Chapter 204: A Common Enemy
Stelle suddenly walked up to you and hugged you tightly. "Orion! You... why didn't you ask me to stay?"
You were so squeezed you could barely breathe, your arms pinned to your sides by her desperate strength. Her entire body was trembling. "Didn't... didn't you accept the mission...?" you managed to get out.
"I had no choice!" Stelle's voice was tearful, muffled against your shoulder. She suddenly let go of you, her eyes dimming as she lowered her head. A single tear slid down her face, tracing a path through the faint dust on her cheek.
At this moment, you suddenly remembered.
This wasn't a fellow hunter. This wasn't a soldier.
Stelle was usually strange, a chaotic gremlin who smashed things with a bat and made terrible jokes. But she was still a child who hadn't been born long. She had no past, no memories. She considered you all family.
And now, this 'child' was about to leave home, go to a strange place, and be forced to forget you... Of course she would be sad.
You saw Jiang Li in her. You saw a small, innocent girl being sent away, alone, into a hostile universe. The cold, impenetrable wall you had built around your heart cracked.
Your heart softened. You walked forward and gently, almost awkwardly, pulled her into a hug.
Stelle's body trembled. She froze, stunned by the contact, by the first truly gentle gesture you had ever shown her. "Orion?" she whispered, her voice small and broken.
You didn't speak, just quietly held her.
She couldn't hold back anymore.
She hugged you back, her arms locking around you, and buried her face in your shoulder. She burst into tears.
"Waaah... I don't want to go...!" she sobbed, her voice raw. "I don't want to leave you all... I don't want to forget you! What if I forget you and... and you forget me?!"
Seeing this, everyone else's eyes also turned red.
Firefly, who had been trying to be strong, turned away, secretly wiping at her own tears.
Silver Wolf, her face pale, lowered her head, staring intently at her game console's dark screen, her shoulders hitching.
Even Blade, a statue of death in the corner, turned his back to the room, the faint sound of his whetstone on his sword stopping for a long, silent moment.
"Stelle, don't worry," you gently patted her back, your voice softer than you had heard it in a long time. "We will meet again, very soon."
"Really...?" she asked, choked with sobs, pulling back to look at you.
"Yes," you said. You just had this feeling. A strange, inexplicable certainty. Perhaps it was the faint whisper of Terminus in your mind, a premonition of an end that was also a beginning.
Hearing your words, she cried even harder, but this time it felt different. It was a cry of release, not just despair. She hugged you tightly, one last time.
A few days later, Stelle left.
You heard she was taken by Kafka and Silver Wolf to a place called Herta Space Station.
[Inorin's Note: Herta Space Station is a massive star-faring research station owned by Herta, the Aeon of Erudition's most brilliant human follower.]
According to Elio's script, she would be "reborn" there. Her memories would be sealed, her old self locked away. She would awaken with the Stellaron inside her, and, if the script was correct, she would join an organization called the Astral Express.
To become a... Trailblazer.
The lounge became much quieter.
Stelle's chaotic, gremlin-like energy was gone. Silver Wolf had no one to argue with about game lore. Firefly had no one to share her snacks with. And you... you found the ship was just a little colder.
In the following days, you continued your hunt.
The silence was filled with work. Your work.
Those Borisin scattered in various corners of the universe were found and annihilated by you, one by one.
You became more and more skilled. You and Firefly became a perfect, two-person reaping crew. You would take Kafka's provided destroyers, jump into a Borisin-controlled system, and let the hired mercenaries launch the first wave, a chaotic assault to draw their fire.
Then, you and Firefly would descend in her green-gold armor, SAM. You were the scalpel; she was the hammer.
"Orion, 3 o'clock, heavy dreadnought!" her voice would crackle over the comms.
You wouldn't even reply. You would simply be there, blade in hand, activating your Mystic Eyes for a split second, tracing the death line on its power core. The ship would fall silent, a dead husk.
Firefly would follow, her missiles raining down, turning the dead ship into a cloud of shrapnel.
You left no survivors.
You became a ghost story, a whisper of vengeance in the dark corners of the galaxy.
Even young ones were not spared. You would walk through the burning nurseries, your face a mask of stone, and see not children, but the monsters who had fired the cannon that killed Neergul. Your blade never wavered.
At the same time, you didn't forget another enemy: The Hunt.
Lan. The Aeon.
The being who had fired the Reign-Bow, the "divine" arrow that had "cleansed" the Fanghu, murdering Jiang Li and countless others.
You swore that one day you would make the Aeon pay the price.
But how? How do you find a god? How do you kill a god?
Late one night, you sat alone in your room, the lights off, staring at the cold starlight.
A low, seductive murmur, like silk brushing against your mind, suddenly echoed in your ears.
«...I heard... you want to destroy The Hunt...?»
Your head snapped up. The voice was in your mind, but it felt... close.
«...Come talk to me... I can help you find him...»
This voice...
You stood and walked, not to your door, but to the ship's storage room.
There, in the center of the dark, cold room, a special containment unit lay quietly. Inside it, floating in a containment field, was the Stellaron that Stelle had 'shed' before she left—the very 'Cancer of All Worlds' she was meant to be a vessel for.
"Stellaron?" You frowned. "What do you want?"
«...I just want to help you...» The Stellaron's voice was smiling, a rich, feminine, and deeply alluring sound. «...After all, we have a common enemy. Those high and mighty Aeons. They sit on their thrones and play with mortals like toys... They should be pulled down from their pedestals...»
You were silent.
Collaborating with a Stellaron was playing with fire. It was the very definition of madness. This was the voice of galactic destruction.
But if you could find the Reign-Bow... If you could find Lan...
"What do you want me to do?"
«...Very simple...» The voice in your mind became joyful, a purr of satisfaction. «...Come see me. I am... elsewhere. I will tell you how to find The Hunt. I will tell you how to kill a god.»
After much hesitation, you decided to take the risk.
You needed power. You needed methods. You needed everything that could help you get revenge.
Following the Stellaron's guidance, you piloted your personal spaceship alone, away from the Stellaron Hunters, away from Firefly, into a remote, uncharted star system.
There was a seemingly barren planet there, its surface covered with black, glass-like crystals.
You landed and stepped out. The air was filled with a suppressive aura. The smell of destruction. The entire planet felt... dead.
«...Welcome...»
A magnetic female voice sounded, not in your mind this time, but in the thin, cold air.
You turned and saw a figure emerge from the darkness of a crystalline cave.
It was an extremely beautiful woman.
She wore a black, flowing gown that seemed woven from the shadows themselves, with a slit so high it reached her hip, revealing her long, pale, perfect leg. Her hair was a river of black, and her eyes held a fatal, ancient charm.
"Nice to meet you, Orion."