Chương 404: The Core-Sink

The jasmine-scented air of the high garden seemed to freeze, the low, deep pulsing of Freonim-Prime's core-sink the only sound remaining in the twilight of the planetary rings. The Arch-Chord sat straight, her bottomless black eyes locked onto mine with a solemn, unyielding authority.

"Our lineage," she began, her smooth, telepathic voice carrying the ancient, slow weight of three thousand cycles of history.

"We were initially part of the high cohort of Primordials — the ones who compiled the first rules of the Systems and waged the purges against the hybrid bloodlines. We believed in the absolute preservation of the Great Laws, and we believed that the unions, such as those of Time and Void, were an un-restrained plague that had to be erased from the cosmos." She looked down at her frail, bone-white hands.

"But our greatest ancestor — the First Progenitor — fell in love with an enemy combatant. She was a hybrid of the Sunder-Kin, a woman wreathed in a silent, beautiful Time-affinity. During the early skirmishes of the uncompiled sectors, the Progenitor's flagship was ambushed and defeated. He was left for dead on a broken ice-rock near the rim of the galaxy. She found him. Instead of ensuring his demise, she took care of him, healed his shattered channels, and helped his star-cores recover.

Ever since that day, he loved her." A soft, nostalgic warmth flared behind her horizontal visor.

"But it was absolute Law. She was a hybrid, part of the very faction he had sworn a solemn, blood-bound oath to the Court to destroy. For cycles, the Progenitor fought his own heart. He tried to ignore her frequency, and tried to return to his duties as an Executioner. But the draw was too strong. He reneged on his oath to the High Court, betrayed his own cohort, and used his spatial-authority to help her and her people escape the first purges.

For his betrayal, he was branded a traitor, outcasted by his own people, and disowned by his heritage."

"And they built a home," I noted, my star-cores spinning in a quiet, analytical circle.

"Yes," she clicked weakly.

"They fled into the uncompiled, redacted sectors of Z-99, and together, they created hybrid offspring. But the High Court does not forget a betrayal. When one of their children — a young, unascended girl — was targeted by a squad of hired, faceless assassins, the Progenitor and his wife were distraught. Led by their emotions, they pursued the assassins into the deep rifts, seeking swift, violent revenge." She closed her eyes, her telepathic tone dropping to a low, trembling whisper.

"It was an elaborate, cold trap. The assassination was a mere distraction. While they were hunting the rifts, a colossal fleet of the Court's dreadnoughts ambushed their little home planet, turning their cities to grey ash and systematically slaughtering their entire line. The Progenitor and his wife returned to find a dead rock. In the skirmish that followed, they were both critically injured, her spatial channels shattered. She was placed on the very verge of death, her essence slowly returning to the Wheel."

"So he built the siphons," I murmured.

"He built this world, Freonim-Prime, as a sanctuary," she nodded.

"And he designed the un-systemic spatial funnels to drill into the cores of the surrounding seed-planets, systematically siphoning their raw Essence purely to generate the massive, healing energy needed to stabilize her soul gate. But... it wasn't enough. Despite his calculations, despite the billions of tons of Essence he poured into her channels... she still died." A cold, dangerous anger rippled through her telepathic signature.

"Devastated, the Progenitor vowed an absolute, cosmic revenge on his own original lineage — the Court of the Six Sunless Primes. He expanded the spatial funnels, systematically siphoning the essence of millions of planets to accumulate an astronomical, unfathomable reservoir of power. His goal was to construct a massive, space-shearing weapon — a conceptual bomb of uncompiled entropy — that could erase his entire original heritage from the universe's history."

She leaned forward, her bottomless black eyes locking onto mine with an absolute, terrifying conviction.

"You carry the exact same uncompiled, scarred prism on your soul gate, young prince," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

"The geometry of your essence... it is an exact, mirrored copy of his own. You may not remember the uncompiled ink, Progenitor... but your star-cores cycle with the exact same uncompiled frequency. I... I believe you are his rebirth, returned to us after eons in the dark." A cold shock spiked through my chest. Rebirth, I thought, my mind racing through the calculations. Is it really possible?

Did my soul-gate carry the uncompiled memories and scars of the First Progenitor through the Wheel, eventually spitting my essence into the body of an Earth-born human? It sounded like a massive, wild delusion. But as I looked at the ancient, unpolished copper-and-lead sigil she held, I had to admit the geometry was an identical match. My soul-scars weren't just similar; they were an exact conceptual blueprint of the First Progenitor's gate. It was a vague possibility that left me somewhat conflicted.

I didn't feel like a dead god hellbent on revenge. I felt like Eren Kai, and my memories confirmed my belief, regardless of the accuracy of what my Soul had previously inhabited. But if the woman wanted to believe that I am a reincarnation of her Progenitor, then it'd be foolish of me to stop her. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I am still preparing my star-cores for the transition as I am told Ascendancy would require massive amounts of energy for my foundation," I told her, keeping my voice level and calm.

"I am not saying I will fulfill whatever mission you believe I was sent for, but I do want to see how much you have gathered." The old woman smiled — a thin, graceful curve of her lips. She stood up, her silver-trimmed black robes rustling, and led me deep into the basalt foundations of the central palace spire. The planetary vault was located in a massive, gravity-shielded basalt geode at the superplanet's core.

When the vault doors slid open, my perception arrays were completely, utterly blinded by the sheer, impossible volume of the light. I thought I had been unfathomably rich, being a Sovereign who had accumulated unimaginable wealth Ascendant God-kings would envy. But I stood absolutely, speechlessly stunned looking at the display. The core-sink wasn't filled with standard, system-coded shards. It was a massive, planetary-scale liquid sea of pure, uncompiled, and highly volatile gold-and-violet mana.

The liquid was churning, vibrating with enough explosive-like potential to physically shear a hundred solar systems out of existence if the containment field failed. It was an unfathomably absurd amount of wealth and raw power that put my entire personal collection to absolute, hilarious shame.

"It is ready," the Arch-Chord whispered, her hand resting on the basalt control rail.

"The weapon is compiled. We only wait for your command to release the coordinates."

"Keep it secure," I said, keeping my posture relaxed and confident.

"I will return to claim it when my foundation is fully stabilized. Do not let the funnels stop."

"As you command," she bowed her head. I exited the palace, engaging [Void Emperor's Omnipresence] to translate my coordinates back to the barren moon where Nyx and Aion were waiting.

"It's absurd," I told them, leaning my back against a crater wall as the violet-amethyst rings of the planet pulsed in the dark.

"The old woman thinks I'm the rebirth of her ancestor, the First Progenitor. And she has stored enough volatile mana in that core to turn an entire sector into a flat plain of void-sand." Aion's blue-light eyes flared, his silver-lead frame silent.

"The Sunder-Kin history is consistent, Sovereign. My Master, Paelus, was a younger high scholar, a disciple who followed the uncompiled trail eons later. When he found Freonim-Prime, he met the previous Planetary Lord and realized these siphons were built by his own Progenitor's hands. That is why he stopped destroying them. He spared this world because he agreed with the ultimate purpose of the weapon."

"But it's a monstrous trade-off," I said, my teeth grinding.

"They are ravaging millions of planets, starving billions of innocent, newly integrated civilizations just to build a bomb against the Primordials. I've seen the dead, ash-covered worlds they've left behind, Aion. I've met the survivors who don't even remember why they are suffering. Creating a weapon on the bones of our neighbors is a game I don't want to play." I adjusted the collar of my cloak, my voice dropping.

"I'm not saying I will let the already collected Essence go to waste. But the moment I find a way to redirect those funnels... I am going to shut down their active siphoning process. And I will need to find a way to reverse the process beforehand to make sure the siphoned worlds can breathe again." We returned to Bastion, gathering the core squad in the Sanctum's private chamber.

I explained the old woman's delusion, the backstory of the Sunder-Kin betrayal, and the presence of the planetary-scale core-sink of volatile Essence. Anna sat quietly for several minutes, her silver eyes scanning the projected data charts with a sharp, calculating focus. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm, level, and entirely focused on risk-mitigation.

"Eren, we have to look at this from a strategic perspective," Anna said, leaning forward.

"Astraea's warning was explicit. She left a message specifically for your soul, telling you that at the end of this path, only pain awaits. You don't have this Progenitor's memories. You don't have his hatred. Fulfilling an ancient, dead man's revenge is a massive, unnecessary variable. We have a quarantined world to protect, and trying to execute a script that isn't even your own will is bad risk management."

"But the logic is incomplete, Lady Anna," Aion countered, his telepathic voice carrying a cold, ancient weight.

"The High Courts and the Primordials do not read intent; they compile signatures. The moment our quarantine veil drops, their scanning sweeps will register the geometry of the Progenitor upon Eren's soul gate. It is irrelevant whether it is true or not since the signature within his Soul will match their Records. They will assume he has returned to finish the war regardless of his memories. They will hunt him down to delete his coordinates.

Having this weapon — this absolute deterrent — is the only way to ensure they never dare to initiate a purge against Ferra."

"A deterrent is only effective if we can control the yield, Aion," Lucas noted, his brow furrowed.

"An impossible bomb of that scale... if it detonates incorrectly, the spatial backlash could trigger a systemic collapse that takes our entire sector down with it. We'd be risking the very family we've been trying to save."

"And yet, if we stand still with no weapon," Jeeves added, his tone dry and pragmatic, "we are merely waiting for a superior force to compile our end. An Emperor's estate is a highly useful asset, Master, whether you are the original owner or merely the recipient of a convenient administrative error. I suggest we secure the asset first, then decide how to allocate the variables." I sat in silence, my mind running through the infinite, branching equations of our future.

As I looked at the dark starlight of my hands, I was caught between two perfect, survival-oriented arguments. The upcoming systemic war was a shadow that wreathed us all in an absolute, suffocating tension, and the ink was drying fast.