Chapter 387: Adoration
(Back to Leo’s POV, aboard Craft H203)
Leo sat comfortably in the bloody craft cockpit, as he waited to reach the rendezvous point without any hiccups, when a voice suddenly crackled through the comms panel.
“Black Serpent Craft 20H3, do you copy? Please respond. This is Captain Makwana of the pursuing vessel dispatched by Vice Guildmaster Antonio.”
Leo’s eyebrow twitched.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face as he stared at the source of the voice.
“I knew in my gut that someone was following me.”
He had hoped his escape from Twin Fang would be clean.
Had hoped that his escape raised no major alarms or red flags to make the Black Serpents chase after him.
But fate clearly had other plans, for someone had picked up his trail and was still red hot on it.
“Craft 20H3, please come over the radio, this is not a request.
Not responding to a senior officer is a crime. State your status immediately, or we will shoot you down.”
The other pilot threatened, as suddenly Red Warning signs began to flash on every control panel in front of him, with the ship warning him that some enemy had them locked for an attack.
*Sigh*
Leo exhaled sharply through his nose, his fingers drumming against the armrest.
[Expected time before arrival: 3 minutes 48 seconds.]
The countdown to the rendezvous point with the Cult Patrol ship ticked forward slowly, and Leo’s mind began to wonder as to how he could make it to that point without being shot at.
“Alright… let’s play the innocent bystander act,” he mumbled, before opening the comms channel, his voice suddenly panicked, as he pretended to stumble over his words.
“Hello? I—I hear you!” he began, forcing a frantic tone. “There’s something wrong with the pilot. He collapsed! I think he’s having a seizure or a heart attack or something, I don’t know—”
The other side went silent for a moment, then responded.
“This is Captain Makwana. Am I speaking to Leo Skyshard?”
“Yes, I’m Leo Skyshard! I—I don’t know anything about flying this thing. I came to check on him, and he was just convulsing, the ship was veering, I panicked!”
He even added a shaky breath for effect.
Fredrick, listening quietly from the command seat behind his pilot, narrowed his eyes as Makwana glanced back for confirmation.
“The story doesn’t add up, A craft locked on its path to Rodova would not veer off course even if the pilot dozed off…. Unless there was a navigation failure,” Fredrick muttered.
Still, Makwana nodded and spoke again.
“Okay, remain calm. We’ll guide you through stabilizing the ship. First, you need to identify your current throttle and hyperspeed state. Do you see a yellow button near a black thrust lever?”
Leo kept his face serious, hand hovering over the exact button, already familiar with its layout.
“What? I—no, wait. Could you explain again? There’s so many buttons on the console… everything’s flashing red with warning that weapons are locked onto this ship!”
“You need to find a yellow button beside the thrust lever,” Makwana repeated slowly. “Press the yellow button to disengage the hyperspeed drive, then slowly pull the lever back to reduce speed.”
Leo blinked.
Arrival Time: 1 minute 12 seconds.
“Copy… I think I see it,” he said vaguely, stretching the syllables as much as possible. “You said… Pull then press the yellow button?”
“No! I said press the yellow button, then pull…” Makwana repeated the instruction a third time.
Leo delayed even further, staring at the screen, watching as the estimated arrival dropped to 50 seconds.
“Copy. Okay. I think I got it now,” he said, finally reaching out and pressing the yellow button, then inching the lever back ever so slightly.
Outside, the craft’s engine let out a subtle shift in tone as its momentum slowed.
Fredrick’s ship, still trailing behind and mirroring the movement, began to slow as well.
“Maintain distance and track speed,” Fredrick said, his voice low, gaze narrowed at the ghostly outline of Leo’s ship.
Makwana was about to respond again when suddenly, the space around them changed.
A burst of pressure rippled through the starfield, silent yet undeniable, as from the shadows of a drifting asteroid field ahead, an enormous craft phased into view, its black hull gleaming with a quiet menace, the surrounding light bending around it as if refusing to touch it.
The cult’s patrol ship had arrived, and Fredrick’s chase craft didn’t even have time to process it, for they could not spot the ship on their radar.
*FLASH*
A flash of bright white energy surged forth from the hidden vessel, its beam concentrated, quiet, and absolutely merciless.
In one instant, the Black Serpent chase craft was reduced to fragmented metal, its engines erupting in a cloud of violet and ash, as the explosion scattered across vacuum with no sound but all the fury of a star imploding.
Inside his cockpit, Leo watched the burst of firelight with an excited expression.
It was about time that the Cult did something right, and thankfully they understood their mission here perfectly.
“Good job!” He said, as he leaned forward slightly, tapped a few keys to disable the red alert warnings, and wiped a bit of dried blood from the armrest beside him.
Then, as the guiding beacon from the cult patrol ship flickered on screen, he adjusted course slightly and angled the ship into their magnetic pull for docking.
“Welp, Sayonara Black Serpents,” he murmured, voice soft and cold, as he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The stars shifted slowly from his view, as his ride glided inside the hull of the Cult Patrol Ship, it’s underbelly closing as soon as Leo’s craft was inside, as the air-pressure inside the docking area restabilized.
Leo rose slowly from the captain’s chair, brushing nonexistent dust from his robes as he adjusted the collar and tightened the straps on his utility belt, his expression unreadable.
He stepped through the exit ramp without hesitation, boots clinking softly against the grated walkway as the scene that unfolded before him, was not one that he had expected.
Rows upon rows of soldiers, engineers, robed technicians, and maintenance workers lined the massive hangar bay, all standing in perfect formation on either side of the corridor that led from his craft to the inner sanctum.
Some of them cried softly when they gazed towards him, some dropped to both knees in a show of respect, while the rest simply stood frozen, their eyes wide and shimmering with something that caught him completely off guard.
Adoration.
Pure, unfiltered, almost frightening in its intensity.
Cheers erupted like a wave, but it was not the kind of applause he was used to. There was no bravado, no chaos. It was solemn. Worshipful.
They looked at him as if a savior had stepped down from the stars. As if he were not merely a man walking among them, but a figure out of prophecy finally returned to fulfill a promise no one else understood.
And it sent a chill crawling down his spine.
With every step he took forward, the reverent silence between the cheers deepened, thickened, as if the weight of their hopes was being laid at his feet.
Leo didn’t speak. He didn’t raise a hand or acknowledge the crowd. He simply walked, expression hard and calm, even as his gut twisted with a thousand unspoken questions.
Because no matter how many corpses he had stepped over to reach this point, this was not the welcome of a killer.
It was the welcome of a messiah.
And that felt far more dangerous.