Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1196 - 1196: Storms in the Far Reach

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A battleship sped through interstellar space at sub-relativistic speed, warping the space around it to reduce the distance it had to travel toward a destination several million light-years away.

Inside the battleship, thousands of gods, humans, and a few celestials moved about busily, handling tasks that ranged from weapon inspections to control room monitoring.

On an elevated platform behind a glass wall on the bridge, a white-haired goddess lounged sideways on her chair, her legs draped over one armrest while her head hung over the other, her hair spilling down onto the floor.

Not far from her was another goddess, a visibly older woman dressed in a simple black and white governess dress, and she gazed at the goddess sitting sideways on the couch and pouting as she asked,

“So, Beatrix? Mind explaining why you’ve been sulking for the past week?”

“Mallory’s been pissing me off a lot lately,” came the white-haired goddess’ quick reply, delivered as though she’d been waiting for the question.

Hearing that, the older goddess lifted her eyebrows in mild surprise.

“Artemisia’s capable of doing that? I always thought it was the other way around.”

Her words made Kirone sit upright immediately, giving her a deadpan stare.

“Haha, very funny, Aunt Mei.”

The older goddess, Mei, ignored the obvious sarcasm and continued speaking, “As far as I know, you’re the one who always does the silly things that piss Artemisia off, so you can’t expect me not be surprised when I hear she’s the one pissing you off this time.”

“Hey! Mallory can get pretty annoying sometimes, I’ll have you know!” were the words that came back from Kirone, and Mei simply shrugged in response.

“Well, obviously, I don’t know that side of her,” she said, which earned a proud smile from Kirone.

“Of course, you don’t. That side of hers is reserved for me alone!”

Kirone puffed out her chest as she said this, and Mei barely held back the urge to question why she looked so proud of it.

“But still,” Kirone said, her smile fading into a frown, “I understand why she was worried, considering the recent disappearances.

Sigesi’s brother was investigating them when he got caught, which drew Sigesi’s attention and eventually McEnda’s, too, and they’ve been missing for a while now.

But did she really have to be so harsh about it?!”

At that, Mei raised an eyebrow, glancing toward the hovering galactic map at the centre of the bridge as she asked,

“Wasn’t she harsh because she was worried about you and your son?”

“I know she was worried! But that doesn’t give her an excuse to say certain things!” Kirone shot back, her brows furrowed.

Sensing the genuine irritation coming off her, Mei couldn’t help showing her surprise at the current situation.

“I’m still trying to process the fact that you two can even have disagreements like this,” she said.

“Really? We’re going back to square one?” Kirone replied with narrowed eyes, sighing as she continued. “Even couples who’ve been married for thousands of years can have arguments, let alone Mallory and me.

We’ve argued about plenty of things, and this is just one more of those arguments.”

She shifted her posture and sat properly on the chair, resting her elbow on the armrest as she went on.

“No matter how close we are, Mallory and I are still fundamentally two different people. There are definitely things one of us does that the other isn’t 100% comfortable with, and talking about those things is a sign of a healthy relationship.”

“After arguing?” Mei cut in to ask.

“Arguments are just people exchanging angry words,” Kirone replied. “Technically, it’s still talking.”

Kirone’s sophistry made Mei roll her eyes, but reminding herself that she was meant to be mediating, she took a deep breath before asking,

“So, can you explain why you completely shut off all communications from her?”

That was the real reason she’d left her original post and travelled this far, to where Kirone was several million light-years away from the Orithyia galaxy.

After her argument with Mallory a week earlier, Kirone had cut off all contact with her, even blocking the telepathic link they used to communicate across vast distances.

“Well, obviously, it’s so she comes to me and apologises for her harsh words. What she said already got on my nerves, but then she went and made my Alverix sad!? Unforgivable!”

‘And there it is, the spark lighting the flame of her anger,’ Mei thought, finally identifying the missing piece she’d been looking for.

Knowing Kirone, a few harsh words spoken out of worry wouldn’t have been enough to make her react like this, so Mei had been sure there was something more.

That something was Kirone’s reverse scale.

‘Her son…’

Kirone’s son, whom she preferred to call ‘Alverix’ due to her habit of addressing those she loved most by their middle names, was her child with her Demon King husband, Alvey Sargon.

Naturally, no one outside a select few even knew that Kirone had a child.

It was known that Alverix was Alvey’s son and only half-demon, but the identity of the child’s mother remained ‘unknown’.

Kirone simply hadn’t revealed that fact because she didn’t have the peace of mind to deal with the inevitable headache that would come from both god and Demon Rulers once it came to light, especially during such turbulent times.

“You do know Artemisia’s currently investigating the disappearances of the Race Rulers your parents used to work with, right? Don’t you think she might be too busy to come all the way out here just to apologise to you?”

When Mei asked this, Kirone only shrugged before replying, “Well, then I just won’t say anything until she’s done and comes to apologise.”

Hearing that response, Mei nodded in understanding, crossing her arms as she spoke.

“I see. I understand the situation now.”

“You do?” Kirone asked, turning toward her.

“Yes,” Mei replied. “I understand that you’re throwing a tantrum like a child and blocking every avenue of the ‘communication’ you just spoke about.”

“Objection!” Kirone shot back immediately, and in response, Mei placed one hand on her waist and extended the other outward.

“Pray tell, what objections could you possibly have to my 100% accurate analysis?”

“She made my Alverix sad. NO ONE is allowed to make my Alverix sad! Not even Alvey!” Kirone snapped back instantly, her voice rising with each word.

The disagreement had started from Mallory’s concern for Kirone and her child’s safety, with one of her remarks affecting Alverix as well, and it had been the final straw that made Kirone snap.

‘This is troublesome. She’s extremely difficult to deal with when she gets like this, and even more so when her son is involved.’

The problem was that trying to use logic on Kirone in this state could very easily make things worse.

Still, Mei had to try.

“Mind if I ask,” she began, “what if Artemisia uncovers crucial information during her investigation that she needs to share with you urgently, but can’t because you’ve cut off every possible way for her to reach you?”

At this, Kirone’s brow twitched, and she quietly looked away, which clearly showed she’d considered the possibility and was choosing to be stubborn anyway.

Mei pressed her fingers to her temple with a sigh, thinking, ‘This is going to be a pain to deal with.’

But before Mei could continue, Kirone spoke.

“When we’re done…”

“Hmm?”

Mei was briefly confused since there was no context to those words, and Kirone, likely sensing that, clarified.

“After I vent my annoyance on the idiots we’re about to deal with, I’ll stop blocking the telepathy, okay?”

In other words, she wanted to release her frustration on the unfortunate fools they were about to face, the ones responsible for attacking the outer galaxies.

These ‘outer galaxies’ referred to the galactic cluster regions outside the central region of the Valmone Universe, where Kirone’s home galaxy, Orithyia, was located.

Kirone and Mallory, as the heads of the New gods faction, controlled immense territory that spanned billions of light-years and millions of galaxies. Their hold over such vast reaches wasn’t simply for the sake of dominance, but because it was a fundamental aspect of their power.

Race Ruler titles required a minimum number of beings of one’s race under their authority, and the more beings they commanded, the greater the cumulative power those titles granted.

The increase per individual was negligible, but when multiplied across billions and trillions, it became a substantial source of strength.

This was why holding territory was vital for Race Rulers and why Kirone couldn’t allow the faction to lose any of it, since doing so would weaken not only their own power but also that of the other Race Rulers under their command, especially the hundreds of King and Queen-level Race Rulers serving them, which would reduce the faction’s overall strength.

Under normal circumstances, an Intergalactic Faction leader wouldn’t personally deal with an attack in the outer galactic regions so far from headquarters, but this particular incident couldn’t be ignored.

For roughly the past 40 years, there’d been repeated disappearances among Olden Race Rulers. Race Lords, Kings, and Queens who’d lived for hundreds of thousands of years before the Great Valmone War had either vanished without a trace or been confirmed dead.

For those who’d ‘disappeared’, their Race Ruler titles became dormant, still existing but no longer transmitting their vital status to the other Race Rulers within the Universal Pantheon.

The situation worsened recently when 3 demon Race Rulers vanished, including one of the ‘Supreme’ Demon Kings, which prompted many factions and races to begin deep investigations.

Mallory and Kirone were investigating as well, since allies of their parents had also gone missing.

So why had Kirone left the investigation to Mallory and travelled all the way to the outer galaxies herself?

The reason was that, in this era where traces of Olden Race Kings were vanishing, traces of an Olden Race King had surfaced during this attack.

Reports Kirone received after Mallory departed to follow a lead stated that the outer galactic cluster she was heading toward was under attack by a special type of automation. These automations were remnants of one of the Olden god Kings who’d been permanently erased from the universe by an associate of Mallory and Kirone, the strongest godslayer King, the one who’d waged war against the Kyrexi, allowed the two goddesses to rise to power, and ended the Great Valmone War by slaughtering all the warmongering Race Rulers, Prisma.

The automations reported to be attacking this outer galactic cluster belonged to the now-deceased Machine god King, whom Prisma had killed.

Kirone couldn’t ignore this because if automations created by the Machine god King had surfaced thousands of years after his death, then it meant someone might’ve uncovered the one secret about him that had stayed hidden for all this time.

That secret was the location of his personal dimension, ‘The Workshop’.

That was the reason Kirone had personally chosen to travel to this outer galactic region.

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Four small galactic empires, each ruled by beings barely at the High-Tier Deity Level, had banded together to lay siege to a single cluster that belonged to the New gods faction.

They knew perfectly well that the territory was under the New gods control, and still chose to proceed with the attack regardless.

There were several reasons behind that decision.

First, they were confident that any retaliation the New gods faction could assemble, or more specifically, whatever forces the faction could realistically spare, would be something they could deal with.

They understood that a faction headquartered in the central region of the universe had far more critical territories to protect and far more immediate threats elsewhere in the form of rival factions and hostile races.

Because of that, any forces the New gods sent to reclaim this outer territory would be limited in scale, and they believed those limited forces could be handled without issue.

Much of that confidence stemmed from the automations that made up the bulk of their armies, since those machines had kept casualties among their organic troops and subordinates extremely low, with most of the damage being taken by the trillions of machines under their command.

More and more of these automations poured out from their ships, crashing into the cluster’s defenders, and with each passing standard hour, the situation grew increasingly dire.

Inside the central command ship, where the Regent coordinating the cluster met with individual Galactic Rulers and their generals, the atmosphere was grim.

By this point, all of them could feel their defeat drawing closer with every passing moment.

Many of the enemy’s special automations deployed multi-layered barriers that drained the defenders’ energy reserves and ammunition supplies, and by the time the battleships’ bombardments managed to break through those layers, far too much power had already been spent, and heavy losses had been taken from attacks by combat automations and organic troops behind the barriers.

They’d attempted multiple strategies to break through the enemy lines, but none of them had produced results.

The defenders still possessed a significant amount of tactical weapons, ammunition, personnel, and battleships, but every engagement reduced those reserves further, and unlike their enemies, they had no nearby supply lines or support posts to replace what was lost, while the attackers could continuously draw reinforcements from their own galaxies.

Even if the defenders succeeded in destroying the automations, the enemy’s organic armies would remain a serious threat.

Because of this, the higher command was struggling to find a way to resolve the deadlock while also trying to buy enough time for whatever reinforcements they could secure to arrive.