Freddy felt profoundly itchy watching Sophia cradling the shiny ball. “Sophia…” he called cautiously.

“Oh, shut it!” she yelled. “I’m not gonna steal it, you—argh! I wish I killed a damn Lord by accident.”

“I wouldn’t call it an accident,” he said, stepping forward.

She groaned and handed the object back to him. “Listen to me, Freddy,” she said, looking at the box. “Here is what you have to do. Go into the Netherecho, then eat this thing.”

“In the Netherecho?” he asked, scowling at her. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“Just do it,” she said.

“Hold on, now,” he started cautiously. “I’ma need you to step back a bit; I don’t like the way you’re looking at this thing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Either do it, or I will steal it and take it for myself.”

“Okay, geesh.” He looked at the box. With a final glance at Sophia, he took 7 measured steps away from her and looked for a way to open the box. “How do I open this damn thing?”

“You don’t,” she said. “Just go into the Netherecho, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Aight,” he said. Then he took another 7 long steps away from her, ensuring he was far enough away that she couldn’t snatch it while he was in the Netherecho.

She squinted at him again and made strangling gestures.

He chuckled. Then, he sat on the ground, placed the box before him, and closed his eyes.

As soon as he did, he understood precisely what Sophia was talking about.

In the place of the small sealed box was what looked like a storm of ether, a coiling sphere of glowing, pure wisps. It radiated so much power that he felt it was comparable to staring at his star—if not even more extreme.

“What the hell is this thing?” he wondered, suddenly questioning Sophia’s advice.

However, he could also feel a slight pull. It almost felt like his projection was… salivating at the sight of the mesmerizing object before him.

With a gulp, he leaped off his head and landed before the stormy object. It appeared slightly larger in the Netherecho, and the glass box was nowhere to be seen. With a cautious step forward, he placed one hand on the spinning object.

Instantly, the storm stopped. The mighty mass of energy evaporated into a thin stream of pure ether and coagulated right on the palm of his tiny hand. It grew as small as a grain of sand, and once it fully condensed, it looked frighteningly similar to a miniature star.

Its white glow appeared to shatter the further it went, splitting into tiny rainbows that evaporated into gentle mist.

Don’t tell me…

With more anticipation than he’d felt in a long time, he carefully brought the object to the hood of his cloak and shoved it inside, consuming it. Instantly, a horrible pain shot straight through his entire soul, repeatedly echoing in a recursive sequence of ethereal pulses coursing into his ethercosm.

He forced himself to bear the pain, pushing through it as the process gradually came to a halt.

His projection flew back towards his body, and he appeared not in the real world but inside his ethercosm, where he floated around for a few long seconds. Then, he felt his projection start to condense. Horror filled him as he felt his entire soul space shrink for a moment, and, a distance away from the two stars orbiting one another in his core, a tiny nova appeared.

It roiled stormily for a long moment before gradually calming and condensing…

Into a satellite.

Freddy stared at the object before him in shock, absolutely bewildered. “Holy moly,” he muttered, slowly drifting towards the incredible object.

“I have a satellite,” he mumbled, unable to restrain his glee. “I have a goddamn satellite!”

It was like reliving the moment he first laid eyes on his star. It was marvelous. Magical. He felt excited beyond belief, and he quickly went back outside.

Sophia’s envious gaze welcomed his return. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“It hurt like hell,” he said. “By the way, thank you for warning me.”

She smirked. “You don’t seem all that angry, though.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “I guess I’m in a good mood.”

He focused on Thousand Wet Hells. The tempering technique ordinarily consumed 10% essence every second. With 128% essence capacity, he had roughly 13 seconds of use while full. At the moment, his essence stores were at only 79%.

He quickly did some mental math.

Satellites only contained 1% of the essence capacity of an entire star. But, to compensate for this, they regenerated that capacity fully in a single second. That essence was consumed with priority, meaning it always went before the essence that was stored in the star.

Essentially, with how it worked, it was pretty much a 1% per second discount on essence use for every ability. With something like Hydraulic Flex in passive mode, it completely covered the use cost, making the ability essentially… free.

On top of that, it made essence manipulation effectively free, too, allowing him to practice to his heart’s content.

This was an absolutely enormous advantage. These things cost millions of dollars, and they were damn hard to buy for solo archhumans. The people who made these usually only sold them to big organizations.

Having a satellite meant that even if he was utterly out of essence in his star, he could still run Hydraulic Flex indefinitely. Well, until the essence poisoning killed him, that was, but water essence was the gentlest kind, so he had quite a bit of leeway.

With Thousand Wet Hells, it didn’t seem that impressive. At 79% essence, he could use it for 8 seconds—with the satellite, that became 8.77 seconds. That seemed quite tame at first glance, but that wasn’t the case at all.

That was a nearly 10% increase in the speed at which he would grow Thousand Wet Hells. Over a day or two, that didn’t seem like much, but when progress was measured in years, and when compounding results were taken into account, it made a drastic difference.

Putting Thousand Wet Hells aside, expensive as it was, it made his other tempering techniques much cheaper.

Pool of Blood only cost around 1% essence per second—now, it was free. That didn’t mean he could use it forever; blood essence was a lot nastier than water essence, and overuse could lead to some terrible consequences—like his own blood turning highly acidic and corroding his body away from the inside.

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He wasn’t ordinarily scared of this since it wasn't a big deal, even if he suffered some damage. But with a satellite involved, things could get extremely dangerous. Fast.

“Did you test it out yet?” Sophia’s words broke him out of his musings.

“Hmm?” he hummed. “Ah, no, wait; I’m wondering what to try it with first.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just do whatever!”

“You fiendish woman!” he spat. “This is a special moment! I need to decide on a good one.”

She groaned. “Okay, geez,” she muttered as she turned around. “Who the hell says ‘fiendish’?”

Freddy ignored her as he took a closer look at his abilities. “Screw it,” he said as he decided on a trusty classic—Adaptive Water Body. He hadn’t used this one in quite a while, and he thought it would be wise to give it a go.

It was quite an expensive tempering technique at 4% essence per second. Now, it would be 25 percent cheaper.

He focused and started using it. His ability drew essence from his star as usual, but this time, half of it came from the satellite, drastically reducing the rate at which his star was being depleted. He continued using the ability until—

“Wait a minute!” he yelped as he stopped using his tempering technique.

“Hmm?” Sophia called. “All good?” she asked.

… Half?

He tried again.

Indeed, the ability drew on his essence, roughly half of which came from the satellite.

Now… either he had misremembered the cost of the ability or—

“This satellite is generating 2% essence per second,” he muttered in disbelief.

Sophia’s mouth gaped. “No freaking—aaargh, you lucky bastard!” she spat. “You got a two-star satellite!”

“This is a two-star satellite!” he echoed her words. “Holy shit, I have a two-star satellite!”

His mind rushed as he got up. That changed things. 2% instead of 1% wasn’t a tiny difference—hell, two-star satellites cost over ten times more than one-star ones.

He rushed to his feet and screamed in joy. It took him a long moment to calm down. “What are my chances against the cultists, now?” he asked snarkily.

“They’re… higher, I guess,” she said. “But all of them have satellites,” she declared. “Hell, I think some of them have three-star ones.”

That made him deflate real quick. “Oh…”

“Don’t you ‘oh’ me!” she said. “You don’t have the right to go ‘oh’ and deflate dramatically! This is a huge deal! We only have a few more days left before this place is flooded with monsters. When that happens, having a two-star satellite will let you save your reserves! You don’t even need to tap into your star now!”

“Yeah… you’re right,” he said, but he wasn’t comforted by those words.

This was indeed a massive deal. Yet, she so casually shared that all their opponents had the same advantage. That was a tough pill to swallow.

It was sobering.

She wasn’t kidding when she said they were dealing with true elites.

And they only had a handful of days left to prepare.

***

Leonard stood before the barrier, smoking a cigar as he eyed the ripples.

The entire lobby had been blocked off and reinforced behind layers of heavy metal walls. Dozens of powerful archhumans were waiting just past the barrier behind him, with hundreds more waiting throughout the building.

He had tried himself against it. He was no combat arch, but he was no pushover, either. Yet… no luck. None of his officers could bust the barrier, either. Specialized equipment that could perhaps stand a chance would take weeks to assemble, and until then, they were stuck, waiting to see whether the barrier would go down.

There were four open passages such as this one in Nova York. All of them were blocked by the same barrier. On top of that, another five private passages had been compromised.

A total of nine realms throughout Nova York were in an uncertain state. Depending on who had done this and what their goals were, the next few weeks could spell a disaster unseen since the early days of the Rift.

The worst part was that they couldn’t simply evacuate the entire city. Millions of people lived here—where exactly would they take them?

Faced with no choice, the government had kept this attack under a tight wrap. Naturally, word had gotten out. But seeing as the local government and the news were quiet, close to no one was panicking. Similar stuff had occurred before, albeit on a far smaller scale, and things had been handled smoothly.

Unfortunately, Leonard didn’t believe it would go the same way this time.

Something about this whole thing felt sinister to him. There was a purpose behind these actions that eluded him, and if there was anything he hated, it was being out of the loop.

Not to mention that one of the most promising sons he had had in a long time was stuck behind this barrier, and whether he had survived was unknown.

***

Madame boarded her flying carriage, bidding goodbye to a long line of screaming women who were seeing her off on the rooftop of her headquarters.

She sent kisses and hugs, waving cheerily as she stepped inside. Her assistant, Matt, approached the carriage and closed the door.

The smile didn’t fall from her face once the doors were closed.

A moment later, a second door opened, and Matt walked inside, stepping over and sitting beside her. A few seconds later, the three bodyguards and the driver also walked in, sitting down and getting comfortable.

There was absolutely no need for bodyguards to protect her. Yet, whenever she had to descend down to the lessers, she found them convenient to have by her side.

The empress would arrive in about a week or so, and with her flying carriage, Madame would be at the capital in only three days. Four days was the most she could manage to scrounge up. Naturally, there was no real need to show up a whole four days early, but she wanted a small break from all the hubbub.

She hadn’t set aside time for herself in a long while, and New York was just the place to go and have some fun. No, wait—Nova York. That was what they called it nowadays. She kept forgetting about that. If she was being honest, she didn’t like the new name. Even “New New York” would have been better.

Speaking of the city, she had recently gotten her hands on a few concerning reports. A few passages were in trouble, and it could be a big problem. Not her problem, of course.

As their carriage finally lifted off the ground and soared into the sky, she couldn’t help but wonder about Freddy Stern. What the hell was happening to that young man?

She hadn’t been paying particularly close attention to what he was up to, but when she sensed the intense signature of what could only be extremely crude body modification, she took a closer look. And quickly made a startling discovery—he had acquired a spark of undeath. That was plainly absurd for too many reasons to count.

There was no way in hell he had received another damn unique. So… an affinity shard, perhaps? That was also unlikely.

She thought back to that undead being she killed back in the caverns. Was that passage connected to undeath somehow?

At any rate, this was more evidence to support her initial assumption.. Too many strange things were happening for that not to be the case. At any rate, extra evidence was always welcome.

Persuading the empress would be no easy task.

***

The next few days passed in a blur. Freddy and Sophia trained every waking second they had.

Although rudimentary, Sophia had acquired a neat ability—she could morph her legs. Now, she could bend her knees the other way and use her legs as springs for running and jumping faster.

As far as offense was concerned, she had put little work into that. Their plan would be better served with greater mobility.

Freddy understood the same thing, and as for their plan, fighting would be the last resort. Speed would be no issue for him with Hydraulic Flex—with his Thousand Wet Hells-tempered body, he could reliably use Hydraulic Flex with both stars to leap past the guards and into the passage.

Thankfully, Freddy had a watch in his backpack so they could keep track of time.

It didn’t take long for him to learn the consequences of abusing the satellite. He used it quite heavily during the first day, pushing it to the limit to discover where that limit lay. And discover it, he did. After loading his body with far too much water essence, he started throwing up.

Every single orifice in his body started aggressively leaking water. He sweated buckets. His vision became blurry, and the dehydration hit him like a truck. He’d gone way past normal levels of essence poisoning and well into lethal territory without realizing it.

Without his immortal body, keeping himself alive would have been a struggle. Thankfully, he could recover from the side effects with relative ease, and it took only two hours of meditation to purge the excess water essence from his body.

Throughout their time there, very few gorels had stumbled upon them. They were simply too isolated. But on the seventh day, as Sophia had predicted, more of them started showing up.

At first, it was just one or two, but before long, it was five, then ten, then twenty.

As the cacophony of gorel cries shrieked through the entire realm, filling the air with a subtle vibration, they knew.

They were out of time.