People only respected danger when it stopped pretending to be distant, because fear was easy to ignore when it existed somewhere far enough to never reach you.
For most of my life, I never shared that weakness, since distance meant nothing and danger was never a question of if, only when.
Survival in the cutthroat world of my previous life demanded that mindset, forcing me to keep moving while others waited for the sky to fall.
Mediocre as it might have been, my past life was something I found myself missing lately, especially when most of my time was spent in this endless, uncaring darkness.
Exactly ten days passed since the lights of Draxil faded from the rear viewports.
To say I missed that planet would be a lie, because even now, I still have not found anything I could truly call home.
There were moments when I thought about Aelsa, and those moments made one thing clear.
My real weakness was not danger or anything that could kill me, but something far more irritating.
And one more thing, sadly, I also developed a habit of overthinking.
Still, that hardly mattered as we drifted forward into the suffocating throat of the galaxy.
"Any changes, Solvek?"
"Commander."
If I claimed I was the only one having such moments or brief flashes of hollow wisdom, that would be wrong.
My crew's usual arrogance and mindless chatter faded, replaced by a heavy focus that made the bridge feel like cold, unmoving lead.
These morons finally understood that the darkness outside did not care about their past victories, only how quickly it could erase them.
On second thought, maybe they always knew.
"Commander, space-time density is starting to coagulate. Gravitational constants are refusing to stay within standard imperial parameters."
Solvek did not look away from his monitors, his fingers moving rapidly across the navigation arrays as he guided the ship deeper along the path.
We pushed further into the void, and I felt a growing weight pressing down, as if the abyss was finally reaching back toward us.
"Just keep the nose pointed toward the absence of light and tell me if you find anything strange."
"Aye, Commander."
The next few days became a repeating cycle of dodging drifting meteorites and ancient wreckage that appeared out of the vacuum without warning.
Carliya spent her hours in the secondary battery seat because she enjoyed the vibration of the cannons whenever she turned a stray rock into fine silver dust.
"You know, Carliya, if you put half that effort into cleaning your quarters, I wouldn't have to smell your old combat boots from the galley."
Kang provoked what he should not, and a split second later, a flying knife hissed past his ear by an inch.
"Go back to sleep like the dog you are, unless you actually want to die today."
Carliya punched the firing stud, obliterating a stray asteroid with a violent jerk of the controls that made the heavy metal deck plates groan under stress.
I leaned toward Kang and lowered my voice so the others wouldn't hear.
"Rough day, huh?"
Kang did not even flinch at the knife still quivering near his head. He gave me a tired, knowing smirk and leaned back.
"Well... I keep forgetting that a sense of humor is a mutation most of these guys haven't developed yet. At least you're still sane, Glenn."
Kang let out a long, lazy yawn before closing his eyes and drifting back into a nap instead of continuing the argument.
I realized maybe I spoke too early about their newfound focus.
Despite everything, these were still just a group of murderous barbarian Viltrumites who lived for nothing but violence and petty conflict.
Honestly, I liked that about them because it lightened my mood every time. Their constant friction was a welcome distraction from the oppressive silence of the void.
With a light head, I thought about taking a quick nap, but Virexa asked a strange question.
"Brat, why do you waste your energy healing those pathetic weaklings when there is no fruition?"
Virexa leaned on his cane, his milky eyes locked onto me with a cold, analytical intensity that demanded an answer.
"The strength of a Viltrumite is for conquest. Those fodders are merely dust under our boots that we should be crushing."
"..."
I looked at the flickering stars and realized I never thought about it that deeply. It was not even worth thinking about.
Why did I help?
One reason was simple, using my power made me stronger. But there was another truth I never spoke aloud.
It was not kindness, but the strange satisfaction I felt when people looked at me with reverence. I knew I could never tell them that.
"Virexa, I don't need a reason to use my power. Fixing something broken doesn't make me any less strong."
Carliya spat toward the deck plates, her eyes narrowing as she stepped closer to the center of the bridge.
"Commander, those are not worth your breath. They are nothing compared to..."
"You're all weak compared to me. By your logic, should I abandon you the moment you fall behind? Or kill you for being weaker?"
Though I said that, I was internally sweating because these bastards were asking difficult questions.
"As the strongest species, we should strive to be better than a low-IQ, mindless creature."
"..."
"..Always remember, with great power comes great responsibility."
"..." "..." "..." "..."
The bridge fell into a freezing silence for a full minute after my words sank in, and no one dared challenge the reality of their own vulnerability.
I felt a spark of pride seeing them struggle to process a thought that did not involve hitting something.
"Brat, responsibility is a lie the weak tell the strong. Power exists to rule, not to be restrained."
"Who fed you these lies?"
"...I'm the commander."
"In my prime..."
"...Shut up, old man."
I refrained from commenting further on topics that suddenly felt beneath me and focused on the purple-gold energy growing in my core.
I focused on the past ten days, noticing a strange purple-gold energy growing rapidly within my core.
It was no longer as slow as before.
Though I still did not know its purpose, its presence felt as gentle as morning dew on a quiet field.
It brought a stillness I had not felt in a long time, cooling my mind and making the constant itch for conflict fade into the background.
The only thing comparable to this feeling was when I felt down and slept in my mother's lap while she patted my head.
Yes, this was the level of gentleness in this power.
The ship lurched as a heavy impact vibrated through the floorboards, and the lights dimmed into a sickly amber glow.
"Commander... look."
Solvek pointed toward the main viewscreen, where a frozen, mangled body suddenly slapped against the glass and remained stuck there.
The corpse was a mess of ruptured muscle and blue crystalline frost, with eyes that remained wide and glassy in the dark.
It looked like the person tried to grab the hull with clawed fingers before the cold turned them into a statue.
Behind that lone body, the Graveyard revealed itself as a massive, swirling wall of shattered warships and millions of drifting dead.
"This is the entrance to the Dead Zone and it looks like the universe has been collecting trophies of every failure for an eternity."
The debris formed a belt of iron and bone so dense that it blocked out the rest of the galaxy like a curtain of rot.
"Open the high-frequency scanners because we are not just sifting through wreckage anymore. We are entering the belly of the beast."
I watched the dim light reflect off the broken metal and wondered if our ship would eventually be lost in this sea of wreckage.
"Commander, let me go out there and clear this filth with my bare hands so we don't have to navigate through this trash."
Carliya stood up, prepared to throw herself into the vacuum to pave a path through the debris.
"No."
"If anyone is going to face that void to clear a path, it will be me, since I am the only one certain to come back."
I looked her in the eye and made it clear that from this moment on, I would not tolerate a single act of disobedience.
Carliya said nothing and simply acknowledged the command with a nod before returning to her seat.
Finally, after the months-long journey, we achieved what most could not, though our mission was far from starting.
.
.
.
Seven full days passed while fighting through that massive space graveyard, where the entrance felt like a needle's eye made of frozen corpses and debris.
The journey reminded me how tiring this mental exhaustion felt, far worse than any physical struggle.
Every empire in history apparently wanted to conquer this rotting field of absolute death, leaving behind a burial ground for countless broken civilizations.
The void provided no answers, so I spent those long days outside, physically tearing apart massive cruisers that blocked our path forward.
I tossed broken hulls and meteorites into the cold void to clear a wide lane for Solvek to steer the heavy ship through safely.
Sometimes I sat beside Solvek and used the predictive power of my Sharingan to see a clear path through the absolute darkness.
The only good thing about these eyes in space was seeing the exact trajectory of drifting debris and incoming meteorites with perfect accuracy.
It even surprised Solvek when rocks he thought were harmless suddenly destroyed each other right in front of our main viewport.
I saw things even Carliya and Virexa missed. Oh no, wait, I almost credited the old man before remembering he was blind and only good at bragging.
"Commander, how did you know those two would collide when I was already preparing a manual evasion for the larger one?"
"What kind of commander would I be if I couldn't predict something as simple as the movement of a few rocks, Solvek?"
"Kraevus was a complete moron compared to you.. you are truly on a whole different level of greatness, sir!"
Maintaining a perfect image was a vital necessity for a commander until the end, since I intended to remain the greatest leader in their eyes forever.
Solvek mentioned the man, and my memories resurfaced, reminding me of the debt I still needed to settle with a certain mad scientist.
That problem could wait for another day, because much larger and more exciting threats lurked in the immediate darkness surrounding our ship.
The strangest part of the trek was not the debris, but the sudden and suffocating intensity of the deep, unnatural cold of space.
"...Keep the heaters at maximum and focus on the path."
"I am on it, Commander, and I will make sure this ship stays warm enough to sail through any blizzard the universe throws!"
"…Do as you see fit"
"Aye.."
Some time later, I stepped outside the ship to test if we could survive here for a few hours.
The moment my boots touched the hull, I knew we were in serious trouble.
A deep, unnatural chill began to frost over my skin immediately, despite my immense Viltrumite durability and the absolute strength of my inner will.
Such a freezing sensation should have been impossible for any Viltrumite in the airless deep. We can hold our breath and possess superior physical prowess.
My joints locked for a second until my power reacted instantly, forcing my internal temperature to spike and my skin to rapidly thicken for survival.
I adapted as if my body rewrote its thermal limits on the fly until I completely ignored the lethal chill of the void, while realizing I must handle the heavy work alone.
"Glad I didn't jump out there earlier to clear the path by myself like I wanted, Commander."
"Do not be reckless, Carliya. This is not normal space anymore."
I returned to the bridge of the Deep Recon after dealing with the immediate dangers at the entrance.
"Everyone, get into your specialized space suits immediately."
"We cannot afford to stay exposed out here. The rules of physics are changing the deeper we go."
I found Kang and Virexa already fully suited up in the back of the bridge before my order even left my mouth.
"Look at these two being so slow to react, haha! Age truly brings a sharper sense of survival compared to you brats who think you are invincible."
"..."
"...I guess sleeping for so long actually made me faster, while all that moving around just made you guys sluggish."
"..."
Carliya's posture turned predatory as she bared her teeth at Virexa and Kang.
"Keep talking, and I'll see how fast you react when I rip your throat out and toss you into the vacuum."
I watched through the viewport as the distant stars began to blink out one by one, like dying embers in a cold wind, and even I felt the shift.
We were entering the Starless World, an extreme dark space where even the light of the universe simply ceased to exist for us.
This was the last thing we knew about the Dead Zone before stepping into the complete and terrifying unknown, and I did not like it.
Even though there were no planets nearby, the gravitational force was astonishingly high and pulled at the hull with invisible, hungry hands, something that should not exist.
This space felt like a pocket of reality that had forgotten how to be light and existed only as a thick shadow, and I could feel it pressing in.
"The ship is beginning to vibrate at a frequency that suggests we are being pulled from every direction at once, Commander."
Solvek sounded tight with strain as he kept the ship in one piece while we dove deeper into the absolute dark. There were no stars now, not even distant blinking ones, and the silence felt wrong.
I could feel the frame of the vessel resisting the localized pressure with a constant, low groan that never truly stopped.
I deployed my healing zone to its maximum range to keep everyone in peak condition despite the growing stress of the journey.
The green warmth of my power acted as a secondary shield against the crushing force of the void around us.
We moved deeper into the zone until the debris became a distant memory, and only the thick ink of space remained.
"Commander, I have multiple life signs in close proximity on the short-range scanner, and they are moving fast toward our position!"
A massive cannon of light blasted toward us from the darkness just as Carliya finished her urgent warning to the bridge.
The beam was a white spear that missed our port side by a hair, lighting up the entire cabin.
Solvek dodged the strike with incredible skill, proving his worth as the navigator of this ship during this dangerous journey.
"Brat, this is your second mistake after almost getting us shot by pirates because of how incompetent you are."
Virexa's argument sounded valid, though the conditions here were entirely different since we could not detect the hostile ships until the very last second.
"Solvek, kill the external lights. Carliya, do not fire back until I give the word. Let us see who is brave enough to hunt a wolf in the dark."
.
.
.
Order was the beautiful lie the Empire told its citizens to justify the mountains of bodies required to maintain a throne, while heritage stood as a legacy of conquest and absolute discipline.
But that was fine, because it was, after all, the way of Viltrum.
Even so, a single powerful person could not bring a glorious age to Viltrum, and a narcissist like his father certainly could not lead them into the stars anymore, as stagnation worsened with every century.
That was why pure ambition guided Thragg through the imperial palace, while his hands painted the sacred walls with the blood of the finest guards who stood in his path to power.
Ascending effortlessly through the palace levels with a speed that turned the air into a screaming gale of heat and pressure, Thragg moved with the weight of the crown in his mind.
He knew that soon he would be able to save this planet and bring prosperity, just as his teacher had always dreamed.
Landing on the seventeenth floor, he was soon inside the Emperor's private chambers like a death knell for a dying era, while Argall remained seated with the calm of a predatory emperor, looking far more imposing than Thragg.
"It's been a while, rat."
"Your Majesty."
Betrayal felt like a minor irritation to the ruler, whose only regret was not being more thorough with his past purges to ensure that such a weak mistake never took a single breath.
"You are remarkably full of yourself to think you possess the strength to kill me alone in the heart of my own palace, Prince, especially when you are nothing but a disgrace."
The Emperor wasn't really angry at all, because for thousands of years he had given birth to many traitors, all of whom were buried now, while only he sat on the golden throne. He simply needed to kill this rat.
"I'm done watching you rot on this chair while the Empire turns to dust under your feet."
If anyone asked Thragg how he felt about killing his father, he would have answered with nothing at all. Viltrumites were not creatures of emotion, and this was simply necessary for the greater good.
"I should have executed that mother of yours the moment I was finished with her, because she sired nothing but a mongrel that thinks it can bite its master."
Regardless, the Emperor managed to anger the Prince.
The certainty that his father viewed his birth as a defect in a factory line instead of the continuation of the most powerful bloodline in the entire galaxy surely stung a little.
"Shut up and die."
There was no need for petty words anymore.
"You believe you alone are enough to end my reign?"
"His Highness, the Prince does not stand alone, Your Majesty, for the era of your stagnation has reached its inevitable conclusion."
Thaedus stepped from the shadows, his eyes holding a cold resolve that had been brewing for centuries, as he stood beside the young heir to challenge the pillar holding up the Viltrumite sky.
"Another traitor who has forgotten his place in the dirt."
"I am loyal to the soul of the Empire, and you are destroying its future with these ancient and hollow ways."
"You dare speak of stagnation to the one who carved our glory from the chaos of a thousand worlds and made us masters of the stars!"
A moment later, the Emperor attacked Thaedus with his full strength.
If a fight broke out here, the people would know what was happening, so Thragg clicked the device in his hand until the reality of the palace vanished, replacing the marble floor with the desolate grey surface of a distant and silent moon.
Soaring through the thin atmosphere with brutal efficiency, Argall lunged forward with a strike that turned the lunar crust into a sprawling web of fire and dust.
Every blow from the Emperor felt like a falling star as he threw his son across the horizon and pinned Thaedus into a crater of molten rock with absolute and terrifying physical force.
"Is this the limit of the new generation?"
Argall's fist slammed into Thragg's ribs with a sound like a mountain shattering.
"Kneel, boy, and bear witness as a true emperor purges a defect."
Thaedus tried to intervene, but a backhand from the Emperor sent him skidding across the lunar dust for miles.
"You are children attempting to challenge a god, because you forgot I am the one who taught this Empire how to kill."
"Then I'll show you exactly how well I learned that lesson, father."
Thragg spat a glob of thick blood and lunged back into the fray with a desperate headbutt that finally cracked the Emperor's nose but that wasn't enough.
"Stop talking and fight!"
The weight of Argall's absolute power crushed their defiance as Thragg struggled to breathe, while the Emperor stood over them like an inescapable storm.
Blood leaked from Thragg's mouth as he watched the shadow of death loom over them, until a calm voice resonated through the silence of the moon, shattering the Emperor's dominance.
"Even if you are the Emperor, you possess no right to destroy the sanctuary of the divine."
A cold steel blade suddenly erupted through the back of the King as an unknown shadow materialized, staining the lunar dust with a spray of imperial blood.
"What... who is this..."
The shock in Argall's eyes was the only opening Thragg needed.
He didn't hesitate as his hands locked onto the Emperor's jaw and the base of his skull with a grip that could crush moons.
With a single guttural roar, he yanked the head clean off his father's shoulders.
The headless body of Argall slumped into the dust.
"You did your job, Hylos."
Finally, Thaedus spoke to the man who attacked the Emperor from the shadows.
.
.
.
(End Of The Chapter)