Chapter 437: Empyrean Dust
Outside the Empyrean Dust Galaxy, three arkships sped through the void at warp speed.
Space and time shrank around the massive vessels, pushing them forward beyond the speed of light.
As soon as they had traveled more than a hundred light-years into the galaxy, they slowed down.
Shimmering magic lights erupted from their bodies and the spaces in between their metal plates.
Warp signals flew around between them as the commanders of the arkships communicated with each other.
"Empyrean Dust Galaxy, not much detail on this galaxy," the commander of one of the three arkships said.
"Should we skip this one? We still have a lot of other galaxies to search." The second mysterious commander said.
"No! Regent Ibadon will ask for a detailed report on how we searched each galaxy. If he senses that something is missing, he’ll just send us back to search again."
"Seriously? He’s that obsessed with finding the lion? He should just leave us out of it, can’t he see that he’s stressing everyone out?"
"Why don’t you tell him yourself? If you survive, I’ll back you up."
"Don’t you know Ibadon has vowed to destroy anyone who stands in the way of his revenge."
"Yeah, if we seem like a hindrance to him, he might just turn his suppressed anger towards us."
"What, he’s part dragon, that doesn’t give him the right to push us around."
"You’re right, but Ibadon isn’t using his right as a half dragon, he’s using his might. Anyone who has any thoughts against him, should be strong enough to fight him for it."
"Aarg! Our Empress isn’t even helping matters, she has fallen deeply in love with the Regent."
"It’s almost as if she did not learn from our history."
"It doesn’t matter anyways. I heard Ibadon is too focused on his revenge and doesn’t have time to entertain the Empress’s romantic advance."
"Can you imagine, someone as beautiful as the Empress, being rejected by that abomination..."
"Watch your words! Your tongue will bring trouble and I won’t be part of it!
Even if Ibadon is not a full dragon, the least you can do is have respect for him.
Don’t forget that he stood as the Empire Regent when we did not have any Primordial to be our leader.
Not only did he hold the line against our wormy cousins, he helped us fix the damages and casualties from that war..."
"The same war that he started? Please, don’t make me laugh, you bigot!"
"What did you just say to me?"
"You’re a bigot, and who cares about those cousins of ours? They are cowards, their time has come and gone.
Our Destruction is all that is left!"
"Fool!"
While two of the commanders of the arkships were bickering with each other, the dragon arkships continued diving into the Empyrean Dust Galaxy.
"It’s a bit sad honestly?" The last Commander who had been quiet all this time finally spoke up.
"What’s sad? Our wormy cousins?"
"Gosh no, I couldn’t care less about how those guys feel?
I’m talking about Ibadon.
I heard that his mother, Derylia, the Primordial Lioness of that time, had died when he was just a small child.
They never got to say goodbye as she was ambushed and torn to shreds when she visited Leonine Heaven.
Not even a funeral.
Sakan was the only one to see the last bits and pieces of her when he stormed their heaven on his own.
And then Sakan died, at the hands of the same race that killed his mother.
It’s sad,"
"I think Derylia had it coming, she betrayed her race. Although it was expected, who can resist this sweet Dragon dic..."
"Shut up, that’s Ibadon’s mother you are talking about,"
"I’m just telling the truth. Derylia had it coming. She was pushing the lion kings too much with her blatant disrespect and continued betrayal.
Think about it, she was the Primordial of that time, they were depending on her and she ran off with Sakan.
If our Dragon Empress ran off with some Lion when we needed her the most, how would you feel?"
"..."
"Why aren’t you saying anything? You know I’m right.
In fact, I heard that she was warned multiple times that her relationship with Sakan was causing a lot of instability for the whole civilization.
She didn’t listen.
The most baffling part was that she actually made a contract with us that went against the very nature of her law.
How stupid could she have been?
It would have been better if she were actually strong enough to cut her fate from the lion race, but she wasn’t.
Everyone knows this, including Ibadon.
She was the weakest and most frustrating of all Primordials in the lion’s history.
I feel embarrassed on behalf of the lions, it must be shameful, really."
"Maybe she should have waited until she was strong enough to cut her fate away from the lion race.
It was indeed reckless of her to do that while still being tied to their fortune and power."
The discussion was hot with one dragon commander staunchly supporting what the lions did to Derylia and the two others trying to shut him up.
Alas, the conversation eventually turned toward the operation at hand.
"Is there seriously no details on this Empyrean Dust Galaxy? Not even a habitable planet for ordinary lifeforms?"
"Well, there’s a bit of a small spot about one ancient civilization that used this place before.
However, I’m not sure about the information as it’s very old and I’m not even sure they were talking about this particular galaxy.
"Ancient civilization? Which one? How old is the information? Where did you get it from?"
"Remember that ruined galaxy that the Empire excavated fifty-five thousand years ago?"
"The one where we discovered those limiter seals?"
"Yes. They also found some info orbs that were still good.
The contents of those info orbs were seriously confusing but they did manage to decipher the names of some galaxies.
Empyrean Dust Galaxy was one of them. However, the universe is very vast and the ruins are so long ago, there could be more than one galaxy with the same name.
This Empyrean Dust Galaxy might not have been the one they were talking about."
"Really, they found all those things from that galactic ruin? Why haven’t they come to check this place?"
"They did come to check actually, about fifty thousand years ago. Nothing was found.
They shifted it to something they would handle later. It’s not like all of us are that jobless and would want to search an entire galaxy for ancient ruins."
"Speaking of which, I heard that the Lions Cosmic Research Coalition was working on reverse engineering the limiter seal..."
"That’s worrying information. Imagine what those tyrants will do with that kind of weapon if mass-produced?"
"Hehehe, we’ll destroy them."
Suddenly, one of the arkships vibrated as an invisible string of fate stretched out into the void.
"Guys, it seems there’s a faint power of fortune in this galaxy..."
"Oh, can you track it down? It might lead us to something useful."
"It’s very faint, like it’s been a long time since it passed by."
"Just try,"
"Fine."
/////
Planet Kareem.
In one of the numerous cities, a small coffee shop sat quietly at one corner of the city.
The area around this small coffee shop was quiet with very few people going in and coming out.
Inside the coffee shop, a few customers were sitting around some tables, sipping on different kinds of coffee.
At one corner of the coffee shop’s interior, two women sat opposite each other with a table between them.
"Ah, this is good stuff," Diane said as she took a long sip from the ceramic mug filled with hot beverages.
This wasn’t coffee, just regular milk tea with a lot of sugar added to it.
"According to some online forums, the sugar in that drink is not good for your brain," N’bayé said with a nonchalant expression as she typed away at the laptop in front of her.
Both of them wore oversized hoodie sweaters, even though they did not need them. The hoodie sweaters hid N’bayé’s tattoos and Diane’s muscular frame.
Both of them would attract a lot of attention from both genders if they just waltzed around wearing whatever they wanted.
Both of them sat here with different things in mind. Diane wanted to enjoy her milk tea and N’bayé was focused on her research.
*CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK!*
N’bayé’s eyes flowed with the light of runes and the digital images reflected from the laptop screen.
Her fingers moved rapidly, blurring over the keyboard. Thankfully, this laptop’s processing speed was good enough to match up with N’bayé’s brain.
"What are you doing with that thing?" Diane asked, referring to the laptop. She took another sip of the hot milk tea and smiled.
"I’m trying to find something," N’bayé responded, not taking her eyes off the screen filled with multitudes of websites flashing in and out.
"What?" Diane asked.
N’bayé sighed, "There’s something off about the history of the humans on this planet. Something is not adding up.
I’m trying to find the missing link that would make everything make sense..."
"Are you saying humans don’t know their own history?"
"No, but whoever wrote their history books was definitely hiding something from them..."
N’bayé paused as she finally looked up from the screen.
"Oh, Kael is here,"