The display changed, and a huge wall of text appeared.
At the top, it read, KARMIC WARNING!
The warning basically said that this Communicator belonged to the Array of Stars and that unauthorized people are not allowed to request access. It specified that anyone who didn't belong to the Array of Stars would be killed if they requested access.
It even specifically said that, if the requester isn't the owner of this Communicator, they could just leave the Communicator somewhere without any punishment. As long as they just threw it away or dumped it somewhere, nothing bad would happen to them.
At the bottom, Kyle saw another button.
Request access. WARNING: You may die!
When Kyle saw the warning, he felt a bit nervous, even though he knew that this was his Communicator.
'Well, here goes!' he thought as he pressed the button.
The display remained red, but all the text vanished.
Then, nothing happened for several seconds.
Suddenly, text appeared.
"Hi, who is this?"
'Oh, that's probably the Chief Overseer with that greeting,' Kyle thought.
"This is Meteor Hammer," Kyle wrote back.
"What age were you when you joined the Array of Stars?"
'Is this like a verification question?' Kyle thought.
'How old was I again?'
Kyle became nervous when he couldn't remember how old he had been when he joined.
"I honestly don't remember, but I remember that I put in the wrong number and that you corrected me. I think we also met after I became a Primal. At least, I think that was you."
Silence.
No new messages came for several seconds.
And then, the Space Energy around Kyle started to warp.
An instant later, a person appeared in front of Kyle.
It was the same guy who told him about the Legendary Transcendent thing.
The man looked at Kyle with furrowed brows.
At that point, the Communicator vanished from Kyle's finger and appeared in the Chief Overseer's hand.
A second later, Kyle felt some Energy entering his body.
It was probably the Chief Overseer looking through his body.
Then, the Communicator appeared back on Kyle's finger, and a display popped up.
"Welcome back, Meteor Hammer! Glad you're not dead!" it said.
There were even images of confetti raining down at the side of the screen.
"Someone's going to ask you a couple of questions," the Chief Overseer said dryly. "Answer them honestly."
Yet, before Kyle could answer, the Chief Overseer vanished.
"Okay, sure," Kyle uttered to nobody in particular. The Space Energy around Kyle warped once again, and some seconds later, he felt the familiar feeling of long-distance teleportation.
When space normalized again, he found himself in a room. Based on the dark-blue color of the room, Kyle guessed that he was back in the branch location of the Array of Stars.
The room only had a big desk and a couple of chairs in the middle.
'Looks like the meeting room where I met Manny.'
Kyle awkwardly looked around.
'What now? Do I just wait?'
For a couple of minutes, he just awkwardly stood around.
After a while, he approached the door, but it only gave two quick beeps that sounded like a definite no.
'Guess I'm not leaving for now,' he thought as he randomly sat down in a chair.
Then, he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Hours passed.
Days passed.
Finally, after almost five days, the doors opened, and five people entered all at the same time.
The first person who stepped through was a beautiful woman with long, green hair. Based on how the Energy moved around her, she was a Spirit Lord.
The next person who entered was that one True Crusher who had explained their job as Rarity Hunters to them, Third Valkyrie.
When Kyle saw the next person, an awkward smile appeared on his face.
Swamp Dragon looked at Kyle with furrowed brows.
Then, Manny entered, and lastly, a completely unfamiliar person entered.
"Can you confirm that this is Meteor Hammer?" the Spirit Lord asked.
"Oh, let me! Let me!" Manny suddenly shouted with excitement.
The next moment, he activated his Complex Law, and the entire room warped.
"Still a comedian," Kyle commented.
Manny just smiled before turning to the unfamiliar Primal. "See? I told you that my Complex Law doesn't work on him!"
The last person just looked at Kyle in shock.
"I thought you were already batshit," Kyle commented, "but now, you're even sharing your conspiracies with air."
Manny's smile just widened, and the unfamiliar Primal also vanished.
Manny looked at the Spirit Lord and nodded. "Yes, that's Meteor Hammer!"
"Looks like him," the True Crusher commented.
Swamp Dragon just looked at Kyle in annoyance, which made Kyle feel a bit guilty.
"Yes, it's Meteor Hammer," he commented coldly.
The Spirit Lord nodded. "Wait outside."
The other three left, and Swamp Dragon threw one last look at Kyle.
Kyle just sighed.
'He seems pissed or distant or something, but I have no idea why. I thought he would feel relieved. '
The Spirit Lord sat down in one of the chairs and looked at Kyle. "Tell me what happened."
Over the next several minutes, Kyle told her everything that happened.
When he talked about the time he had been unearthed, he simply said that he had a conversation with his savior.
The Spirit Lord asked several questions, but the vast majority of them were about different parts of his escape.
She only asked two throwaway questions about Kyle's savior.
What did they look like?
How did they save him?
That was it.
"You're lucky," the Spirit Lord said after Kyle was done narrating. "From what I've heard, the Planet was supposed to be used as a Law Well originally, but they changed their minds."
"If management hadn't changed their minds, you would still be down there."
"Yeah, I thought I would never get out," Kyle said. "I mean, kinda never, you know? I could still train my body, but I'm not sure if my Momentum is strong enough for the last Cluster. I would've needed to advance as an 11/12 Primal, and I don't even know how you are supposed to advance as a Crusher."
"But, who knows? Maybe I would've eventually become strong enough to get out," he said with a shrug.
"And ruin your future in the process," the Spirit Lord commented before standing up.
"You're now a member of the Array of Stars again. As for your old team, you have to talk to them. Since everyone thought you were dead, they were assigned a new member. You have to sort that out with them."
Kyle nodded as he also stood up. "Yes, thank you."
Then, the Spirit Lord teleported away, and the door opened by itself.
As Kyle walked through the door, he saw the other three.
"Meteor Hammer," the True Crusher said. "Glad you're alive, but you won't be rejoining the team. You need two votes to rejoin, and you only got one."
"Oh," Kyle said before glancing at Manny.
"Hey, don't look at me like that!" Manny said. "I was the one who voted for your return!"
Kyle blinked a couple of times before looking at Swamp Dragon.
Swamp Dragon just looked neutrally at him.
"You betrayed my trust once," Swamp Dragon said. "I decided to give you another chance."
"When you charged into battle and said that you had a plan, I trusted you. I believed that you wanted to sacrifice yourself, but instead of listening to my suspicion and charging back in to help you, I decided to trust your words over my own judgment."
"You betrayed my trust."
"I don't want to see you or hear you anymore."
Sad 6-7 :(
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