******* [Knight’s PoV]
The moment Billion gave the order, I moved.
Every teleportation hub inside the capital was intact, and the one I arrived at was number 43. Five portals stood aligned in a semicircle, each one humming softly with stored spatial coordinates. Based on the information Lyrate had extracted, the third portal from the left would take me to the Hollow Star base near Zaraboom.
I stepped toward it, tail swaying once behind me, black robes of the Order of Absolute settling around my frame like living shadow. Just as I prepared to enter the circle, I felt the resistance.
The entire city was still under a spatial lock.
I paused and reached inward through the bond that tied me to Billion. The Sovereign Link was not required for something so simple. A quiet pulse of intent carried my message.
’There is a Space lock on the city.’
A fraction of a second later, the lock dissolved like frost under sunlight.
’Hurry.’
His reply was brief, but I felt the undercurrent of focus beneath it.
I stepped into the portal.
Space folded.
Transit always felt slightly different depending on the anchor point, but this one was smooth, almost lazy in its pull. As my body dissolved into compressed coordinates, my thoughts drifted toward the one who had sent me.
Earlier today, I had felt the sudden surge.
A sudden strengthening that had nothing to do with my own training or effort. My space law comprehension had expanded sharply, clarity sharpening as if someone had cleaned a fogged mirror inside my mind. At first, I had assumed it was a resonance effect from proximity, but the scale had been too large.
Billion had leveled.
He had grown.
And as always, when he grew, so did we.
I chuckled softly as the transit corridor stretched around me in streaks of dim light.
To us, he did not appear as a normal human. Not truly. When I looked at him through the bond, what I sensed was not flesh and bone but something vast, layered, structured like a cosmos compressed into a single form. Laws orbited him the way stars orbited a galactic core. Essence flowed around him as naturally as breath.
And he still thought he was merely progressing.
If he ever truly understood what he carried, I suspected even the void would become nervous.
Space snapped back into place.
I arrived on a floating asteroid.
The Hollow Star base stood ahead, a tall black tower piercing upward from the center of the rock, surrounded by clustered buildings arranged in defensive arcs. The asteroid itself drifted quietly in the dark, tethered by subtle spatial anchors to prevent deviation from its assigned orbit.
I did not announce myself.
Instead, I stepped sideways into space and disappeared from direct perception, folding my presence into a thin seam between coordinates. From that vantage, I rose above the base and let my perception spread.
Abomination clusters. Phantoms moved between floors. Traitors worked with them, unaware that their last moments were already unfolding.
Near the base of the tower, embedded partially into the asteroid’s crust, I located the only viable spacecraft capable of making the jump toward Zaraboom. It was parked within a hangar, sealed but unguarded.
I phased through layered space and entered the hangar directly.
The ship was silent, systems idling on minimal power and there was no crew.
"Perfect." I muttered.
I knelt and placed my palm against the floor.
Shadows answered.
They did not creep or crawl; they erupted, spreading outward in a thick wave of darkness that swallowed the ship whole. The metal frame vanished beneath a cloak of void-touched black.
In the next instant, I teleported both myself and the ship to a hidden coordinate point just outside the asteroid’s surface. We emerged in open vacuum, positioned beyond the immediate detection radius of the base.
I stepped out, letting the shadows retract back into my robes, and floated above the asteroid.
Below me, the base continued its routine.
I looked at them and felt nothing but mild disappointment. These were the forces that opposed Billion. Abominations stitched together from stolen life. Phantoms saturated with deathmist. Traitors who had chosen comfort or fear over loyalty.
They were pitiful.
I was grateful that none of them had ever stood above me as master.
I raised my palm.
A black point formed before it, small as a grain of sand, then expanded steadily into a rotating sphere. Within its surface, faint lights flickered like distant stars swallowed by endless night.
I lowered my voice to a whisper.
"Void Erasure."
The sphere descended.
Halfway down, it expanded abruptly, spreading outward like a collapsing sky until it covered the entire base from above.
Alarms blared instantly. Defensive systems activated. Spatial barriers flickered into existence. Energy signatures spiked as they attempted to respond.
It did not matter.
A sudden pull emanated from the sphere, a gravitational attraction beyond physical mass. Buildings twisted. Towers bent inward. Abominations screamed as they were dragged upward. Phantoms disintegrated mid-flight, their forms shredded into threads of darkness that vanished into the core.
Within moments, the entire base was compressed, folded, and consumed.
When the pull ceased, nothing remained except a massive crater carved into the asteroid’s surface. And the portal I had arrived through, standing alone.
I brushed a speck of nonexistent dust from my shoulder.
"I suppose that makes them hollow in more ways than one," I murmured to myself.
Weak enemies never appreciated good humor.
I flashed back into the ship and sealed the hatch.
Operating the vessel required no guesswork. Ash had always enjoyed reading, and through the bond his knowledge flowed freely when needed. Navigation systems lit up as I interfaced with them, setting coordinates toward Zaraboom based on the trajectory Lyrate had specified.
Engines ignited. The ship detached from the asteroid and accelerated into open space.
Zaraboom came into view after a single jump, its surface glowing faintly with elemental activity visible even from orbit. I held position at a safe distance, cloaked by minor spatial distortion.
After several minutes, I felt it.
A familiar presence brushing against my perception.
Aurora.
Her energy signature was unmistakable, even restrained. Soon after, a new vessel entered my detection range. I opened a direct channel through the link and transmitted my coordinates.
Moments later, her ship adjusted course and approached.
When it drew near enough for safe communication, I aligned our paths and began moving toward the agreed rendezvous asteroid, sending her the details of the destroyed base and the current situation on Abor.
As we traveled together through the dark, I allowed myself a small smile.
The hunt was accelerating and I have always liked hunting.