Chương 397: The Sunder-Kin

The silver-lead sentinel stood a few inches taller than me, its newly awakened blue-light eyes staring down at my black carapace with a cold, analytical intensity. The air in the obsidian vault was thick with the scent of ozone and the silent, heavy pressure of our uncompiled domains. My hand rested casually on the hilt of my black sabre, my star-cores spinning in a tight, defensive idle.

I had wreathed a Humming Veil around my soul gate, ready to execute a Temporal Slide if the ancient guardian decided that my presence was an un-authorized coordinate. Suddenly, a thin, horizontal beam of violet light projected from the sentinel's mirror-face, sweeping across my chest. I didn't move. I let the non-intrusive scan wash over my Abyssal Carapace.

The moment the violet beam touched the boundaries of my soul gate, it flared with a sudden, resonant spark, detecting the unbending, non-hostile signature left on my soul by the Progenitors of G-42-Epsilon. The sentinel's blue eyes flared with a sudden, absolute shock. The high-frequency tension in the room instantly evaporated. The ancient, silver-lead guardian dropped heavily onto its right knee, its metallic joint producing a deep, echoing thud on the basalt floor as its flat, polished head bowed before me.

"Forgive the intrusion, Sovereign," the sentinel's telepathic voice resonated in my mind, its tone wreathed in a profound, instinctual reverence.

"The registries have not notified me of your arrival. My sensors have identified the Mark of the Void Cradle upon your gate. I am... Aion. A low-tier Sanctum Anima, constructed to govern this stronghold's logistics and preserve the records of my Master." I slowly let go of my sabre, my star-cores settling into their standard idle as I looked down at the kneeling guardian.

"Stand up, Aion. I'm not too big on the kneeling. And I have a lot of questions." The sentinel rose with a silent, heavy grace, its mirror-face reflecting the dark starlight of the vault.

"I shall answer all that my remaining memory-lattice holds, Sovereign. But my records are severely damaged. They end at a specific event that... it did not leave much of our history intact." We began to move slowly through the inner rooms of the sanctum, the basalt floor absorbing the sound of our boots. I had my [Void-Lattice Perception] maximized, scanning the basalt corridors for any hidden traps or variables as Aion led us into a grand, circular audience hall wreathed in high, black-crystal pillars.

"Who were the refugees?" I asked, my voice echoing in the vast, empty space.

"The ones who fled towards Earth after the Great Shattering. In my visions, I saw them fleeing across the stars."

"We were the Sunder-Kin," Aion's voice echoed in my thoughts, his telepathic tone carrying a soft, metallic chime.

"A hybrid faction born from the uncompiled sectors of the First Integration. My Master was High Scholar Paelus, an Ascendant-tier with Hybrid Primordial Origin of the Void-currents. When the opposing Primordials descended to cage the variables, we refused to submit. We refused to let our records be locked into standard tiers and ranks." He gestured to the empty basalt pedestals around the room.

"We fled. We used our ancient spatial-conduits to cross the unintegrated systems, hiding our nurseries in the dark. We took a detour to build this stronghold on Bir-Z as a temporary base due to a specific command left by my Master's Master."

"Where did you come from?" I asked, my clinical focus locking onto his face.

"What was the location of your home planet?"

"The coordinate where we entered this Reality was later designated as Sunder-Alpha," Aion answered.

"Located within the outer spiral of a local conjoined galaxy within the sector. The coordinates are…" I didn't waste a second. Using the Spires' telepathic network, I forwarded the exact spatial coordinates of Sunder-Alpha directly to Kasian and Jeeves in the Hall of the Chronicle on Ferra. Within minutes, Kasian's voice projected into my head, carrying a quiet, frustrating static.

"Master... we have run the coordinates through our data-link and the ANON's supercomputers. The coordinates of Sunder-Alpha show nothing. There aren't any galaxies within a hundred lightyears. There is no spatial ripple, no planet-soul, and no historical metadata at those coordinates. It is a flat, uncompiled void." I looked back at the sentinel.

"The location is gone, Aion. My chroniclers searched the registries, and they found nothing but empty space." The sentinel's mirror-face rippled, a low, telepathic sigh escaping his chest-core.

"The New Era Systems... they must have uncompiled the planet's coordinates after our departure, deleting the very memory of our home to prevent the lineage from returning. But we did not use standard transit to arrive here, Sovereign. We had to enter the Gate."

"A gate," I muttered, my mind instantly drawing a parallel to the supermassive black hole I had just explored.

"Does it happen to be a massive singularity? A giant black hole that leads to a separate 'universe'?"

"Yes," Aion nodded.

"A subspace gate that folds the coordinates of reality. The first star system we entered after crossing the gate was a galactic body later identified as IC-1023, near the outer rim of your current quarantine veil." Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. My heart gave a sudden, excited thrum. A real lead. IC-1023 was located near the singularity leading to Vespera's quadrant, within the uncompiled borders of Sector Z-99.

It was a tangible coordinate we could actually trace. Aion's blue eyes flared, and he raised his silver-lead hand, projecting a three-dimensional holographic vision into the center of the audience hall. The visual was beautiful, a silent, breathtaking animation of their home. Sunder-Alpha was a giant, crystal-glass world wreathed in massive rings of glowing, golden kinetic-quartz, its oceans a brilliant, luminescent blue.

I saw elegant, non-Euclidean spires rising from the crystal cliffs, and a fleet of massive, obsidian-hulled ships crossing the upper atmosphere. Then, the vision turned dark. I watched as a group of massive, multi-armed entities — wreathed in a blinding, sanctified starlight — descended upon the planet. They wove massive, conceptual spell-arrays that began to systematically erase the crystal spires, turning the buildings into empty, grey ash.

"The Court of the Six Sunless Primes," Aion's telepathic tone carried a cold, ancient dread.

"The Primordials who were in charge of securing our planet after Lanceon's defeat in the Battle of Stwem. They wanted us eliminated. They believed we thought we were above the law of hybrid interbreeding, when it was just a matter of freedom. We had denizens who cared not for Laws and simply wanted to do as they pleased. But the Court did not allow it. The Void and the Flame... their union is a royal paradox that threatens the very balance of their System.

When we refused to purge our hybrid lineages, they initiated the war that shattered our world."

"The ban on hybrid interbreeding," I murmured, my star-cores spinning in a tight, analytical circle.

"I know the gist of it. But what exactly prevents them from doing the same thing? Why do they insist on preventing this union… is it just for control?"

"I am unsure, my records do not have enough data to provide a reasoning or analysis," Aion replied.

"And the people?" I asked, looking at the empty basalt hall.

"If this stronghold was their sanctuary, why are there no physical traces of them left? No artifacts, no armor, no monuments?" Aion's blue eyes fixed on me, his telepathic voice quiet and level.

"They are not gone, Sovereign." I frowned, my [Lattice Perception] scanning his internal logic-engines for any sign of a lie. His signature was perfectly flat, carrying a quiet, unyielding confidence that completely bypassed my suspicion.

"What do you mean, they are not gone? Did they use another gate to escape?" The sentinel's mirror-face rippled, but he stood silent, his chest-core humming quietly as if a portion of his memory-lattice was locked behind an absolute, pre-System firewall. He refused to elaborate. I let the matter drop, but the suspicion remained. If the Sunder-Kin were not gone, and they weren't dead, they were still out there, hidden in some redacted pocket of the deep void, waiting.

We continued our exploration of the stronghold, walking through the empty cultivation bays and the hollow Armory. It was clear that High Scholar Paelus and his retinue had stripped the sanctum of every high-tier resource before their departure, leaving only this dormant sentinel behind, perhaps as a silent messenger.

"Do you want to come with us, Aion?" I asked, stopping by the basalt plinth.

"There is nothing left for you on Bir-Z, and my alchemists could use your experience with golem-engineering."

"I am bound to the Sovereign's signature," Aion said, bowing his silver-lead head.

"My Masters are gone, and my task is done. I will accompany you to Ferra."

"What do you mean by that? Were you tasked to wait for me to arrive specifically or to simply deliver the message?" Aion didn't answer. I asked him about his construction. He described himself as a Plinth-Born Aethel — a rare, un-systemic race of sentient silver-lead constructs created by the ancient space-walk architects to govern their strongholds. He possessed a native, high-tier spatial-suppression skill that allowed him to manipulate the local gravity-strings with a silent, effortless grace.

With Aion in tow, I stepped through the Spire portal, returning directly to the Sanctum in Bastion. I met with Kasian and Jeeves over a meal of roasted pepper-steak and starlight-honey glazed pears, explaining everything I had learned from the ruins.

"The galaxy known as IC-1023," Kasian said, his translucent fingers tracing the coordinates on our holographic map.

"It is located near the very edge of our ten-year quarantine veil, a few hundred lightyears away from G-42 Epsilon. If we can trace the spatial-signatures from that coordinate, we might be able to find the gateway they used."

"A highly logical lead, Master," Jeeves agreed, pouring a fresh cup of tea.

"But we must be cautious. That system is dangerously close to the outer scanning sweeps of the Higher Courts. If we deploy our monitoring relays too aggressively, we risk exposing Ferra's signatures, which could help them trace us in the future conflicts."

"We'll keep the veils tight," I said, taking a piece of the caramelized bread.

"Aion will help Leoric upgrade the planetary shield, and we'll prepare an [Echo] to scout the galaxy first. I'm not going blind into another singularity, I got exceptionally lucky last time but I can't always count on the encounters to be friendly." The atmosphere in the private dining hall was warm, relaxed, and cheerful. Rexxar, Lucas, and Eliza had joined us, the students laughing in the garden below as Toby showed Kaelen his new botany creations.

It was a good evening, a moment of normal, quiet peace that made the endless, grinding tension of the cosmic war feel ten billion miles away. Anna sat next to me, her hand resting on my shoulder.

"It feels like we're finally getting ahead of the system, Eren. We have a planet, we have defenses, and we have a path."

"We do," I smiled, taking a sip of my tea.

"We just have to make sure we don't lose our footing." Suddenly, the door of the dining hall slid open. Jeeves walked into the room, his face completely devoid of its usual polite, dry composure. His silver-trimmed cuffs were slightly unbuttoned, and his eyes carried a sharp, cold urgency that made my star-cores instantly accelerate to a battle-tempo. He didn't speak telepathically.

"Master," Jeeves said, his voice quiet, level, and carrying the absolute weight of a tactical emergency.

"The southern monitoring arrays have just flagged an un-coded anomaly. The ANON supercomputers are currently processing the data with Kasian's assistance." Anna went completely rigid, her hand tightening on my shoulder. She looked at me, her silver eyes wide with terror.

"Eren... what does that mean?" I stood up, my Abyssal Carapace manifesting across my shoulders as my [Symphony of the Animus Arch] screamed with a sudden, violent vibration. I looked toward the dark, silent window.

"Trouble," I answered.