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Music for today (Sorry its got lyrics):
2WEI, Elena Westermann, Edda Hayes - Eternal
https://youtu.be/j-h3wUXmg4w
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Chapter 463: ...
??? - ??? : Year ??? : ???
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With our backs instinctively pressed against one another like we were gearing to fight two against a million, our bodies floated listlessly in silence, radiating heat from the tension in our muscles while our eyes and ears snapped around like sonars trying to compensate for our lack of aura.
One wrong move from the hive.. one wrong flinch from the void.. and we would have split that moon like an acorn.
But while the void crawled with groans of hostility and hunger, just like me, they were held in place by the unfathomable presence looming within the mana, and refused to grow any closer.
With every passing second, my mind accelerated more and more, trying to dissect the intent behind the gaze—a warning, a cry, a probe—refusing to pull my eyes off the star's blinding surface as if expecting the space between us to suddenly fold and for my body to get atomized by its whim.
However, with enough time, I found my nerves easing.. not because I managed to figure out its intent, but merely by the fact that I was still alive.
'If it wanted me dead.. I'd already be gone.'—I convinced myself.
But whether or not that was merely delusion, I did everything I could to fall for it.
Trying to escape that horrific, skin crawling, paralyzing oppression that now infested my mind, I sank into that blissful ignorance just to catch a chance to breathe.
By then, it hadn't been more than a dozen seconds since we left the void in that system.. however, to me, it felt like countless eternities had passed.
Eternities of silence and doubt that inevitably culminated into a cancerous blend of both unease and curiosity.
Curiosity I.. wasn't sure I wanted to stick around to satisfy.
And at first, Dagr was the same. "Why.. aren't they moving..?" Viewing the hive not growing closer as the huge, waving red flag he should've, he too grew more uneasy with every passing moment. "Something.. doesn't feel right..."
His intuition was on point, but truth be told, I was afraid to confirm it... "They're.. afraid..."
Knowing we couldn't have been the source of it, his eyes snapped around, following my gaze out to the star before his pupils sharpened once more. "So this system is occupied too..." His eyes immediately flickered with a conflicting mix of anger and ease. "It doesn't seem to be probing me though..."
"Because it isn't The System..." I responded without waiting a breath. "Its not a mechanical mind whose purpose is to cultivate its world or followers... Its wild.. feral.. and unimaginably strong..."
Easing his anger, his ears slicked backed with stress. "Did you.. probe it..?"
I immediately shook my head. "It probed me..."
Rightfully growing hesitant, his eyes slowly turned from me, to the star, to the void before he opened his mouth again—this time with more reservations than I had ever seen him hold. "So it.. is keeping the hive at bay..." Finally turning his eyes up to the gorgeous paradise above our heads for the first time, his gaze didn't widen.. glow.. nor ease... "Is it something you can keep in check..?"
I wanted to scoff, but nothing so jestering could possibly escape my lips at that moment. "You have no idea the kind of being that's in that star, Dagr." Keeping my eyes on its roaring corona, my pupils thinned with a rush of adrenaline. "If it wanted us dead, we would die before we could even react..."
His eyes darkened in an instant.. truly burdened unlike anything I had seen in eons... "Does that mean its alright with us, or..."
"I don't know..." It could have been a warning, and the moment we moved, if toward the planet's surface, we would get evicerated, or it could have merely been a probe to see if we were a threat.
But whichever the answer was, we were in something else's home.. and for the first time ever, Dagr didn't care to object to it. "I'll leave the judgement to you..." Unable to settle his nerves, his eyes turned back to the star and the glimmering irises littering the void around it.. keeping his eyes and ears active, and his muscles tense and ready.
But silence hovered for quite a time after that. Every second felt bought, but as long as we didn't move, we eased enough to think. Our claws relaxed, shoulders loosened, and bit by bit, the fight-or-flight tremor bled away.
Only then did I let my eyes drift—not outward, but upward.
Above us, what should have been a scarred, half-molten rock in the maw of the hive was instead alive.. gently spinning as it orbited within a sphere of creatures only held at bay by its mother's gaze.
Lush with life, covered in an equal part ocean and continent, grassy prairies and forests, sandy deserts and snowy mountainscapes were laid beneath the sky so magically blue it hung in space like the universes most enticing bait.
It was an paradise...
One so perfect, it almost felt deliberate...
Like a trap laid to catch beings like us.
Dagr knew it too. Dragging his eyes across that world's surface, tracing the curls in the clouds and the ripples in the oceans, his eyes never glimmered with anything akin to the greed I knew to fester in them.. just darkened with skepticism.
Before us was the ultimate paradise.. yet even with everything it had.. neither of us were convinced the risk was worth it.
...That was until the mana funneling into my reserve in a visible, nearly uncontrollable vortex, shifted.
Until then, the mana was akin to solar wind, surging from the central star almost indiscriminately the same as the nuclear heat surging from it.. but after a moment, that changed...
Feeling its strength lessen, the fur on my neck stood, and my skin prickled. -Something is coming...-
And sure enough, before we could blink, a pulse of fire erupted from the star: a flare spinning so fast it opened into a ring that carved through the bodies of the hive indiscriminately before wrapping us, the planet, and the moon in a spectacular yet truly horrifying display of power.
THAT was its warning.
Feeling the flow of mana quickly return to its original state after that, my fears finally eased.
*Fwwhhmm* As the flare's echo rolled back over us, the countless eyes from within the void blinked as one before folding back into the dark—their bodies coiling inward like an expanse of snakes retreating into their den.
With every heartbeat, the void grew emptier and darker, and for the first time since arriving, the rippling groan of hunger muffled into silence.
To me, the silence was comfort—proof of the being within the star could dust us with a single breath.
Turning back to the star, I finally let out a breath, twitching my divinity to see if it would respond or flare its own...
But Dagr couldn't find the ease I did. "It's isolating us..." Growing even more tense, his eyes turned back to the star—the faint mass of divinity he had begun accumulating winding like coil to dilate time.
But I snuffed it. "No." Sticking my paw out in front of him, I spun my divinity with such ferocity that light bent around me. "It's keeping the hive in check..." -It must not have deemed us a threat to this world...-
Finally mustering the will to move, my tucked tail eased, and I stepped toward it, keeping my divinity spun, not intent on probing the distant presence.. but rather to wave at it...
...To merely pass a greeting...
However, the moment I did, its own presence vanished as if ceasing to exist entirely.. almost like an artificial barrier had been briefly lifted between us.
At the time, I wasn't totally sure how to interpret it, but upon feeling that barrier thin as I lessened my own presence, I took it as a sign to keep hushed and lay low.
-Either it doesn't want me to see something.. or it doesn't want something to see me...- And while a truly horrifying prospect.. it made my curiosity spark almost blindingly. "I think its given us permission to stay..."
Dagr instantly stammered, but reserved his tongue.
He trusted me. "As long as we lay low and don't hurt the planet, we might be alright..."
Weighing our options just as I was, Dagr's gaze grew heavy. "So you wish to.. give it a closer look first..."
Wanting to nod, I turned my eyes back to the world, taking a moment to examine its surface with my sharpened vision, tracing the shapes of the mountain ranges, the borders of lakes, and the formations of what looked to be the ruins of old kingdoms.
From then, my curiosity simply consumed me.
Floating out into the empty expanse between the planet and its moon, my fur rippled with blackish-purple mana before I took in a deep breath, not of air, but solar mana.. letting it permeate my skin, veins, muscle, and bone.. and doing what I could to keep its euphoria from clouding my judgement...
But even still, as I drifted out into that expanse, nothing flared.. nothing roared...
And eventually, Dagr and I, rather than jumping to its surface through the void, trekked into its orbit, slowly but deliberately.. taking our time to think as we flew.. analyzing its surface more with every rotation.
Choosing to stay there wasn't a choice we could make haphazardly... We needed to detach whim from reason...
However, when we finally dropped through its atmosphere, landing in a vast plain similar to the one we played in as children, the decision made itself...
This place.. Delphi it was to be called.. would be our home...
Even if it wasn't ours alone.
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Also if you are looking for a new story, check out my new novel! Re: The System's Harvester
On RR, SH, and now Webnovel!