoulders.
"Finally," he muttered, relief creeping into his voice.
The battlefield fell into an uneasy silence.
I didn’t waste it.
With a flick of my wrist, violet runes manifested around me, their geometry unfolding layer by layer. They surged outward and wrapped around Steve and North before either of them could even comment. I worked fast, faster than usual, because I could already sense movement, intent, rippling from the armed Eternal as he issued commands to the base.
The runes multiplied rapidly, interlocking, reinforcing one another. Within seconds, both of their bodies were enclosed in shields identical in structure to those protecting the Transcendents of the other races.
The only difference was color.
Where the others glowed a muted green, Steve and North were surrounded by deep violet.
I let out a slow breath and straightened.
Then I willed the deathmist to move again.
It rushed out of my channels without resistance, flowing over my body and locking into place like armor. The dome shielding us dissolved as I released it, and the effect was immediate. The crushing pressure we had been under vanished, along with that suffocating sensation of being erased. The domain’s hostility slid off me as if it had never been there.
I rolled my shoulders once, feeling the freedom return.
"Alright," I said calmly, a smile forming despite the tension still hanging in the air. "Now we can finally talk."
I took a single step forward.
One of the massive deathmist spheres hanging above the base shuddered violently. Then, as if drawn by an irresistible force, it tore free of its position and shot toward me like iron to a magnet.
I raised my palm.
The Star of Origin activated instantly.
The deathmist pouring from the sphere was devoured mid-flight, stripped away in roaring streams that vanished into the void behind my hand. At the same time, I triggered the Abyss Core. Deeper, harsher power surged as law fragments embedded within the sphere were torn out and consumed as well.
The sphere itself began to collapse, its structure unraveling under the twin devourers.
I didn’t look away.
Behind me, Steve let out a low whistle. North shifted her stance, eyes locked on the disintegrating construct.
Suddenly, the array construct embedded into the ship charged again.
Three massive concentric runes unfolded in the air, each one rotating in a different direction, grinding against space itself. The remaining two deathmist spheres trembled violently before being torn apart, their contents dragged inward by an overwhelming pull. Deathmist flooded toward the center, thick and suffocating, bending space as it moved.
At the heart of the formation, a sphere began to take shape.
It was black. Not the absence of light, but something denser—spinning, compressing, collapsing in on itself. The rune circles tightened, layer by layer, their pressure increasing with ruthless precision. What had once been vast, mountain-sized reserves of deathmist were crushed down further and further, until the sphere shrank to something no larger than an eyeball.
And yet the pressure radiating from it was terrifying.
The density was obscene. Enough deathmist to drown a city, forced into a space small enough to fit between two fingers.
The runes continued to hum, their glow sharpening as they held the construct stable, preventing premature detonation.
I watched the entire process in silence without interference. Finally, the construct stabilized. The concentric runes began to unravel one after another, peeling away as if their purpose had been fulfilled.
And then the sphere moved.
One moment it was hovering at the center of the array, compressed and humming with catastrophic intent and the next it was gone, fired forward like a bullet loosed by the universe itself.
Straight at me.
The space between us screamed.
I raised my palm.
From my domain, a ripple spread outward. Time bent around my hand, folding inward as the law threaded itself into the space ahead of me. The sphere didn’t stop.
It slowed.
It was as if reality itself had grabbed hold of it and said no.
The spinning mass of deathmist began to crawl forward, its rotation stuttering as temporal resistance crushed its momentum. Cracks rippled across its surface, not physical fractures but distortions, moments tearing apart under the strain of being forced to exist too slowly for what it was meant to do.
The Star of Origin flared.
A vortex opened before my palm, vast despite its compact form. The slowed sphere was dragged toward it, screaming silently as its structure unraveled piece by piece.
Deathmist peeled away first, stripped and devoured in thick, violent streams. Then came the compressed law fragments holding it together, torn loose and swallowed whole. The sphere shrank rapidly, collapsing inward as its core was dismantled under my control.
Seconds later, it was gone.
The vortex closed.
I lowered my hand as the Star of Origin pulsed once.
"Before any of you decide to repeat that same foolish attack," I said calmly, "let me remove the temptation."
I lifted my hand and pointed toward the remaining spheres hanging high above the battlefield. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
Then they detonated.
The explosions were silent at first, space itself folding inward as the compressed deathmist lost cohesion. A heartbeat later, the shockwave followed, rolling across the dead planet like a collapsing horizon. The sky rippled, the ship’s hull groaned in protest, and fragments of corrupted energy evaporated into nothingness under my will.
I didn’t even look back to see the damage.
Instead, I stepped forward.
Space folded, and I was suddenly standing in front of them.
The gathered figures stiffened instantly. The Eternals did not recoil, but I could see it in the subtle tightening of their posture, in the way their attention sharpened fully onto me. The phantoms stood frozen, unreadable behind their visors. The Transcendents from other races, however, were not so composed. Their fear bled openly into the air, bodies trembling as the pressure of my presence pressed down on them without mercy.
"I’m sure you already know who I am," I said evenly, my gaze moving across them one by one. "And by now, you’ve noticed something you weren’t supposed to notice."
A few of the Transcendents swallowed hard. One of them nearly lost his balance.
"So here is what will happen," I went on. "You are not leaving this place alive. That decision has already been made."
"What you still have is a choice," I said. "You can tell me how to reach your headquarters. Not a relay. Not a trunk gate rumor. The actual path. In return, I will give you something rare."
Their attention sharpened further.
"A chance," I said simply. "A chance to work for me."
A ripple of unease spread through the group.
"You can swear loyalty to the Hollow Star if you like," I added, my eyes cold now. "You can cling to it until your last breath. If you do, I will tear your souls out and feed them to the abomination armies you helped build."