Chapter 2401: The first

One Week Later -- Mid Sector 98 -- Spill Galaxy

Kshhh

The communication devices aboard the spacecraft began crackling and trembling with barely contained excitement, the restless static spreading from vessel to vessel as though the entire formation itself had begun reacting to what was about to be announced.

Kshh— Kshhhh—

"Ladies and gentlemen, followers of the Expanding True Beginning Empire..."

Aro’s voice exploded into the ears of every officer, every soldier, and every admiral throughout the enormous fleet, reaching every corner of the advancing armadas at virtually the same moment.

"...We have won."

Dooooom!

The massive Note armada, around 140 fleets still remaining after everything they had endured, all unleashed celebratory volleys into the emptiness of space as they continued advancing in a carefully calculated spherical formation with a tightly maintained defensive array, their attacks illuminating the surrounding darkness in celebration... Yet even after victory had been officially declared, not a single one of them lowered their guard or abandoned their assigned position.

Not even Renara—

Baa!

Renara landed firmly on the surface of the Spell Planet with her brows tightly furrowed, gripping her spear closely and securely in her hand as though she were afraid that even loosening her hold for a moment might somehow cause her to lose it.

StepStep

With her usual magnificence and grace, Renara began walking forward at an unhurried pace, her nine tails swaying and playing behind her back with every step she took.

Everywhere she turned her gaze, there were hundreds upon hundreds of people fallen to their knees, women and men, children and slaves, humans and otherwise... everyone was down on their knees and palms, keeping themselves lowered before the victorious invaders.

Everyone here had either personally seen or at least heard about Renara’s overwhelming strength and everything she had done to the galaxy’s defenses throughout the past few weeks, and after everything that had happened, not a single person among them wanted to be the one who tested her any further.

And besides... if any one of them dared raise their eyes toward the sky, they would immediately see thousands upon thousands of warships gleaming ominously in the surrounding space... The war was already over, and the Seed had been completely surrounded. Those vessels could rain attacks upon the planet and reduce it to destruction with nothing more than a single signal from the horned Marshal, Aro!

"...." Renara stopped after taking several more steps, her eyes sweeping across the kneeling figures around her before she suddenly called out in a loud voice that carried across the surroundings, "Zargul!!"

"....."

"Zargul, you cowardly bastard, here I am standing right in the heart of your own home!" Renara brandished her spear with a serious expression, making her challenge perfectly clear. "Come out and face me. Come out and bring whatever sons you still have left with you. I’ll deal with every last one of you by myself, right here in the heart of your own planet!"

"....."

Renara began releasing her spiritual sense randomly in every direction, sweeping it through the surroundings again and again as her irritation steadily increased with every moment that passed without receiving any response.

She had deliberately advanced rationally and with strict discipline alongside the army throughout the entire campaign so that she would not leave Zargul and his sons even the slightest opportunity to destroy it, and despite all those precautions and the careful nature of their advance, more than 50 fleets had still been destroyed in total.

Now that she had finally reached the very heart of the galaxy after all of that, she had been waiting for what should have been the greatest test of her newfound strength, the Sorcerer Behemoth himself supported by the power of the Galaxy Seed... yet he hadn’t appeared at all!

The mere thought that he had remained hidden and waited until the planet was completely surrounded was strange enough on its own. Those vessels surrounding the planet could destroy it and severely weaken him if a major battle broke out here, so everyone remained highly alert and prepared for anything in case some sort of trap had been secretly arranged and was merely waiting for them to lower their guard...

But apparently, there was nothing!!

"...You there." Renara finally pointed toward someone nearby after finding nothing with her spiritual sense. "Where is your master?"

"M-My Lady..." One of the people dressed in royal attire stammered nervously as he answered her, "That filthy father called Zargul hasn’t appeared for eight whole days. He must have fled."

"Fled?!" Renara shouted in disbelief, her expression immediately changing. "How could he flee and simply leave his refined planet completely exposed to attack?!"

Of course, the idea of Zargul simply changing the planet’s coordinates and escaping together with it was something that could not even be seriously considered.

First, the Galaxy Spirit would revert to being nothing more than an ordinary Planet Spirit if that happened and it left its established position. Second, even if he changed the planet’s location, it would still remain somewhere within the same sector and would inevitably be found again sooner or later. Third, only he himself could change the coordinates and move the planet, which meant that he would have to remain permanently tied to it, repeatedly jumping with the entire planet from one set of coordinates to another every single time they managed to locate him again, and doing something like that would drag his reputation through the dirt if he actually chose to live that way.

There were only two choices available to him...

Stay where he was, make full use of the Galaxy Spirit’s power, and defend everything he had built.

Or abandon everything behind, flee on his own, and endure whatever consequences followed from that decision.

Could he really have chosen the second option?!

"What exactly is that person trying to do..." Renara furrowed her brows deeply, her irritation and confusion becoming increasingly obvious on her face. Then she floated into the air and, without wasting another moment standing there wondering about it, shot off with a powerful Bam! toward the imperial palace.

Whoosh—Bam!

Renara pierced straight through the suspended dome of the palace without bothering to search for an entrance and entered the hall that looked as though it had been fashioned entirely from dense, dark clouds. She immediately headed toward the throne without slowing down... and sat down upon it as though she had already claimed the place for herself.

Then she placed both hands firmly on the throne’s armrests and began looking around challengingly, her eyes carefully sweeping across every part of the strange hall while she waited for anything unusual to reveal itself.

If there was any final trap left behind for her, then this should be the place where it would appear.

"..." After a full minute passed in complete silence without anything happening, Renara’s expression grew noticeably more irritated. "That bastard really abandoned our fight and ran away?! Tsk..."

Then she looked around the hall once more and snapped her fingers. "Show yourself. Don’t force me to personally visit you inside your domain, or our meeting won’t be nearly as pleasant for you."

Whoosh

The air surrounding Renara immediately began condensing and gathering together, becoming increasingly substantial until it gradually took the shape of a strange-looking woman who appeared to be in her thirties.

She wore loose gray garments that widened toward the bottom, while both of her hands remained clasped neatly in front of her navel. Almost nothing of her face could be seen except for a small black mouth surrounded by gray skin, while her eyes were completely covered by two identical sheets that resembled gloomy talismans.

"Where is your master?" Renara immediately recognized exactly what the being standing before her was and went straight to the question she wanted answered.

"He left and took his remaining eldest sons with him. I heard him speaking about seeking refuge with the Syndicate," the Galaxy Soul replied calmly and directly, showing no intention of hiding anything from her.

"How?!" Renara shot to her feet in agitation upon hearing that answer. "We didn’t detect him at the Grand Space Portal!"

"..." The Galaxy Spirit merely raised her shoulders in a shrug, offering no further explanation.

"Tsk." Renara clicked her tongue and took two steps to the side, still processing what she had just heard before asking another question. "Did he abandon you?"

"No. Zargul the Sorcerer is still my master," the Galaxy Soul replied directly, without even pausing to consider her answer.

"Interesting..." Instead of becoming annoyed by that response, Renara’s expression changed and a broad smile appeared on her face. "Show me your core. I’ll refine you for myself."

Hooom

The Galaxy Soul brought out a dark, spherical object, and the strange object slowly began floating in the space separating her from Renara.

From behind that dark sphere, the Galaxy Soul’s calm voice sounded once again, still carrying the same steady tone as before. "I warn you before you begin. My master abandoned it because he knows that no one can destroy his imprint. He is a ten-star Royal Soul Master, after all."

In truth, this was one of the strongest reasons why a ten-star Royal Spirit Master was granted the title of Behemoth in the first place. Even if there happened to be some extraordinarily powerful Monarch capable of somehow defeating him in direct combat and forcing him away from his own territory, that Monarch still couldn’t simply erase his ownership and wrest the galaxy away from him!!

"A ten-star Royal Soul Master?" Renara smiled without the slightest trace of fear and slowly extended her arm toward the floating core, while the five-pointed golden seal appeared upon her forehead and began rotating steadily. "We’ll see about that."

----------------------------

Mid Sector 750—

"Damn it!" Zargul suddenly kicked one of the chairs inside his small room with enough force to smash it apart, sending the broken pieces scattering away from him.

"Calm down, Father. Things aren’t that bad!" One of the fifteen sons gathered inside the cramped room hurriedly spoke up, although the gloomy expressions covering every one of their faces and their lowered gazes hardly supported the reassurance in his words.

"Not that bad? Butcher Marlik doesn’t even want to meet me! We met with a single member of his entourage, and then they simply left us here. They think we’re useless now!" Zargul turned his gaze away, his eyes gleaming intensely with resentment as he struggled to contain his anger. "But it’s fine. It’s fine..."

Then a smile slowly appeared on his face as though he had finally found something solid enough to reassure himself with. "My galaxy will remain mine. No one will be able to touch it until I return victorious. Just wait, Robin Burton. Wait for the day when— ...? GhyAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"