Earth Standard Time, AD 2050 — 86 hours earlierAlpha Centauri, 4.5 Light-Years from Earth — Teleopean Civilization

  The chamber was awash in the pale, clinical glow of artificial light. Mien’s reflection—silver hair, eyes like cut glass—hovered ghostlike on the curved surface of the treatment pod as he approached, each step measured, deliberate. Within the pod, Chen’s body floated in a suspension of clear fluid, golden hair drifting in slow, tidal currents. Every so often, a string of bubbles slipped from his parted lips, fragile evidence that life, however tenuous, still clung to him.

  At the monitoring console, Shi’s gaze never left the jagged lines of the vital graphs. His face was drawn, voice taut as wire.

  “Five times,” he said, “his vitals flatlined. Five times we pulled him back. Barely.”

  Mien’s eyes did not waver. “He must survive. No matter the cost.” His tone was flat, the words as cold as the glass between them. “He is our last Star Emperor.”

  The only one.

  That should have made Chen untouchable—sacred, beyond question. But the young Star Emperor had never fit the mold Teleopea tried to cast him in. He wore solitude like a second skin, speaking to his own kind only when necessity demanded. Even with Xiao and Lan, his closest confidants, the core of him remained sealed—an inward silence that no title could breach.

  Mien understood why.The hatred Chen’s predecessor had carried into death had not faded; it had fermented into something quieter, more enduring. Chen despised the throne, loathed the machinery of power, and sometimes, Mien suspected, resented Teleopea itself.

  And now—worse than any of his other transgressions—he had chosen an outsider. A human. He had risked everything for that choice, as if the weight of a crown meant less than the life of one fragile being.

  Mien exhaled, his breath slow and weighted by an emotion neither grief nor anger, but rather a weary, reluctant frustration. Shi, ever perceptive, noticed the subtle shift in Mien’s demeanour and spoke in a quiet voice, careful not to break the fragile tension that filled the chamber. “What is it?” he asked.

  Mien’s brow furrowed, lines of concern etching deeper across his face. He shook his head once, a gesture that betrayed internal conflict and hesitation. Then, without further warning, he delivered his verdict, the words stark and irrevocable: “Erase his memory.”

  Shi’s head jerked upward, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. “What did you say?” he demanded, voice barely above a whisper, yet brimming with incredulity.

  Mien met his gaze without flinching, his voice remaining unchanged—dead calm, unwavering. “I said, erase his memory.” The statement hung in the air, cold and absolute. “If he forgets, he won’t chase after that human again.”

  Shi’s hands clenched into fists.

  “That’s your solution?” he asked.

  Mien’s tone remained mild, almost bored, his silver gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the chamber. “This is for our people,” he replied, the words delivered with an indifferent certainty. “Chen’s spouse should be strong. That human is too weak. He can’t even protect himself.”

  Shi stepped forward, his boots whispering against the polished floor. He planted himself between Mien and the pod, shoulders squared, chin lifted—a living barrier.

  “I don’t agree.” He said, voice steady.

  The silence that followed pressed in, thick and electric. Overhead, the lights seemed to hum louder. Mien’s gaze sharpened, his pupils narrowing to slits of silver.

  “You disappoint me, Shi.” Mien’s words were soft, but each syllable landed with the precision of a scalpel. “I thought your loyalty to our civilization ran deeper.”

  Shi didn’t flinch. His hands hung loose at his sides, but his spine was a line of iron. “Memory erasure will only break him further.” His tone was flat, but his jaw worked, a muscle ticking beneath the skin.

  Mien’s lips thinned. He took a single step closer, the faintest sound of his shoes echoing in the sterile room. “Is that the reason why you’ve been shielding them,” he said, voice glacial. “From the Council. From me.”

  Shi’s eyes flickered, but he held his ground. The golden light in his irises caught and fractured, a brief flash of defiance. He said nothing.

  Mien let the silence stretch, letting it settle like frost on glass. “You must have a very good explanation,” he said at last, his voice as cold as the room. “Otherwise, you won’t simply be reassigned and forgotten.”

  Shi’s face was unreadable, a mask carved from stone. He met Mien’s gaze, unblinking.

  “Then, you can just let them do whatever they want to me,” he said, his words tinged with a note of deviance. “Maybe it’s the best way to end both of our suffering.”

  Mien’s silver eyes widened, his composure slipping for just a moment. He turned to Shi, clearly surprised by the unexpected admission. The impact of Shi’s words lingered in the air, challenging Mien’s certainty and shaking the dynamic between them.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  A heartbeat later, Chen’s eyes snapped open—gold and unblinking, pupils narrowed to slits. The pod’s fluid rippled with the sudden tension in his body.

  He locked eyes with the High Chancellor through the distortion of glass and liquid, gaze so sharp it seemed to cut through the barrier. Mien’s attention flicked to Shi, accusation flickering in the cold silver.

  “You knew he was about to wake,” Mien said, voice low and edged with threat.

  Without warning, Mien’s hand shot out, shoving Shi aside with a force that rattled the console. Shi staggered, catching himself on the edge of the pod, but his relief was palpable—Chen was awake, and that was all that mattered.

  A sharp, unnatural crack split the air.

  Fractures spidered across the pod’s transparent shell, radiating outward in jagged lines. The glass trembled, not from any mechanical failure, but from a pressure that seemed to pulse from within—an invisible, absolute will.

  Chen’s fists clenched underwater, muscles straining. The fluid around him churned, swirling with the force of his telekinesis.

  Mien’s voice was calm, but the warning beneath it was unmistakable—a man speaking to a storm, daring it to break. “What are you doing, Chen?”

  The answer came not in words, but as a psychic blow—

  A thought, not his own, slammed into Mien’s mind, so fierce it left a ringing in his skull:

  Where is Yan Qing?

  Mien’s jaw tightened, but he did not flinch. “The human fused with the Weapon? The Fenreigans took him.”

  For a moment, Chen’s face was eerily still, unreadable. Then, with a sudden, violent motion, his fists struck the glass.

  Thud—

  The gentle smile he so often wore twisted, pulled tight by rage until it was unrecognizable. The cracks in the pod deepened, splintering like ice under a hammer.

  Another thought, raw and accusing, tore through the room—

  You let them take Yan Qing.

  The lights flickered. The air itself seemed to vibrate with the force of Chen’s fury.

  Mien’s gaze was glacial, but his knuckles whitened where they gripped the edge of the console. “Yes,” he said, voice clipped. “Your life readings were nearly gone. Saving you was the logical choice. The human—if he’s in Fenreigan hands, he won’t survive long.”

  Chen’s golden eyes narrowed, dangerous and bright. The pressure in the room mounted, a physical weight pressing down on every chest.

  The pod exploded.

  Glass and fluid erupted outward in a violent torrent, shards spinning through the air. Chen staggered from the wreckage, dripping and gasping, his body trembling with the effort of holding himself upright.

  Shi lunged, catching him before he could fall. “Chen! Are you trying to kill yourself?” His voice was hoarse, frantic.

  Chen shoved him away, teeth bared. “Find… the Fenreigans,” he rasped, voice raw with pain and fury.

  Mien’s frown deepened, but his eyes never left Chen. “Is this how a Star Emperor behaves?”

  Chen’s head snapped up, eyes blazing. “You forced this on me,” he spat. “This is how I do Star Emperor.”

  He snatched the clothing Shi offered, pulling it over his battered frame with shaking hands. Behind him, Mien’s voice followed, cold and relentless.

  “I won’t send anyone to support you. Are you still going?”

  Chen didn’t look back. His voice was low, each word clipped and deliberate. “We need it. Not as a relic. As power. For generations, it’s been a symbol—a treasure. But now, for the first time, there’s a real chance to make it serve Teleopea, not just worship it.”

  Mien’s reply was immediate, his tone as cold and precise as a scalpel. “A weapon, no matter how extraordinary, is useless. Sentience cannot be trusted.”

  “Then, tell me, High Chancellor,” Chen’s jaw tightened, his voice low and unyielding. “How do you address the fact that half our technology is crippled, and we have no way to power the systems that can rebuild our civilization. While we’re weakened, what’s to stop the civilizations of this universe from finishing what disaster began?” The question hung in the air, sharp as a blade, and for a moment, even Mien had no answer.

  At the threshold, Chen paused. The light caught the hard line of his jaw as he turned, gaze cold and unwavering. “Support me in retrieving the Ultimate Weapon,” he said, each word deliberate, metallic. “Or stand aside.”

  Four hours later

  Deep Space

  Crimson lances of energy ripped across the void, burning straight toward a Teleopean warship sixty interstellar units away. Against the endless black, they looked like wounds torn open in reality itself.

  On the command deck, warning lights flared. An operator snapped to attention and turned toward the figure seated upon the command throne.

  “Your Majesty—the Fenreigans have opened fire!”

  The blond Emperor did not move. He did not raise his voice.

  “Activate plasma shields,” he said calmly. “Counterattack immediately.”

  The incoming beams slammed into the diamond-shaped hull—

  —and shattered.

  Light exploded outward, the crimson energy breaking apart into luminous ribbons that curled, dissolved, and vanished into the darkness like dying embers.

  The shields dropped.

  The Teleopean warship shifted with terrifying precision. Its angular hull rolled smoothly through vacuum as pure energy poured from the engines, racing along engraved lines in the ship’s black surface. The currents converged at the sharpened bow, where a sphere of blinding white brilliance began to form—rolling, compressing, screaming with restrained force.

  Then it saturated.

  A high-energy ray erupted forward, white-hot and absolute, tearing through space at three hundred thousand kilometers per second.

  Rumble—

  Inside the Fenreigan vessel, alarms howled. The plasma shield shrieked under the impact, its surface rippling violently. The hull groaned, metal protesting against forces it was never meant to endure.

  Reinforced plating warped. Fractured.

  The breach came all at once. Atmosphere blasted outward into vacuum, a violent plume of white vapor blooming from the torn side of the ship like a mortal wound.

  Sixteen seconds later, the Teleopean gamma-ray cannon finished recharging.

  It fired again.

  This time, the Fenreigan ship twisted hard, engines flaring. The beam skimmed past—

  —and vanished into the void just short of impact.

  “Your Majesty—the target is fleeing toward the Eagle Head Nebula’s center!”

  “Suicidal,” Chen said, seated at the console. Under the cold artificial light, his golden eyes gleamed like sharpened ice. “Pursue immediately. Cripple their main engine. Disable all weapon systems.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty!”

  They were running for the nebula’s heart—where violent energy fields churned and scanners went blind.

  Chen’s hands tightened where no one could see.

  Even so—he would not let them escape.

  Not with Yan?Qing.

  Yan?Qing.

  I won’t spare the one who took you from me.

  “Engage warp drive,” he ordered, his voice cutting sharp through the bridge. “Full-speed pursuit.”

  The black, diamond-shaped warship surged forward—only a few meters at first, drifting as slowly and unreal as a dream.

  Then space itself seized the hull.

  The ship’s prow stretched, elongated, as though the fabric of reality had hooked its claws into the vessel and begun to pull—

  And in a single blinding flash, the warship vanished.