The journey to Noxia took two weeks.
Two weeks of quiet space. Two weeks of training. Two weeks of Ren sitting in meditation, feeling the fragments pulse inside him, preparing for whatever waited ahead.
The fragments didn't just give power anymore. They gave insight. The closer they got to Noxia, the more Ren could feel what was coming. Not visions exactly. Just... impressions. A sense of something dark. Something waiting.
"Noxia's not like the other planets," Sara said one evening, studying her data. "It's in permanent shadow. The star it orbits is dying. Old red dwarf, barely putting out any light."
"So, it's dark?"
"Dark. Cold. And according to these readings, unstable." She pulled up a holographic display. "The whole planet is covered in some kind of energy field. It's messing with my sensors. I can't get a clear reading on anything."
"Natural?"
"Maybe. Or maybe your father put it there." She looked at him. "To protect the fragment."
Ren nodded slowly. That made sense. His father had hidden the other fragments in dangerous places. Why would this one be different?
"We'll land at the terminator line," he said. "Where day meets night. That should give us some light to work with."
"And if the field messes with your power?"
"Then we adapt."
Aiko joined them in the cockpit as they approached.
Noxia was ugly. That was the only word for it. A dark sphere hanging in space, its surface barely visible against the blackness. The dying red star gave just enough light to show clouds. Swirling, angry clouds.
"That atmosphere looks thick," Aiko said. "Lots of storms. Lots of turbulence."
"Can we land?"
"We can try." She didn't sound confident. "The ship can handle it. The question is whether we can find a safe spot."
Sara guided them down.
The descent was brutal. The Starfire shook and bucked, alarms flashing, warning lights blinking. Wind screamed past the hull. Lightning flashed continuously, illuminating clouds that seemed to reach for them.
"There!" Ren pointed.
A break in the clouds. A flat area. Rocky, but flat.
Sara aimed for it. The ship dropped like a stone, then leveled out, then hit the ground hard enough to rattle everyone's teeth.
Silence.
Then Aiko laughed. "We're getting good at this."
"Too good." Sara was already checking systems. "Hull's intact. Engines are good. We can leave when we need to."
Ren looked out the viewport.
Darkness. Complete and total. The only light came from the ship's exterior floods, illuminating a small circle of rocky ground.
"Where's the fragment?" Aiko asked.
Ren closed his eyes. The fragments pulsed. All six pointed in the same direction.
"North. About twenty kilometers."
"Twenty klicks through that?" Aiko gestured at the darkness. "In the dark? With who-knows-what out there?"
"Looks like it."
Aiko sighed. "I'll get the equipment ready."
They left at first light.
Which wasn't much. The dying red star barely cleared the horizon, casting everything in dim crimson. Shadows stretched long and strange. The wind had died, leaving an eerie silence.
Ren led. Sara followed. Aiko brought up the rear, carrying equipment and muttering about bad life choices.
The terrain was rough. Sharp rocks. Deep crevasses. Patches of something that looked like frozen mud but crunched like glass. The dim light made everything look the same, same shades of gray and red.
"Any sign of the fragment?" Sara asked after an hour.
"Getting closer. Maybe fifteen kilometers now."
"How are you feeling?"
Ren considered the question. "Strange. Like something's watching."
"Probably is." Aiko scanned the darkness with a device. "Lots of life signs out there. Small stuff. But some bigger things too. Moving around us."
"Hostile?"
"Hard to tell. They're keeping their distance."
They kept walking.
The attack came without warning.
One moment they were crossing a flat plain. The next, something erupted from the ground beneath them. Huge. Dark. Multiple legs and too many teeth.
Ren moved without thinking.
The fragments blazed. Blue surged forward, shaping itself into a shield around Sara and Aiko. Purple strengthened his body. Gold showed him the creature's pattern, its weaknesses, its next move.
It was fast. Really fast. But Ren was faster now.
He struck with red energy, not to kill, just to push. The creature flew backward, landing hard, shaking its head.
It looked at him. Its eyes glowed in the dim light.
Then it turned and ran.
"Was that... was that a guard?" Aiko gasped.
"I don't think so." Ren watched it disappear into the darkness. "Just an animal. Protecting its territory."
"Remind me not to step on any more territories."
They kept moving.
The fragment's location became clear as they approached.
A structure. Not like the temples on other worlds. This one was built into a mountain, carved from the rock itself. Dark stone. No windows. No doors. Just a single entrance, black as pitch.
"That's it?" Sara asked.
"That's it." Ren could feel the fragment pulsing inside. Different from the others. Colder. Sharper.
"What aspect is this one?"
Ren closed his eyes. Reached out with his senses.
"Power," he said quietly. "Raw power. The kind my father used to destroy stars."
Sara's face paled. "Ren, that kind of power—"
"I know. But I need it. To face the Twelve, I need everything he had."
He walked toward the entrance. The darkness swallowed him.
Inside, the mountain was silent.
No echoes. No sound at all. Just Ren's footsteps on stone, his breathing, his heartbeat. The fragments pulsed, lighting his way with their combined glow.
The corridor sloped downward. Down and down and down. Hours passed. Or minutes. Time had no meaning here.
Finally, he reached a chamber.
It was massive. The largest he'd ever seen. The ceiling disappeared into darkness above. The walls stretched impossibly wide. And at the center, floating in midair, was the fragment.
It was white.
Not warm white. Not soft white. Blazing white. Like a star compressed into a single point. It hurt to look at. It hurt to be nearby.
Power.
His father's voice. But different. Harder.
This is what I used to destroy worlds. This is what the Five feared. This is what made me the most dangerous being in the universe.
Ren approached slowly. The light intensified with every step.
You want this, Ren? You want to carry this weight?
"Yes."
Even knowing what it will cost?
"What do you mean?"
The fragment pulsed. And suddenly Ren saw it. His father, standing on a world, raising his hand. Energy gathering. Building. Releasing.
The world shattered.
Billions died. In an instant. Just... gone.
I did that, his father's voice whispered. I killed billions to save trillions. I destroyed worlds to free galaxies. Every death was on my hands. Every life I couldn't save. Every scream I couldn't hear.
Ren stared at the destruction. At the faces. At the children. At the innocent.
This is the cost of power, Ren. Real power. You don't just carry it. It carries you. It makes choices you never wanted to make. It forces you to become something you never wanted to be.
"I don't want to destroy worlds."
Then don't. But the power to save is the same as the power to destroy. You can't have one without the other.
Ren stood in the light of his father's greatest sin. Felt the weight of it. The horror.
And he understood.
This fragment wasn't just power. It was responsibility. The kind that broke people. The kind that changed them forever.
"Do I have a choice?" he asked quietly.
There's always a choice. You can walk away. Leave this fragment here. Find another path to defeat the Twelve. It will be harder. Maybe impossible. But you can choose.
Ren thought about his mother. About Aiko. About everyone counting on him.
About the Twelve, sitting on their thrones, crushing galaxies under their heels.
About his father, dying so he could live.
"I choose," he said. "I choose to carry it."
He reached out.
The white light exploded into him.
Pain.
That was all there was for a long moment. Pain beyond anything he'd experienced. His body screamed. His mind screamed. Every cell, every atom, every fragment of his being was being remade.
Then it stopped.
He lay on the stone floor, gasping. The white fragment was inside him now, blazing alongside the others. But it didn't join them. It stood apart. Separate. Waiting.
You have it now, his father's voice whispered. The power to destroy stars. Use it wisely. Use it only when you must. And never forget what it cost me to give it to you.
Ren pushed himself up slowly. His body felt strange. Lighter. Stronger. Different.
He looked at his hands. They glowed faintly. Not blue. White.
The power fragment.
He walked back through the corridor, back to the surface, back to the dim crimson light of Noxia's dying sun.
Sara and Aiko were waiting. Their faces showed relief when they saw him.
"What happened?" Sara asked. "You were gone for hours."
"Hours?" It had felt like minutes. "I got it. The seventh fragment."
"Seven." Aiko shook her head. "Halfway there."
Ren looked at the horizon. Somewhere out there, five more fragments waited. Five more aspects of his father's soul.
"Let's go home," he said quietly.
They walked back to the ship together, the white light inside him blazing against the darkness.
END OF CHAPTER 16