Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 372: Pursuit and Isolation
Although they were nowhere near as powerful, they radiated the exact same aura as the Destruction Supreme’s sword that had pierced their souls millions of years ago—a sensation they could never forget.
Just as they came to this realisation, Richard’s magic completed the restoration of the Warp Drive.
Without wasting a moment, he hurried back to the ship’s bridge, worked the console, and began reading through the mapped coordinates to determine the vessel’s intended final destination.
Every universe it was meant to pass through along the way had been recorded.
In silence, Miranda and Richard followed the logs through each listed stop until they reached the final destination, located at the outskirts of the Zanerth Empire.
It was in the remote border regions, far removed from the central seats of power and entirely lacking any Supreme Realm presences.
"They were headed to the Uetera Universe in Cluster... ZWF4105!"
Richard’s eyes widened as he read the cluster designation, then turned to Miranda, whose expression had darkened into a deep frown.
To understand the cause of Miranda’s anger, one first had to know how the Zanerth Empire categorised its conquered territories.
Even if the universes weren’t gravitationally bound to one another in clusters, every universe within a designated area was organised into regions and assigned a specific naming convention based on the dominant race governing that region.
This was only natural, as nearly everything within Zanerth was structured along racial lines, from its Ruling Council to the Main Entities of its Pantheon.
The first letter indicated "Zanerth," serving as a marker for those from other parts of the multiverse that the territory belonged to the Zanerth Empire.
The following two letters represented the first and last letters of the ruling race’s name.
With that in mind, it was immediately clear what "WF" stood for.
WerewolF.
Ikerth, possibly along with Eldros and their co-conspirators, was likely somewhere within a universe ruled by werewolves.
In silence, Miranda summoned a tablet from her subspace and entered the cluster name to retrieve more information. Within five seconds of running the search, the results appeared, and she very nearly crushed the device in her hands from sheer anger.
"The audacity of these bastards!"
Richard glanced at the tablet’s display, already certain of what he was about to see.
Zanerth controlled thousands of universes, and even with an exact name, searching through them would normally take some time.
Yet the result had appeared in under five seconds.
Miranda, who always prioritised her family’s territory over other werewolf clans, had her devices calibrated to search there first before anywhere else.
Richard had heard her mention this before, so he already knew, without needing to check, that ZWF4105 lay within Scott Clan territory.
"Are they insane? Why would they hide in your family’s territory when they know you’re hunting them?"
"Because I wouldn’t normally look for a criminal in my own backyard!" Miranda shot back, clicking her tongue as she realised Ikerth and whichever allies he had were hiding in plain sight.
If ’North’ was the direction toward the centre of the Multiverse, then ZWF4105 was positioned in the ’South’.
"I’m going after them."
"Hold on, Mira. You’re not going alone. Those people sent Supreme Realm Existences to attack the Prison Realm," Richard countered immediately.
Even though Miranda was powerful and could not be killed, she could still be overwhelmed and defeated if faced with enough opponents of similar strength.
And they had no way of knowing how many enemy forces were concealed within ZWF4105.
"I’m just going ahead since I’d be the fastest," she said.
Just as Richard was about to protest, Miranda reached into her subspace and retrieved a real butterfly-shaped hair accessory.
A Fascinator.
"Hmm? Did Jamie make that?" Richard asked, sensing the familiar aura it radiated.
"Yes, he did," Miranda replied, before explaining two of the abilities of the Nexus Fascinator.
"Cosmic Spatial Manipulation and Void Traversal. Since I’m not the best at space manipulation, Jamie gave me something that’d make it easier for me to move between universes."
"Of course, he did," Richard said with a sigh.
’And I can bet the reason would be something as silly or simple as wanting her to come meet him in another universe for a date or something,’ he thought.
The idea came naturally to him, given that he had once seen Jamie send an avatar back to Zanerth from a far-off universe solely to pick Miranda up for a date hundreds of billions of parsecs away.
Anyway, with that artifact in her possession, Miranda could traverse the space between universes even faster than either he or Oliva could with their specialised magic, for it was crafted by a man who had integrated Space itself into his existence.
"Assemble a force of Angel, Demon, and Werewolf Supremes to follow me as quickly as possible. Do not let the other races know where I have gone. We still do not know how many traitors there might be," Miranda said, tossing the cracked tablet back into her subspace before pinning the Fascinator into her hair.
She then tapped her watch to initiate a call with Rowena.
"My absence will be noticed immediately, so officially, I will be in the... western regions. Yes. Tell the others I have gone to the Western Regions to follow a lead," she said.
Hearing this, Richard instantly understood her plan.
"You want to misdirect everyone," he stated.
"Yes. Sarina told the Angels and Demons to support me, so send some of them in that direction to make it appear as if I left with that force," Miranda replied.
After a moment of silence, she continued.
"Also, keep a close watch on the Western Regions to see if anyone behaves suspiciously in regard to that area, especially in the dragon and giant universes."
Just as she finished speaking, the call connected and Rowena’s vibrant voice came through.
[Lady Miran—]
"How many of your fellow disciples are currently in the area and can reach Argent in less than twenty-four hours?" Miranda interrupted.
Rowena’s tone instantly shifted to one of seriousness as she replied.
[Exactly 425 of us.]
Jamie had instructed 425 of his numerous disciples, all of whom were at least at the Firmament Realm, to remain behind before leaving for Vladi.
These individuals had their own lives and duties, yet they had temporarily set them aside to obey Jamie’s instructions to remain nearby, just in case they were needed. Millions of years of following Jamie, along with the immense benefits they had received from him, had cemented their loyalty.
Miranda quickly explained the situation to Rowena, instructing her to gather the fastest among them and send them after her to ZW4105.
The remainder were to stay with Richard to assist him and his mages, both to guard against any of the Supremes still present in the universe attempting anything suspicious and to prepare for the possibility that Eldros might still be somewhere else in Zanerth or in an entirely different universe from the one she was heading toward.
Even the Incomplete Hybrids were involved. Though deemed ’failures’ in Angela’s eyes, each of them remained an immensely powerful existence.
After giving these orders, Miranda left Zanerth without delay.
She maintained contact with Richard, despite the fact that messages were not transmitted instantly due to the vast distances separating them.
The universes in between served as relays, amplifying and transmitting the information signals.
The same Dimensional Bridges used to travel between universes through specially created gates also contained information relay systems alongside them.
For Higher Dimensional Existences like Richard and Miranda, utilising these bridges to communicate across universes was far easier, as the relay bridges created wormholes through higher dimensions, linking points in one universe to another.
Miranda moved without revealing her presence, concealing her aura as she crossed the intermediate universes and ensuring that the ruling forces there remained unaware of her passage.
Weeks later, she finally arrived at ZW4105, a small cluster consisting of twelve gravitationally bound universes.
As she drew closer, Miranda reviewed the information she had gathered on the cluster from the Zanerth Universe Database before leaving.
Cluster ZW4105’s constituent universes were named Chalrouwei, Zagruetun, Gathiea, Lollao, Sonerth, Uetera, Yoatune, Lozion, Iccypso, Kotania, Briuwei, and Luabos.
Each universe was naturally ruled by a Werewolf, though not necessarily of the Scott Clan bloodline, as other Clans operated under their authority.
She gathered details on the current Masters, their Main Entities, and their Existence Realms, which were at most the Firmament Realm.
Uetera was the universe Ikerth was headed to, so she set her course there first.
As she approached the cluster close enough for the universes’ gravity to begin affecting her, she noticed cosmic energy beginning to envelop the entirety of the cluster.
"What’s this? An Isolation Field?" she muttered.
Because she was still maintaining contact with Richard, her words were transmitted back to him. Hours later, Richard, still in Zanerth, would receive the message and realise that she had discovered an Isolation Field.
And following it would be the next words Miranda spoke as she attempted to stop the deployment of the Isolation Field.
"Huh? I can’t break i—"
