Mars, Knight Mansion
While it's only been a few days, life in general was returning to normal.
People were coming out more often, businesses were reopening and students were going to school.
Life seems to be returning to everyone. All this as a result of words spoken by a young boy--a boy who a few years ago was still struggling to find his way forward.
Ross was with Julia, Ethan and one other member of his unit. As he stared out the window of their training hall, he couldn't help but recall how things were back then.
'A lot has changed since his return.' Ross pondered with folded arms over his chest. 'I can feel the connection and its benefits. To think this was the kind of power flowing through him.'
He broke a small smile at the thought. But just as quickly as it came, it disappeared.
'The gap between us is too wide. We need to catch up. And soon…'
"What's on your mind, Ross?" Julia came to stand by his side and staring out the window at nothing in particular. "You've been out of it since we began training."
"It's that obvious, huh?" Ross sighed while Julia shrugged. "I'm just feeling so useless right now.
"We all began at the same time, but Alex has shot forward faster than we can keep up."
Julia knew exactly how Ross was feeling as he wasn't the only one. Of course, to Julia, it didn't really make a difference.
'We can no longer accompany him like we used to. Until we can at least be at the S-Tier, we'd only be liabilities.'
"I think you know what we must do, right?" Julia looked sideways at Ross who nodded in response.
"The only thing we can do is cultivate."
With the connection formed with Alexander, they were stronger than ever and had a boost to their absorption speed. They were all close to breaking through.
And despite the boost they received, they can only speed cultivate for so long. It would still take years to make breakthroughs after breakthroughs.
"Yeah." Julia nodded. "Right now James and my Dad are consolidating their realm via hunting powerful void creatures and would be joining Alex's band of S-Tier hunters.
"And they would still require years to achieve a level sufficient enough to follow him around."
Her words were clear. They had a long road ahead of them and might not do anything significant for years to come.
That was what troubled Ross the most, and at the same time motivated him to push harder.
"Take it easy, Ross," Julia assured. "You know him the longest. Do you really think Alex would just forget about us?
"He might be busy right now, but I believe he'll make time for us whenever he can. Don't stress too much."
"Yeah…" Ross said and then looked behind. "But I don't think our little squad would hold out for long."
With The Order taking charge of cleaning up the void creatures with fearless momentum, the weaker hunters were mostly free.
Henry had returned to his family star system after many years. Unfortunate, but understandable.
With Alex's return and Julia showing no signs of ever paying him any attention, it felt like he came to waste his years and efforts on nothing.
"There's nothing we can do about that," Julia said. "We all have our paths and with how things are changing, we might have to find different purposes."
Of course, they could join the new breed of hunters who were working hard to have Alex touch them with the power of the void.
"Mm," Ross turned to Julia. "Let's focus on getting stronger then. And I'll be away for a while."
Ross had a plan. He intended to find a place in outer space raging with dense amounts of mana to speed up his cultivation.
His supply of void energy came directly from Alex, so he had nothing to fear. The one-horned was determined to not be left behind.
...…..
Somewhere in the universe
Alex came to a stop a few million kilometers away from the gigantic veil tear the size of a star.
It pulsed ominously just like what he'd heard from the others. 'Could it be?' Alex furrowed his brows in suspicion.
Sometime later, Cassandra arrived, her expression mirroring Alexander's. She'd seen something similar and already knew what to expect.
"You know what this is, right?" Cassandra said and Alex nodded.
"It might be another one of those void creatures I fought and if my guess is right, this fight can't take place here."
But then, something else caught his attention, shifting his gaze to his left. Then to his right and then behind him.
"!"
'This is bad.' Alex's face darkened as he sensed multiple veil tears appearing all around him in a couple of thousand light years in radius.
Without delay, he opened multiple portals to different points on the empire and did a quick sweep of the territory.
Only after confirming none of the tears he was sensing were opening within the bounds of the empire did his heart relax a bit.
Again, Cassandra sensed those veil tears only after a second had passed.
"Oh no…" the catwoman muttered with a troubled look. "There's at least six years of the same signature!"
"Eight to be precise." Alex corrected, his posture and demeanour showing nothing but calm.
"How are you this calm?" Cassandra couldn't make sense of this. "Whatever is coming could potentially destroy your universe!"
To call this world her new home only to lose it moments never crossed her mind. Sure, Alexander was strong, but they could be facing eight universe ending void creatures.
EIGHT!
"There's no use panicking." Alex's reply was just as cool. "I don't think this phenomenon is normal."
The way the veil tears appeared as though to surround him was very informing.
'The veil tears seem to be equidistant to the location we just came from. Almost as if they sensed the black core and came.
'I misjudged. Perhaps stopping the essence didn't really stop the cores.'
Thinking back to his observations, Alex realized that the core was losing essence towards a certain direction.
'But losing essence and knowing its location via affinity is a completely different thing.'
"What do we do?" Cassandra's question snapped him out of his thoughts. "You have a plan, right?"
"Not really." Alex shook his head. "But I have a feeling they're here for me or should I say us.
"The best we can do is take whatever fight is about to happen outside the universe."
Alex turned to the woman. "And you need to let go of your core. Forget the passive absorption for now. You'll need it."
Cassandra swallowed hard and did as she was told. Abruptly, a swirling energy storm was created around the woman, marking her start of absorption.
"Come on," Alex said as he spatially shifted himself and Cassandra back to the location where they had the meeting and took a seat in the void.
"Tell me, Cassandra. What do you think about the appearing veil tears…?"