Pov The Leader of the 82nd Surveillance Division

  It was annoying that there were so many papers on my table. I still can’t believe they’re making me do this job as a punishment. That bastard disrespected my honor by cutting me off when I was walking on my shopping trip, and now me, who had reached the red realm, needs to do government work instead of continuing to advance. Disgusting.

  At least it was funny to read about rogues who tried—and always failed—to evade the Celestial Government and its rules. Fortunately, I only had 88 years left in this dump before I could return back home.

  What was also nice was that I didn’t actually have to run this place. All I had to do was stamp some papers whenever the people here needed to do something, and while I could take a more active role, I was smart enough to know that I actually didn’t know how things worked, and I would just screw things up if I tried to change them. And I certainly wasn’t going to try to learn, because what would be the point in that?

  My musings were interrupted when the alarms started sounding. We had rogue alarms go off before when they were found in our sector, but that was different. I rushed outside to see the main floor of this surveillance station down below.

  They were running around like headless chickens, and then I finally saw the real person in charge walk out. He was also in the red realm, but he did this job because he wanted to, and I wasn’t going to try to mess with him, because he was way older than me, and the sparring match we had at the start of this punishment of mine finally cleared my head a bit.

  “What is going on?” I asked him when I made it down to the main floor. The main display was showing a section of an unremarkable corner of the galaxy. Yet there were two red markings there. It took me a moment to understand what was going on, but it seems that one of the stars was missing, and another one was showing that it had a planet with a celestial core in the white realm.

  "It appears that someone has been doing something there. Remember I showed you that report, that somewhere around there were indications of a white realm ranked celestial core, but the readings were too weak? Well, it seems that whatever they did, they have succeeded, and it seems that for that to work, they needed to make an entire star disappear?"

  That was scary. Actually scary. But the person beside me was quite composed, so I thought maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought they were.

  A week later, and I regretted even thinking that things weren’t that bad. There were dozens of people who were in the purple realm around this monitoring station, and there were even three who had reached the black realm. They were the enforcers of the Celestial Government, and they did not look happy.

  Fortunately, I had been relieved of this command. Unfortunately, I was chosen to be one of the ones who went to the new white realm world. It was too far away to go by any ship that could bring an entire war party, but no expenses were being spared. So three exploration vehicles were being prepped that could bring three red realms, twelve green realms, with three dozen white realm individuals.

  No one was detecting anyone of the red realm there, but there were ways to hide even us, even if those methods were illegal.

  There were also warships being prepared, but it would take nearly eight millennia for them to reach there, and I’m betting that they wouldn’t even be sent out unless they either don’t get any news back from us or they do receive news back from us—then they will decide whether to continue the deployment of this fleet or not. The expenses for all of this were mind-boggling, but that was not my worry.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  It took us two years to get everything prepared, and oh boy, the leadership was not happy. Another star disappeared and getting all the necessary resources to fuel these exploration ships was difficult.

  The ships themselves were a wonder—yes, they required a lot of resources to run, but they would be capable of basically instantly bringing us to our destination. Although they could only bring a certain amount of realm power, and I’ve actually never heard of ones that could bring red realm individuals.

  I found all of this incredibly displeasing. I should have had an easy job of just needing to wait another 88 more years and now I need to brave the unknown. And who knows what kind of rogues were out there? Yet I could do nothing, because technically I was at fault for finding out about all of this and bringing so much trouble on the heads of the Celestial Government.

  These ships looked like any other airship, but they could survive in space. Unfortunately, they had no comforts I was used to, because every bit of space was taken up by resources. We would need to survive wherever we were going long enough for the engines to recharge so we could come back if we didn’t find anything or if something went wrong.

  The departure was uneventful. Everything was just, ready and then there was a simple countdown. I prepared for the pain we were about to endure, and when the ships moved, it felt like I was being torn apart and then reassembled. Then, all of a sudden, I felt the gravity of a new world. And I let my senses sense everything.

  To my surprise, we were indeed on a world with a white realm celestial core, and quickly the other members of our party confirmed that we were in the correct location. Then I started to feel what was truly around us.

  The world seemed incredibly large—the largest I’ve ever felt—and the gravity was way weaker than it was supposed to be. Then I heard one of the green realm party members swallowing nervously.

  “What is wrong? Did one of the other ships not make it?” I asked as I tried to find out what was going on, but before they answered, I already knew what they were worried about. The other ships were here a bit further away than we expected but no, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that on this world, there were somehow already green realm individuals.

  “Everyone, get ready for a battle,” I quickly commanded when I sensed green realm individuals closing in—a lot of them.

  At first, I wasn’t worried, but my senses were picking up more and more. How were there so many green realm individuals here? Were they the ones who were able to upgrade this celestial core? Because if they were, they were either going to be super dead when the Celestial Government reached here, or they were going to be incredibly rich.

  All of us rushed out of the scout ship, and for the first time, I saw this world with my own eyes. It was so full of life, it smelled so fresh.

  There were people coming towards us—I could see them from the distance. There were a lot of them, and they were strong, and they seemed to be the usual type of species. No one still knew why, between so many worlds that were unconnected, species like humans, dwarves, and so on always seemed to pop up, but it seems this was the case here as well.

  The other scout ships were further away, but all of us here were white realm or above, so it didn’t take them too long to reach us. We prepared our defences, but the people who were rushing towards us stopped quite far away.

  We all looked at each other questioningly, but then we figured it out. More and more of them were arriving at their gathering location from what looked like a city that was being built.

  Why were they building a city from the ground up? Then I sensed the approaching people who had just left the city. There were a few more green realm individuals, yet so many were in the white realm—well into the thousands. It was a truly significant force.

  "How do they have so many resources to have so many?" I heard one of the white realm members of my party say.

  It was a truly good question, because this was unheard of. This standoff continued for quite a while until three individuals amongst the inhabitants of this world moved forward.

  One of them looked like a normal human, another like a bear, the third one some sort of sea creature—all of them obviously humanoid. They felt old and powerful, even if they were one realm weaker. To me, they reminded me of my old masters who taught me when I was young.

  "You three, give me your translation bracelets," I said to the three weakest white realm members of my party. With these bracelets, I should be able to communicate with them. I looked towards the other two red realm party leaders. They both gave me nods.

  For some reason, I felt that this meeting was going to be something that would change everything. This world felt too weird. There was too much on it, too many powerful individuals, too many resources still unused to have so many individuals who had reached the shining realm. Whatever this secret was that they had, it was going to shake the entire universe. I was certain of it.

  So, with a deep breath in. I took a step forward with the two other party leaders following me. We were going to need to do this diplomatically, and I really wasn’t good at it. But this wasn't just about me—it was about my family. If we could get the secrets this world hid, I was certain we would never fall.