She looked forward, her gaze fixed on nothing visible.
"Are you sure forcing him is a good choice on your part?" she asked calmly.
She waited.
There was no audible response, but her expression shifted slightly as she listened.
After a few seconds, she gave a small nod.
"If you think so."
Her eyes drifted across the ruined relay, observing the cracked platform, the shattered remains of Hollow Star’s defenses, and the silent emptiness left behind.
"Should I recall this avatar," she began, "or do you want it to remain in this—"
She stopped. Her gaze shifted suddenly, locking onto a distant point beyond the relay, beyond the dead planet itself.
She remained still for several seconds.
Then her eyes narrowed slightly.
"Why is the Crimson Zone active in this galaxy?"
She listened again, her posture unchanged, but the faintest trace of concern surfaced in her voice.
"No," she said after a moment. "We already have the Eternals to deal with. We cannot allow another variable beyond our control."
She paused again.
"Why not involve the Fallen. I am sure he can help us with this."
Silence stretched as she received the answer.
Her expression hardened slightly.
"He refuses?"
Another pause.
"Does he have a condition?"
She waited.
Then raised an eyebrow faintly.
"Oh?"
She listened carefully.
A faint, incredulous breath escaped her.
"That is what he wants?"
She exhaled slowly, rubbing her forehead with visible irritation.
"You will never agree to that."
She fell silent once more, listening to the unseen presence guiding her.
Finally, she lowered her hand.
"Fine," she said quietly. "Handle it yourself."
Her gaze swept across the ruined relay one last time.
"I am done with this place."
Her form began to dissolve immediately, breaking apart into golden motes that drifted upward and vanished into nothingness.
The dead planet fell silent again.
Only the abandoned relay and the motionless ship remained, suspended beneath an empty sky.
************
Back on the pyramid-shaped floating landmass suspended in the void, I reached the city walls and slowed as I approached the broken gate. From a distance, the damage had seemed severe, but standing before it revealed something far more unsettling. The gate had not been breached in the conventional sense.
The massive stone slabs that once formed its archway had not shattered inward or outward under explosive force. Instead, they had split and partially collapsed as though the structural integrity of the material itself had simply given way under pressure it could not resist. There were no scorch marks, no residual runes, no signs of Essence reinforcement or defensive constructs. The walls had stood on their own merit alone.
I stepped through the opening and entered the city.
Immediately, my Psynapse expanded outward, sweeping across the landmass in its entirety. I did not consciously command it to do so. It was instinctive, driven by the same sense of caution that had kept me alive through far more hostile environments than this one. What it revealed was surprising.
There was no Essence anywhere.
Not in the air, not beneath the ground, not embedded in the stone structures or lingering in fractured surfaces. Even abandoned worlds, even battlefields long since erased from relevance, carried remnants. Essence did not disappear cleanly. It clung to existence, seeping into matter, persisting in traces long after its source was gone. But here, there was nothing. It was not that Essence had thinned. It was not that it had decayed. It had simply ceased to exist.
The realization settled uneasily in my mind as I continued forward.
The streets were wide, far wider than necessary for ordinary habitation. Deep cracks ran across their surfaces, some narrow enough to step over, others wide enough to swallow entire structures. Buildings rose on either side, their designs uniform in material but varied in shape and scale.
As I walked, my attention shifted downward when I noticed an indentation in the stone ahead.
It was a footprint.
I stopped beside it, examining its size and depth. It was enormous, far larger than any humanoid form should have produced. Almost ten feet in length. The edges were not softened by erosion, nor filled by drifting debris.
It had been preserved exactly as it was left, pressed into the stone by immense physical weight. There was no accompanying Essence signature, no indication of augmentation or external reinforcement. Whatever had created it had relied on its own natural presence alone.
More footprints appeared as I moved forward, scattered across the fractured streets and partially preserved beneath collapsed debris.
They did not form chaotic patterns. They did not overlap in disorder. They moved with direction, with purpose, following paths through the city rather than away from it. There were no signs of panic or stampede, no indication that whatever had lived here had fled in desperation.
I entered one of the buildings that remained structurally intact.
Inside, the air was still and empty. The interior was spacious but devoid of any furnishing or decoration. The walls were smooth, uninterrupted by carvings or inscriptions. There were no personal artifacts, no remnants of habitation, nothing to suggest individual ownership or identity. The space did not feel abandoned in the traditional sense. It felt vacated, as though its occupants had left deliberately, taking everything that mattered with them or perhaps leaving nothing behind to begin with.
"What happened here?" I said to myself seeing the situation in front of me.
As I stepped back outside, my perception continued mapping the city’s structure in its entirety, and gradually the pattern became clear.
The city had not grown randomly.
It had been designed.
Three massive circular districts were positioned at equal distance from one another, forming a triangular arrangement across the floating landmass. Each circle was defined not by defensive walls, but by subtle architectural transitions, shifts in building density and elevation that distinguished them as separate regions of purpose. Wide roads extended outward from each district, converging toward a fourth circle located at the center of this triangular formation.
This final circle was the largest of them all.
Every major road in the city led toward it.
The entire layout had been constructed around convergence, not expansion or defense, but inward focus, as though the city’s true purpose had always been centered there.
As I continued forward along one of these roads, I noticed more signs of destruction that did not match conventional warfare. Entire sections of buildings had been separated cleanly, not shattered, but divided with unnatural precision.
What remained was silence.
Not the silence of death.
But the silence of something that had simply ceased to exist.
Behind me, the Naga’s unconscious body floated obediently, carried along by my will as I walked deeper into the ruined city, toward the distant central circle where all paths converged.
==============
Bonus release: 1 Chapter for every 100 GTs
Dear Reader, happy to share that I have started publishing my new book ->
Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame
You can find it in my author profile. Give it a read.
Thank you!