Evan's question made realization dawn on Arthur as well. The godslayer had been so caught up in the ridiculous scale of the situation that he had overlooked that part entirely.
His gaze shifted between Evan and Jamie, and the silence between them confird that they had all reached the sa conclusion.
At last, Evan spoke, his voice hollow with understanding.
"Then those stars… the ones orbiting the SoL... they weren't just pulled there for no reason."
The recognition of the implications dawned on Evan.
"They were pulled there... to be sacrifices. Sacrifices to supplent the star's mass when it goes supergiant."
His voice trembled as the weight of the truth settled in and Jamie nodded in affirmation.
"Quick on the uptake, aren't you?"
Jamie's confirmation made Evan's stomach twist, his mind reeling at the thought.
Arthur, too, was taken aback. But as he thought about it, he realized it was sothing he should have pieced together the mont Jamie ntioned that the star pulled in mass from other dinsions.
Those planets—those lives—they weren't simply existing in the natural orbits of stars. They had been gathered, unknowingly, as part of a galactic sacrifice.
When the SoL went supergiant, everything around it—entire civilizations—would be drawn into its inevitable collapse.
To the average person, the notion was staggering. Horrifying, even.
For Arthur, it was staggering. For Evan, it was horrifying.
Despite having experienced the absurdity of being sent 10,000 years into the past, Evan was montarily speechless at the sheer gravity of the truth.
These civilizations—countless lives—would be lost in the star's eventual collapse. All for the sake of galactic balance.
All for the creation of a black hole that would one day sustain the galaxy and extend its lifespan.
In the end, they had only ever been sacrifices.
◇ ◇ ◇
Evan wouldn't lie. His concern for the fates of planets that weren't his own was…minimal, to put it nicely.
To put it bluntly, he didn't give a fuck.
But the sheer scale of this loss was too massive to ignore.
All those stars had been drawn into the galactic plan, their sole purpose being to push the SoL past its limit and into the supergiant phase.
Once that happened, the laws of physics and the universal laws holding it together wouldn't be able to maintain balance anymore, and it would collapse under its gravity.
"But how is that… fair?"
Evan's voice was barely a whisper and Jamie responded with a shrug.
"It's not about fair, Evan. It's about survival. The galaxy needs a new core eventually.
If the old black hole can't hold the galaxy together, everything will spiral out of control. So, a contingency was put in place."
Arthur, who had taken in the situation far easier than Evan, shifted his gaze to Jamie and crossed his arms.
"But how is all of this controlled? Who or what makes sure the Star of Lightning does what it's supposed to do? This doesn't seem like sothing left to chance."
Jamie's expression shifted slightly, his tone turning more serious.
"That's where things get... interesting. You see, the Star of Lightning has a consciousness."
"A star with a consciousness?"
Arthur blinked, his expression incredulous.
To Arthur's knowledge, Stars certainly shouldn't possess consciousnesses.
At the very least, as far as Arthur knew, no star in his ho Universe had a consciousness. He had assud the sa of the Valmone Universe, yet here Jamie was, telling him that the SoL had a consciousness.
He rubbed his temples, trying to wrap his head around the idea.
"I an, I get planets and galaxies, but a star?"
"Yup," Jamie confird. "The star's consciousness is supposed to oversee this entire process — the absorption, the supergiant transition, and the eventual collapse. All of it."
Then, with a humourless grin, he dropped another bombshell.
"But here's where things get icky. The Star's consciousness is missing."
"…"
Silence fell once more, the weight of that statent hanging heavily in the space.
Arthur stared at Jamie in disbelief.
"What the fuck? Missing? How the hell does a star lose its consciousness?!"
He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that a star could even have a consciousness in the first place. Now Jamie was telling him that it was missing.
Where the hell did it go?!
"It shouldn't be possible. But so hundreds of thousands of years ago, it went AWOL. Just vanished."
Arthur shook his head, still struggling to process the situation.
"This star's consciousness should be tied to its gravitational field, right? Just like planetary consciousnesses?"
"That's the theory," Jamie replied. "But the SoL is already an anomaly in every sense of the word. It should have kept its consciousness within its own gravitational field, but, well… here we are.
Currently, it's like a body without a soul."
Arthur's jaw clenched as he realized what Jamie was getting at.
"A star of this size, without a consciousness… that's a disaster waiting to happen."
"A disaster the galaxy doesn't need," Jamie agreed. "As such it is currently in stasis. It's been put in suspended animation to prevent any... complications."
Hearing Jamie's response about the stasis, Arthur's mind imdiately jumped to the next question.
"Who put it in suspended animation? The galaxy's consciousness?"
"No, actually, it was the Causality Enforcers. But—"
Before Jamie could finish responding, Evan cut in.
"Hold on a second, Arthur. Did you just say 'galaxy's consciousness'? What the hell do you an by that?"
He turned to Arthur with a confused expression, and Arthur raised a brow in response.
"You know about planetary consciousnesses, but you've never heard of a galaxy's consciousness?"
"So, you're saying that sowhere beyond all those stars..."
Evan pressed a hand to his temple, gesturing toward the massive band of light in the distance.
"…that black hole over there actually has a consciousness?"
Since planetary consciousnesses ford in their cores, it only made sense that a galaxy's consciousness would form in its core as well.
Arthur and Jamie both nodded in unison and Evan took a deep breath. He floated silently for a solid ten seconds before finally nodding to himself.
"Yeah, I'm not going to think about that too hard. Let's just continue like normal."
He'd said he was going to think about things he'd been putting off, and this definitely wasn't one of them.
Arthur and Jamie couldn't help but laugh at Evan's exasperation. The way he just sighed and dismissed the entire concept of galactic consciousnesses was a classic Evan move.
"That's one way to deal with it," Arthur chuckled.
Jamie clapped a hand on Evan's shoulder with a grin.
"You really know how to tune out the madness, huh?"
"Sotis, it's the only way to survive with you two around," Evan shot back, crossing his arms.
Of course, he conveniently ignored the fact that he was just as ridiculous as both of them.
anwhile, Arthur glanced at Jamie and caught the slight shift in his expression as his gaze lingered on the SoL. There was sothing in his eyes, almost like nostalgia.
"What's up?"
Arthur asked, curiosity piqued, and Jamie shook his head with a light chuckle.
"Ah, nothing. That thing just reminds of an old friend."
"Friend?"
"Well, I call her a friend. She doesn't like one bit, though."
Jamie laughed, the sound casual, but with an undercurrent of amusent.
"Who?"
With a smirk, Jamie ntioned a na.
"Kaylatheurge."
The mont he said it, Arthur and Evan reacted imdiately—but for very different reasons.
'Kaylatheurge? The Spirit Empress?'
Arthur knew that to be the na and title of one of the five Race Emperors in the Valmone Universe.
Evan, on the other hand, stayed silent, but his mind was racing.
'Why would Jamie ntion Kayla after looking at the Star of Lightning? Could it be…?'
He didn't finish the thought, but an uneasy feeling crept into his chest.
Jamie, seemingly oblivious to their reactions, continued with a grin.
"Yeah, she's a lightning spirit and all. The Star of Lightning kinda reminded of her."
"So, what about her?" Arthur asked, intrigued.
"It's been a long while since I've seen her. Every ti I show up, she usually tries to bolt the other way. Can't say I bla her, though — I'm not exactly her favourite person," Jamie responded with a nonchalant shrug.
He paused montarily, then added with a mischievous grin.
"But hey, maybe after we're done showing Evan around the black holes, I'll pay her a visit. Could be fun, right?"
Arthur shook his head with a wry smile. Typical Jamie. It didn't matter how much Kaylatheurge disliked him, he still found excuses to show up and bother her.
But sothing about this didn't add up. A contradiction.
Arthur and Evan weren't aware, but on the intergalactic stage, it was common knowledge that Jamie and Kaylatheurge were close.
Yet here Jamie was, claiming the Spirit Empress avoided him like the plague.
"Hey, you wanna co along?" Jamie asked casually.
Arthur saw no reason to refuse, so he shrugged.
"Why not? Let's make a trip out of it."
Then, both of them turned to Evan, who had been unusually quiet.
"What about you?"
The two of them already knew Evan had so sort of relationship with Kaylatheurge, and she was present when he got sent back in ti.
With that knowledge in mind, they posed the question to him, watching as he hesitated for a second before answering.
"Yeah, I do want to see what she looks like as the Spirit Empress."
Hearing Evan's choice of words, Arthur's eyes narrowed slightly.
'As the Spirit Empress?'
Sothing about the way Evan phrased that didn't sit right with him. It was almost as if he was implying that the Kaylatheurge he knew wasn't the Spirit Empress in the future.
Arthur didn't press the issue, but he filed the thought away for later.
anwhile, Evan, seemingly oblivious to Arthur's scrutiny, had already shifted his focus back to the real reason he had agreed to co to space in the first place.
"Shall we go see the black hole now?" he asked.
Jamie clapped a hand on Evan's back with a grin.
"Chill, we can go see the black hole anyti. Why don't you just stop and admire the view for a sec?"
He gestured toward the vast band of starry light stretching across the vacuum of space.
"Look at that—the heart of the galaxy. The Greater Universe is a big place. Well, we're still in the galaxy, but it's not much different."
The sight was truly breathtaking, and Evan had to admit it carried a tiless magic. But sothing else Jamie had said lingered in his mind.
"The Greater Universe, huh? That really exists?"
At his words, both Arthur and Jamie turned to him, their faces incredulous as they spoke in unison.
""Of course, it exists.""
Hearing their response, Evan froze, confusion clouding his thoughts.
"…why did I just ask that?"
The words had left his mouth before he even realized it, and the mont he beca aware of that, a sharp headache surged through his skull.
He pressed his fingers to his temples, wincing as his mind began sifting through his mories—mories of his past on Earth V.
Earth V's astronomy was highly advanced, and the concept of the Universe was widely accepted as fact.
Yet, for so reason, Evan had always subconsciously disbelieved it.
Ever since he first heard of it, he had never truly believed in it. He wasn't like the faction of flat-earthers who thrived on starting argunts—he simply kept his thoughts to himself.
It never really mattered to him. As far as he was concerned, he was never leaving his planet, so whether the Universe was real or not was irrelevant.
It was just a theory, and he never questioned why he felt that way.
On the day when he first t Artemisia (Chapter 3), she had ntioned the 'Universe,' and Evan had instinctively asked if it truly existed.
Even when Artemisia affird that it did, he simply nodded and moved on, never giving it a second thought.
'Why?'
The question gnawed at him as he scratched his head, unaware that his complexion was turning pale at an alarming rate.
Noticing this, Arthur called out worriedly but Evan's ears did not catch the sound of Arthur's words.
He was too deep in his thoughts to hear anything around him.
'Despite knowing about other worlds, despite knowing that I was in a galaxy called 'Orithya', why did I always subconsciously disbelieve the existence of the Universe?'
In the future, Evan had been on Aidos for years and never really had a reason to leave it, so he hadn't put much thought into it.
But now he was in the past and had been taken into space by Jamie, seeing other stars and planets with his naked eyes, he realised sothing was wrong.
DON'T!
That word resounded in his head and his migraine grew worse.
Evan asked himself why he accepted that planets, stars and galaxies existed, but not the universe that held all of those things together.
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!!!
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