Chapter 415: Spaceships?
Beyond the atmosphere of Planet Kareem, five objects approached at frightening speeds.
Magic portals opened and closed as the five portals drifted through them, closing in on their target faster than the speed of light.
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"Hey, what’s that?" A man asked as he looked at the screen of a computer in front of him.
He was previously reclining his back against his wheeled chair and casually taking a sip of his hot morning beverage.
This man worked at a joint organization established by different nations to explore, study, and experiment with ways for potential interstellar travel.
Most days, this place was not that active. Besides building rockets and testing out different projects, they mostly just studied star placements or researched new powerful telescopes they could use to study the observable universe.
The place wasn’t boring as technology ensured that the surprises never stopped coming. But usually, it was something that they already expected and didn’t carry much sense of awe like the first time they made a rocket leave the planet.
They were the ones responsible for sending out blank messages into the open outer space, hoping that some alien would receive the message.
So far, nothing shocking had happened, and no extraterrestrial civilization had reached out.
But they still had hope. With all those mysterious supernatural things and creatures that have been roaming around their societies, the humans of this planet had every reason to believe that life outside Planet Kareem indeed existed.
Now, this man, whose job was to watch the screen, was alerted by a beep. In the room filled with computers and wires, this dependent was tasked with monitoring and reporting the status of their orbital satellites.
The satellites in turn were used for global communication, and some specific satellites were simply there to monitor the space around the planet.
Not that they were expecting anything, but just in case.
*BEEP!*
The screen lit up again as another alarm rang. It was short and loud, meant to get their attention.
The man leaned forward, narrowing his eyes.
That alert was meant to ring when an object was moving very close to the satellite network. It was built to detect space debris and stray asteroid rocks.
*BEEP!*
The alarm rang again, drawing the man’s full attention, as well as the interest of the two other men in the room with him.
"You think it’s space debris?" One of the other men, a big fat guy, asked as he walked to the sitting man.
He put his arm on the edge of the chair’s backrest and leaned forward to see the screen clearly.
"Wait, where is it?" The big man asked. He turned his head to look at his colleague who was still sitting in his chair.
There was no reply.
The colleague looked very shocked, his eyes were wide open. He couldn’t believe the readings he had seen.
"Jeremy?" The big man asked. Jeremy’s lack of response drew the last colleague’s interest. He turned around from his computer, revealing a face decorated with medically prescribed glasses.
"Five...five..." Jeremy stammered.
"Five what?" The big guy asked, starting to find Jeremy’s antics very annoying.
"Five...one kilometer...approximately..." Jeremy continued to stammer.
"If you think it’s funny, it’s not." The big guy said, frowning. He couldn’t understand why Jeremy wouldn’t just explain to him what he saw.
He was starting to think that Jeremy was pulling a prank, something that some workers here have done in the past.
Little did he know that Jeremy just didn’t know how to describe what he saw. His screen could only provide dimension readings and detect motion.
The screen for showing recorded live footage was on the other side.
’Live footage...’ Jeremy thought and hurriedly stood up.
"Quick, check your screen, reverse to the last thirty seconds," Jeremy said, sounding panicked. It was a bit exciting and also a cause of doubt.
"What is it?" The big guy asked again, frowning. His question instantly left Jeremy frustrated as he shoved the guy aside and walked to the referred screen.
He began typing away fast on the keyboard, accessing the computer and navigating to the section that allowed him to play back the last footage.
Seeing his colleague acting frantic, the big guy began to grow suspicious. He looked at Jeremy’s screen and saw that nothing was showing there.
Even if anything had just passed by, it should still be there. Was it a glitch?
"Jeremy, it could have been a glitch," The big man said.
Jeremy continued typing away, "They updated the system last week and specifically fixed issues with false alarms, I know what I saw," Jeremy said.
Meanwhile, at this time, the last man wearing glasses who had just been watching all this in silence turned away.
His attention was drawn by the incoming call he was receiving.
He frowned as only astronauts who were managing those satellite space stations could access this line.
Wasn’t it a coincidence that his colleague was behaving this way after seeing something and an astronaut was calling?
*RIIING!*
Another ring, he was receiving a call from another satellite station.
What was going on?
"There, look at that!" Jeremy screamed as a video began to play on the screen. The big guy could only watch.
The man wearing glasses put on his work-based headset and answered the call by clicking a button on his keyboard.
"Hey, what’s up?
What?
I don’t understand.
Speak slowly please.
No, I can’t get the director now.
You want to come down? Seriously?
It’s just five more years.
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Spaceships, oh, very funny."
The glasses man continued to take the call, thinking it was just the astronaut being bored and needing someone to talk to.
He didn’t take the panicked tone too seriously. If it were something else, he would have been on alert, but what was this about alien spaceships?
The glasses man stood up from his chair with the headset still on, and he walked over to Jeremy and the big guy, curious to see what they were looking at.
As he walked over, he noticed the stunned expression on Jeremy and the big guy. He frowned, did they actually see something?
He stood behind the two and looked at the screen to see what they were looking at.
"Yeah, I got you.
Wait, what did you say you saw again?"
The glasses man asked as he paid attention to the shocking image on the screen.
The screen showed an image of five distant but very large objects coming out of a weird portal.
The objects had appeared very far away out of nowhere but one could tell that they were very big.
The objects looked very similar to spaceships, like a mix between magic and science fiction, it was both fascinating and terrifying.
The ’spaceship’ at the center was a little bit different. Bigger, slightly longer, and had a lot more designs or modifications around the body.
The five large objects, each of them close to a kilometer long, cruised through the space outside the planet’s atmosphere and closed in very fast.
And then, another spherical portal appeared and the five spaceships disappeared.
"My God," The big man exclaimed under his breath, not knowing what else to say.
That wasn’t computer-generated graphics, this was his personal work computer and he was sure it had no virus.
That was actual footage of the happenings above them.
It was real, Jeremy was not crazy.
Meanwhile, the glasses man was so stunned that he had forgotten to answer the astronaut on the phone.
"Oh, sorry, right.
You said you saw...spaceships?
How many?
Five, ah, oh my goodness.
How big?
That’s interesting.
Okay, listen, I think I may have to go get the director right away.
Yes, thank you, we’ll confirm what you saw very soon,"
The call ended.
The glasses man stared at his colleagues in shock, not knowing what to say.
"Go get the director! Now!"
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Leonine Heavenly Realm.
The world seemed to have paused and focused on two humanoid figures.
Both of these figures wore white and had a head full of long silky white hair. They looked alike, father and daughter.
Pagast wore a mocking smile on his face, "Fine, you caught me.
I have Destruction Essence, are you happy now?"
His words caused many lions and lionesses to hold their breath. The Law of Destruction belonged to the dragons. Only dragons could use Destruction Essence to power their abilities like dragon breath without destroying themselves.
No Lion would be able to use Destruction Essence without risking destroying himself.
Technically, no Lion, especially a lion king, would want anything to do with Destruction Essence.
So, what was Pagast’s excuse?
Alora stepped forward again. A hovering Golden ice platform formed under her feet, carrying her forward mysteriously.
As she moved, the air around her chilled, and golden snowflakes began to form in the sky.
Her aura was rising.
"Where did you get it from?" Alora asked.
Pagast’s eyebrows quivered in annoyance, "So what, I have Destruction Essence. I just like to have it on me as a trump card.
Besides, I got it from a dragon I killed, so I don’t understand what you’re trying to imply," Pagast said, quickly formulating a good lie.
He was not stupid enough to admit to the actual truth, if not, he would be besieged from all sides by almost all these bystanders. Even his subordinates would not be able to save him.
Alas, he hadn’t yet come to the realization that he was not speaking to Alora anymore.
He couldn’t fool Kael.
Thousands of golden ice swords and spears formed around Alora as her killing intent reached its peak.