The Azure Kraken tore through the void like a spear of shadowed light, its hull shimring faintly against the distortions of warp space. At ten tis the standard cruising speed, the vessel was little more than a phantom streak blazing across the star charts.
Inside the captain quarters, Ery sat in stillness, legs folded, eyes half-closed in ditation. His breathing was calm, yet his mind was far from it.
He replayed every piece of intelligence he had gathered since leaving the miners on Planet 8632. Those poor souls had known nothing of the greater storm unraveling across the stars. To them, the only truth was fear—fear of the unknown, fear of the evacuation order, fear of being swept away in tides of war they could not comprehend.
Ironscar the raider had known slightly more, having traded rumors and stolen reports within the Neutral Zone. But even he, hardened by decades of lawless survival, had possessed only fragnts of the truth.
It was only when Ery pieced together scraps from refugee fleets, and the words of Varrek and Shatter, that a grim picture erged—one spanning the last twenty years he had been absent, trapped in Tartarus.
The central conflict with the elves was still raging, but beneath that war had risen sothing far darker. Shadows festering at the edge of mory now revealed themselves: the visitors from the Nether Realm—the resurgence of the Scourge.
Facilitated by the dark elves and the treacherous Oculus faction, these horrors had crossed into the Magus Realm.
The Alliance, stretched thin by its ceaseless war with the elves, had been too slow to respond. Its fleets were scattered, its commanders consud by other battles. By the ti their attention turned to the rising plague, it was already too late.
Within months, the Scourge had entrenched themselves. Whole star systems toppled, and in the heart of the Neutral Zone, an entire galaxy fell under their dominion. It beca their ho, their nest, their fortress.
And the pattern was the sa.
Through the mories of Anzi, Ery had seen the sa Scourge as one in Tartarus. He knew them not as soldiers, but as plague incarnate—an unstoppable hunger that devoured worlds.
The refugee fleets they encountered—shattered caravans limping through the void—were not isolated tragedies. They were echoes of a pattern repeating across the stars. Hundreds of fleets like them, scattered like leaves before a storm. Each one a testant to another world devoured.
Planets fallen. Civilizations crumbled. And still, the tide rose.
Ery exhaled slowly, the weight of revelation pressing heavily on his chest. His eyes opened, dark with thought, and his hand drifted to the jade dallion resting against his robes—the artifact left behind by his future self.
When Ery broke through the Second Cosmos, the dallion had stirred, its runes shifting, the second seal cracked open, releasing the next fragnt of the ssage.
The words that spilled forth had been no comfort.
His future self spoke of decline—of the Magus Alliance unraveling, thread by thread. Two hundred years into the future, that other Ery had returned to find devastation. The Neutral Zone no longer existed. It had been consud and the warfront had drawn perilously close to the Alpha Quadrant, closer to ho.
Yet even with such dire revelations, the ssage offered little clarity. Only warnings.
Do not be distracted by the war. Focus on the matters at ho.
The ssage was filled with information about Kronos, hinting at potential positive changes if the Earth faction succeeded in the duels. However, it also confird what Ery had long suspected—Kronos was rely a pawn, taking orders from an ominous organization.
This organization was deeply rooted within the councils of the Magus Alliance, operating with its own hidden agenda. Its mbers were embedded across multiple high-grade factions, which explained why uncovering the truth about what had happened to Earth two thousand years ago had been so difficult.
The na echoed in Ery’s thoughts like a curse:
"The Eternal Watchers."
Ery understood that within an entity as vast as the Magus Alliance, such a secret society was almost inevitable. He cared little for their political ambitions or philosophies—so long as they did not harm his friends or his people. But they had.
Among their nas, one stood out with cruel clarity: the Sky Lord.
The Grand Magus who had slain his beloved senior—Fuxi.
Ery’s hand clenched around the dallion until his knuckles went white. The ssage from his future self had been clear: now that Ery stood among the ranks of Grand Magus, the doors of the Alliance’s internal halls would open to him. He would have the authority to pry into secrets long hidden, to act as he deed necessary.
The ssage ended with one final sentence, a line that struck Ery harder than all the rest:
"If you manage to escape in thirty years, go back to Earth as soon as possible—or you will regret it"
Those words echoed in his mind like a curse. They were the anchor that had driven him to claw his way out of the world beast’s belly, to tear himself free long before the thirty-year mark. And now, his heart beating with a single refrain: return to Earth, return before it’s too late.
Ery clenched his fists, grinding his teeth. "What’s the point of writing this warning," he muttered bitterly, "if you refuse to tell what exactly happened? Why leave dangling in suspense?!" He muttered in irritation.
In his search for clarity, Ery had questioned Magus Minerva about Earth. She had shared what little she knew, recounting her brief encounter at the front lines with one of his dearest friend: Thrax, the immortal gladiator.
The news had been both comforting and troubling.
On the one hand, Ery’s lips had curved into a faint smile hearing Thrax was unchanged—still fighting, still roaring with unshakable defiance, as stubborn and indomitable as ever. But Minerva’s next words had soured that relief. She revealed sothing that she had heard from Thrax: despite Earth victory in the duel against Kronos, the Nephilim had taken over his ho.
This news only deepened Ery’s anxiety. He wished he could teleport straight back to Earth, but Minerva urged caution. She advised him to first stop at one of the Magus Alliance outposts, report his status, and formally secure access into Alliance territory. Not only was Ery traveling aboard a Rider ship with a Rider crew—already suspicious enough—but the escalating war had led to heightened patrols and an influx of enemy spies infiltrating Alliance space.
Reluctantly, Ery had agreed. Which was why the Azure Kraken now coursed toward a border outpost of the Magus Alliance.
The ship tore across the void, ti stretching thin as stars streaked into endless lines of light. Ery spent those days in restless ditation. Images of Earth, Klea and of unknown tragedies played endlessly in his mind.
On the ninth day, the warp drive finally disengaged with a shudder. The universe snapped back into clarity, stars steady in the dark once more. The Azure Kraken erged at the coordinates of the Alliance border outpost.
But there was no outpost.
Empty space stretched out before them, littered with drifting debris. Shattered hull fragnts floated like broken bones.
"Are we in the right destination?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers