Chương 1198: 1228 - Dead Fortress

Almost immediately upon exiting the portal back into the Void, Leon's small force turned and began powering up their jump drives. Leon could sense the magic building within them, but what he found fascinating was a similar thing happening with Archelaus, who was still outside of the arks riding his clockwork octagon. Beneath the glossy surface of the octagon, thousands of rune-inscribed gears turned and turned, constantly making new glyphs and enchantments with every click.

As they settled, light, lightning, and darkness gathered around the Despot, and with a cheeky grin sent Storm Herald's way, a black portal outlined in dark blue appeared around him, obscuring him from view. A moment later, the portal vanished, leaving the space Archelaus had once occupied empty. Leon stared and did his best not to salivate. The Leonine Drives in the ancient Thunderbird arks were powerful and charged quickly, but the speed with which Archelaus had jumped was extreme.

It would take a quarter-hour for Leon's task force to follow, and after that, hours more to recalibrate and recharge—and that was without relying on the less advanced Nestorian Drives in the newer arks that often spat those arks out over a wide area, necessitating long stretches of time waiting for those arks to form back up.

That shouldn't be a problem for the ancient arks, but they were jumping a greater distance than they had ever jumped before—at least, so long as Leon had possessed them—and that meant that nothing was certain.

It would take four jumps over two days to reach the first meeting point with Archelaus, but Leon was confident that after years spent operating these arks, jumping constantly from the Nexus to Aeterna and back again, as well as the campaigns just recently prosecuted, the ark crews would see them through this journey easily and efficiently. And if the universe conspired against them to deny an uneventful journey, then Leon would take the lead in ruining whatever instrument the universe had used to ruin their day.

When the drives finished charging, black and blue portals opened for all four ancient Thunderbird arks, and through them, they flew. Seconds later, they were spat back out into the Void, nearly an uncountable number of miles away from the Nexus. Leon immediately projected his magic senses, noting first that none of his arks had drifted more than a few feet out of formation, once again not only speaking volumes about the Leonine Drives but also about his people's piloting abilities.

He noted second that Archelaus was doing lazy flips over the surface of his octagon about five hundred feet from Storm Herald's prow. As they appeared, he paused just long enough to wave and jump around a bit, showing that his octagon not only had jump capabilities but also some kind of gravity enchantment, too.

'I need to take a look at that thing,' Leon thought. That would have to wait, however, as the group had to confirm their location and prepare for the next jump. So, he relaxed with his family and settled in for the next couple days…

The technical mastery on display still blew his mind even months after swearing himself to Leon Raime. Such artistry in ark design left him speechless no matter how many times he walked the halls of Storm Herald —and while he knew that Leon's Kingdom hadn't built it, it did exist, it was built, it was not a fantasy made up by a self-aggrandizing tyrant. Daryun shook his head in abject amazement, as he'd done many times already.

'The Lord Reaver went up against this?!' All the arksmiths of Kesk— Demetrion, as he reminded himself—couldn't build something so magnificent even if they had ten thousand years and unlimited resources. Their arks were cramped things, difficult to run, and dreadfully expensive to maintain. For Leon Raime to command such power… Daryun couldn't say that he had yet to regret his choice in swearing his allegiance. His eyes found his new King easily once he entered the observation deck.

He stood at the far end, calmly watching space ripple and bend to the ark's whims. His presence was unmistakable even when he retracted his aura. Part of that was surely the near-worship of many of those in his Kingdom, but Daryun had to admit that Leon Raime commanded a room better than many Lords he'd known in his time. He nodded in solidarity with Zhang as he walked in, and the man nodded back. Unlike the other three Paladins in their ranks, they had no retainers.

Anna, Alix, and Anzu all had contacts and the loyalty of many, while Zhang had been a 'mere' bodyguard, and all of Daryun's people had been killed—by his new King, no less. For a moment, his stomach plummeted to his feet as his heart skipped a beat. Reminders of what he'd lost always elicited the same reaction. But he'd made his choices, and he would stand by them.

"How much longer?" he asked Zhang in the strange tongue of the Nexus.

"Seconds," the man said, his plate shining in the light of the observation deck. They hadn't gotten around to 'Adamant' armor, as Leon Raime had made for many of his friends and warriors, but they'd already drawn quite a bit of blood in preparation for doing so. As a result, he and Zhang were relying on arms and armor that, while extremely high quality, were not quite on par with the gear wielded by Alix, Anna, or Anzu.

Daryun grunted in acknowledgment of the other man's terse reply and took up a position in the back, both close to the door and so that he could easily keep track of the couple dozen people on the deck. He didn't expect anything was going to happen, but the place they were about to jump to was apparently populated, and he wanted to be on guard before then. The final jump of this leg of their journey, as Daryun understood it, would bring them to a large Void Fortress relatively close to the Nexus.

There were certain points on the Nexus where its surface of boiling, raging, churning Lumenite would for seemingly no reason jet into the Void. Just looking at the surface, it appeared arbitrary where these jets were, but taking a more magical inspection would reveal the churning of magic and origin power within the Nexus created currents and eddies that often ejected oceans of magic power into the Void every second. The Lumenite surface of the Nexus followed these currents, but it didn't cause them.

The Void Fortress they were journeying towards was in the path of one of these jets of magic—a smaller one, as the lazy Despot had told them. The fortress guarded a piece of universal infrastructure apparently built millions of years ago: a ring-shaped structure so large that five Storm Heralds could line up nose to butt and the ring's diameter would still be longer.

The vast river of magic that shot through the Void—mostly to dissipate into the universe and become part of the background magic that the universe was soaked in—powered the ring, allowing it to create long spatial tunnels that facilitated travel to and from the Nexus, taking some strain off the ark engines that would normally sustain such travel. Daryun couldn't even comprehend something so powerful. Just the idea of spatial magic had his head hurting, and the amount of magic involved terrified him to his core.

He was almost thankful when the lazy Despot said that there were likely less than two hundred of these rings spread throughout the entirety of the universe given the sheer power involved in operating them. It was a choice between building one in favorable 'terrain', as this station was, or permanently stationing a thirteenth-tier mage within to constantly charge the thing's crystals for use. Both options were restrictive, and that wasn't even factoring in the immense cost of building even a small transporter ring.

However, while Daryun had been horrified by this information, the sheer scale of magic and resources involved ringing his head like a bell, his King had reacted with almost childlike glee, though Daryun couldn't say why. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. In front of their task force, space rippled as another jump portal formed.

Leon Raime stiffened in anticipation, a smile spreading across his face as he stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. He cut a fine image for a King, even if he didn't cover himself in gold and jewels. His attitude spread through the rest of the observation deck, with everyone standing and moving to the 'windows' to watch. The transition through the jump portal was mercifully quick, though Daryun had to close his eyes and swallow, lest his lunch rebel in violent fashion.

Gasps, especially from the less-martially inclined of those on the deck had his eyes springing open and his magic momentarily gusting through his body. He almost seized at what he saw. The fortress and the ring were expected, their immense size seeming almost comically small given the vast distance between the task force and them. What had been less expected was a cloud of debris surrounding both, and the signs of obvious battle damage marring their surfaces.

'Someone attacked this place,' he immediately concluded. His King, showing respectable initiative, immediately began shouting orders.

"Deploy one-entity elements! Spread out and prepare for battle! Paladins, with me!" He turned and almost darted out of the observation deck, but was stalled momentarily by his wives. Daryun sighed for a moment as three of them pleaded with the King to come with.

'No, no, deny them,' he thought, not wanting to complicate the situation further. Unfortunately, all but the redhead—Elise, he recalled her name to be—were allowed to join them. He silently cursed in his mother tongue, not wanting to keep track of so many VIPs. He could see his worry reflected in Zhang's eyes, but the other man whispered, "They're post-Apotheosis." Daryun sighed through his nose, knowing the other man to be right—they didn't need protection from the Paladins, but that didn't stop his worry.

As their King bolted past them, making for the primary hangar, so too did three of the Queens, their three fellow Paladins, and their small entourages. Daryun and Zhang fell in behind them, instinctively covering the rear of their loose formation. When they reached the hangar minutes later, alarms were blaring through the ark and many of the fighters, Ulta suits, and giants had already deployed into the Void.

The numbers weren't as large as they would be with supercarriers, but they covered the four arks well enough and made sure there were eyes turned in every direction to prevent an ambush. The Void around the fortress was largely empty, though. There was a bit of unnatural light from the dissipating Lumenite blasted off the Nexus' surface, but at the distance they were at, there was nothing more than some hazy light harshly coating everything in the area.

"All right!" Leon shouted as they reached the hangar.

"Get to your transports! Looks like at least ten heavy cruiser-sized arks were destroyed out there, and whatever broke them may still be out here!" Daryun wasn't so sure, but he agreed with the caution. There were no fires in the debris field, and it was somewhat dispersed into a loose cloud. The destruction here was relatively recent since the debris hadn't yet been blasted into the Void, but it also hadn't happened yesterday.

He and Zhang donned their Void-resistant armor and entered adjacent transport arks set aside for Paladin usage. Anzu, Anna, and Alix's retainers followed them in, but the other Paladins would be using their Ulta suits instead. Daryun was mildly jealous, but his Ulta suit training was still ongoing; Daryun personally found the necessary use of cloud glass to be off-putting and disorienting.

He felt another pang of motivating jealousy as Leon Raime shot straight into the Void after donning his armor, joining several others that Daryun had become somewhat acquainted with over the past few months, and more transports and Ulta suits began joining them in the black, including the three Queens in Ulta suits of their own. Daryun and Zhang's transports had skilled pilots, but the transports themselves were rather cramped and dark without too many windows—even of the projected variety.

Still, Daryun was able to use his magic senses to watch Leon and the other post-Apotheosis mages in the task force link up with the lazy Despot, who was looking marginally less lazy now. The man stood on his strange octagon thing, his hands behind his back, his aura rippling like a hurricane, and his eyes shining like furious stars. Whatever he and Leon said to each other had the King frowning at the debris field.

He pulled out a comm slate and with a few quick rune activations, he was able to mentally speak to the entire task force, his voice ringing out from sound enchantments in every ark, suit, and giant shell.

"We're moving in. Keep wide spacing and watch out for inhuman enemies. Especially watch out for signs of fire magic." Daryun's eyes narrowed, concern flickering through his head. He focused on the two twelfth-tier mages as they powered ahead, the rest of their forces following close behind. The arks kept at a safer distance with most of the single-entity elements left behind to protect them, but dozens of fighters, Ultas, and giants still accompanied the transports in pursuit of their King.

As they closed with the debris field, Daryun started to understand Leon's order: he could see that much of the metal plating on the destroyed arks had been scored and blackened by heat, and there were many signs of melting. The smallest pieces of debris were round pieces of melted metal which had mostly managed to cool out in the Void, their heat taken by the current of magic and dispersed Lumenite flowing through this space.

Shadows seemed to jump out at the transport due to the hazy light, and Daryun almost saw imminent fire attacks every time a piece of metal caught the distant Nexus' light just right. He had to rely on his magic senses, but due to the magical runoff, it was almost like flying through a cloud.

The tension only ratcheted upward as they pushed through the denser parts of the debris field and emerged into the cloud's center, where the box-shaped Void Fortress lay, the ring-shaped teleporter half a mile distant—practically a stone's throw by universal standards.

"By my Ancestors," one of Alix's knights whispered from behind, the eighth-tier mage's head swinging around as he tried to take everything in with his more limited magic senses.

"How many arks were here?" Another knight responded, "Those ten bigger wrecks didn't make all of this debris. There's enough broken tonnage out there for an order of magnitude more than just them…" Daryun's lips turned downward as his magic spiked. A fleet equal to one hundred heavy cruisers in tonnage was a powerful force, especially by his standards. Such a force grouping would've easily wrecked Imak's comparatively weak fleet quite easily in a straight fight. And that force seems to have been defeated.

"Not a lot of debris further out," another knight pointed out.

"Unlikely these were all on the same side."

"I'm seeing some similar design patterns," a fourth said.

"I'd put a month's pay on at least three-quarters of these broken arks to have been on the same side."

"Quiet," Daryun finally growled, silencing the growing speculation in the transport.

"Wait for orders." He could feel their eyes boring into him, but they at least followed his order despite their allegiance belonging to another Paladin. Fortunately, he didn't have to endure for too long before their King's voice again rang throughout the transport.

"Make for the fortress. We'll make ingress at different points…" Leon began to order them into defined teams, some led by Paladins, others by the post-Apotheosis mages accompanying their King. Daryun and Alix were put together and followed a flare fired by their King to one of the larger rents in the fortress' hull, through which a light cruiser could've easily flown. Alix's Ulta suit joined Daryun's transport, and they cautiously approached their ingress point.

Daryun had to stifle a gasp of both horror and appreciation at the sight he beheld: whatever attack had created this massive metal canyon—a fire strike, if the melted edges of the hull breach were anything to go by—had shorn through multiple decks. Through the transport's sound enchantments, Alix asked, "Anyone see any bodies?"

Daryun blinked before silently cursing himself for not having realized until now: for all the debris and damage, there wasn't so much as a drop of blood out in the black as far as he could tell. Whether that was because human remains were easier to blast out into the Void or because of something more nefarious, he couldn't say.

"No, ma'am," the transport pilot immediately reported, the fifth-tier's steady demeanor almost causing Daryun's cheeks to burn with embarrassment.

'She's keeping remarkably steady…' he chided himself with a brief glance at the pilot.

"How about power?" Alix further asked.

"Any sign of a way to a… an engineering room or something? Any way to access this cube's primary systems?" Magic senses bathed the jagged canyon, everyone who could scanning what they could to find any sign of power in the fortress.

"I'm picking up nothing," the pilot reported, her control console showing no special readings on the transport's sensor suite if Daryun read it properly.

"Nothing from me, either," Daryun said as the pilot glanced back at him, the silent question in her eyes prompting his statement. Indeed, he couldn't sense anything active down in the broken decks—the fortress seemed utterly dead, with no signs of any kind of life down there to be seen. Daryun thought he heard the ghost of a curse from Alix right before she said, "All right. I'm heading in. Follow at a distance of at least forty feet. I'll see if I can find any way to access intact compartments…"

As the pilot acknowledged Alix's order, Daryun shuddered at the thought of transferring from the transport into the fortress. But he stifled that part of him; his duty now was to secure what remained of this fortress and to maybe, just maybe, find out what happened here…