Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 156: Beneath the Weight of Worlds

The Iron Sorcerer Terrion was on his knees, his chest heaving with laboured breaths as he struggled against the insurmountable pressure bearing down on him.

It felt as if the weight of a thousand worlds was crushing him, forcing him deeper into the ground with every passing second.

The ground beneath him cracked and splintered from the immense pressure, and beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, mingling with the white lunar dust.

With a great effort, Terrion lifted his head, his vision blurred by exhaustion and pain. Through the haze, he saw her standing before him.

The woman blankly gazed at him, her mere presence radiating an aura of pure, unrestrained power.

Her eyes glowed with a dark light and her hair, a cascade of purple flames flowed around her like a silken veil, untouched by gravity.

The air around her seemed to ripple and distort, as if reality itself was bending around her.

The sheer magnitude of her presence made Terrion feel utterly insignificant, her gaze piercing into his soul with an intensity that left him breathless.

’...fuck.’

The man cursed inwardly as his brain recalled the events that preceded this situation.

◇　◇　◇

Unnamed Facility

Zotov’s Moon

February 16th

Year 2018

"Zotov, are you really okay with that arrangement of hers? To move you from here to another Realm? You’d basically be putting yourself under their control.

We just broke free from Ikerth...I’ve handled his remaining forces on the other planets, completely freeing Laizuno from Ikerth’s influence.

And now you want to fall under the control of an even greater force? Willingly, at that!"

[You think we have a choice in this situation, Terrion?]

The teenage-looking black-haired boy, the Incarnation of the Planet Zotov, responded to Terrion with a raised brow.

[There is no choice in this. Did she not state it before? She was not asking our opinion, she was simply stating what she wanted to do.]

Terrion frowned when he saw how detached Zotov was acting; like this situation didn’t concern his survival.

In the days that had passed after the defeat of the Dragons, Terrion and Dornik had cleaned up as much of the Dragon King’s forces as possible and forced the others to retreat.

All would have been fine if it wasn’t for one last issue.

Miranda’s decision to move the planet’s location.

Not just the planet, but the entire Laizuno Star System.

Terrion obviously didn’t like this and did not want them to move.

’She wants to move us to the Argent Empire? That’s just out of the frying pan and into a fucking incinerator fire!’

The Argent Empire’s Interstellar Colonies were second only to Estea’s, and Terrion who had suffered for years under an Estean Dragon King did not want anything to do with the Apex World again.

After all, the Argent Empire’s founders were Esteans as well!

Miranda had said she wanted to completely cripple Ikerth on the Interstellar Stage, to cut off his source of power in the Intergalactic market.

She said moving Laizuno was so they didn’t have a ’Second Ikerth’ trying their luck, but no matter how Terrion looked at it, he felt that Miranda wanted to monopolize Zotov’s Ruindeum for herself.

It was something that Race Kings like Ikerth who controlled entire galaxies coveted, after all!

He was trying to convince Zotov to resist her decision, but the planet did not seem to care. He had been acting like it wasn’t his business if Miranda did what she wanted or not.

Terrion could not fathom why Zotov was not skeptical of Miranda’s intentions, as he suspected that her ’help’ might come with the hidden agenda of controlling the planet’s very valuable resources.

Terrion was about to speak once more when he sensed a breach into his personal dimension and looked up to see the same woman that he was thinking about appear before him.

Like always, there was a certain Silver-haired man with her, however, Terrion narrowed his eyes as he could not sense the man’s power level anymore.

’Last I saw him, he was Transcendent...if he killed Ikerth, he may have been able to become a Half-Deity.

Even so, I should be able to see through all forms of concealment he may employ due to the realm difference, yet I can’t even appraise him!’

"Seems like you guys have just about wrapped up Ikerth’s forces in this star system."

Jamie spoke as he summoned a couch from his subspace and plopped down on it, with Miranda seating herself in between his laps like it was the most normal thing.

It was, but Jamie silently lifted her up and placed her right beside him.

Terrion ignored this little interaction in favour of the third person who arrived with them, the emerald-green-eyed Werewolf Queen he had heard of in the past.

’Denise Cohen...they said she was connected to THE Hybrid, seems that was true as well.’

"Jay, do you think we can just move this planet alone?"

"Mira, the sudden loss of its gravitational influence would throw the asteroid belt out of place!"

"I know, but it’s just that so far I’ve not seen any star that can support ALL this Star System’s planets."

Miranda spoke with a light frown on her face, conjuring a projection of Laizuno and pointing at two planets at the further reaches.

"I’m not seeing any star that fits those two."

"I’m more surprised that you had found some that even work for the others."

Jamie spun the projection of the star system around while Miranda nodded as she spoke of Lillie’s findings.

"I took some solar material and gave Lillie and she found 3 lone stars that could work. I’d go over to check them out in person later."

"Oh. But you’d be making that journey alone though. I don’t wanna go back to Argent now."

When Jamie said that, Miranda’s expression turned dark for a moment and the man sighed and assured her he wasn’t gonna desiccate himself again randomly.

It was then that Terrion who had been silent since they got there finally spoke.

"You guys have been talking like we aren’t even here. You want to move Zotov into the Argent Empire a-"

"Yeah, I do. As we have seen with Ikerth, even with your Realm Suppression, it is very possible for a Race King who’s stronger than you to dominate you guys.

Hence, we’d put you somewhere where very few people would attack you."

Miranda casually cut Terrion off midway, placing a hand on her chin as she thought about her original intention.

"We could have just added you to Estea’s colonies, but this place would be at the fringes of the Outer Colonies.

Lone Race Kings, Space Pirates and the like have zero problems attacking our Outer Colonies, and we even prefer it if they do. However, for you guys, an attack would mean someone else would get their hands on Ruindeum."

It would not take long for the news of Ikerth’s defeat on Zotov to spread far and wide, and this would draw a lot of attention to Zotov.

"Jamie and I may insult Ikerth and all, but that man is no slouch of a Race King. Everyone would instantly figure you’d be weakened after dealing with him—which you are—and they’d see it as the perfect chance to swoop in and reap benefits.

There’s a 100% chance of that.

That’s why I’d like to move you guys where you’d only have about a 10-15% chance of getting attacked."

Miranda waved her hands and generated images of many Race Kings who either had beef with Argent or were daring enough to attack planets under the Empire’s control.

"With such a low chance of getting attacked, there’s naturally a lower chance of another Race King trying to monopolize your Ruindeum."

"And are you not going to be monopolizing our Ruindeum if you take Zotov into your empire?"

When Terrion asked this, Zotov’s expression darkened while Miranda looked at him with nothing but pure confusion on her face.

"...what?"

It was as if she hadn’t even thought about what Terrion was talking about, and the man’s expression contorted into a frown as he ignored Zotov’s warnings and spoke.

"That’s what all this looks like to me. I don’t know what feud you had with Ikerth, but it looks to me that you came to help us because you wanted to mess with him.

Now you’re done, you want to collect this Planet’s Ruindeum by yourself."

"Oh, that."

Jamie spoke up when he heard Terrion’s words, holding up his hand and summoning a piece of Ruindeum ore in his palm and spinning it around as he spoke.

"This thing’s pretty good for crafting weapons and the like. Wouldn’t it be nice to just take Ikerth’s spot on the Intergalactic Market?"