“Cautiously, we expanded our dominion.

Not in the waves of conquest we had previously expanded; after all, there was nothing left for us to conquer in our galaxy.

Space station by space station. Planetoid by planetoid was reintegrated into the empire.

Gateway travel was abandoned, and all previous ship-sized gates were destroyed. Instead, we traversed between star systems through the hallway of domains. While dangerous, we would leave no trace pointing at our colonies.

Instant communication and transit were established through the use of station or planetary side gateways that were to be destroyed if any enemy attacked the system. While small and only allowing a handful of people to travel between them at a time, the expenditure on energy was enormous, so heavy regulations were put in place for their use. The time of the once limitless funds of the empire was long gone.

Perhaps surprisingly, to some, humanity rose to the occasion. Throwing aside the lives of leisure and the pursuit of new ways to entertain themselves, most of the population took service with the imperial forces.

Sadly, no reemergence of the Imperial Legionaries was not in the current administration's plans.”

- Elistar Iscariot, Grand Magister during the second Kingfisher dynasty.

I almost felt a tinge of sadness when leaving the sterile interior of the battleship Umbriel. However, the AI Umbriel was not something I would miss overly much.

While our meeting had been interesting and, to be fair, it had given me a lot more information than I expected, it still kept its cards close to its heart, so to speak.

Either the AI core rules had changed since my passing, or I was dealing with a rouge AI. I had never encountered an AI that operated with that much ego. It felt unnatural and made me wary of letting it get too much information about me, and it already had deducted far too much from what I could tell. It was simply too different from the AI I had known during my time.

I did learn that it planned to communicate with its bow by moving message capsules from its shared storage space when that part of the ship had energy again. It was not a bad plan, but unless I was missing something that meant either the domain heart or the pendant contained an initiation message. My money was on the transparent cylinder covering the domain heart.

Either way, It had not been completely honest with me.

When it came to the second payment that I would receive when the domain heart was delivered, I have to admit I had to stop myself from rushing over there.

Umbriel, as the only entity on the ship Umbriel, would take the job of imperial quartermaster and allow me to purchase items it considered redundant from its storage. The exchange would work in the same way as it did during my time, and apparently, it had continued to do until the ship landed on this planet.

Citizens would earn imperial credits when concluding activities that served the empire. These credits were used to purchase anything outside of what was considered necessities, which was provided by the empire either way.

The trouble was that the empire didn't have much in the way of presence on this planet. In fact, as far as I knew, it only had Umbriel. That severely limited what I could do to earn credits.

Luckily, I had once been very good at earning credits in one of the few ways possible for me here. Slaying the enemies of the empire.

Since the empire considered all non-human races, all dimensional incursions and the plethora of anomalies that occurred on this planet to be the enemy, I should be able to earn a couple of credits from time to time.

The pendent would act as the credit counter. The more powerful enemies I killed, the more spirit power I would get, and the pendent would keep a record of this for when I connected with Umbriel again so this could be calculated into credits based on the latest date it had received prior to landing here.

While I didn't like the idea of any sort of tracking device on me, the possible artifacts and materials I could access were just too tempting. Just imagining forges capable of creating high-grade steel on an industrial scale, mass-producing building materials, artifacts, chemicals, and medicine that would be considered miracles in this world made me drool.

Umbriel had even hinted at personal crafts for inter-planet travel. I could one day travel in space again! Not far, but that was not the important part. Space! I didn't realize how much I missed traversing the vacuum outside a planet's atmosphere.

The upside was just too good for me not to take advantage of, and I hope I will come to understand Umbriel enough for me to see through its agendas eventually. That was years into the future.

Slinging my still-sleeping companion onto my back and, to both my surprise and delight, fastened her properly with two of my six functioning rope-like tentacles. Come to think of it, they were starting to look less and less organic and more and more like cables by the day.

I wonder what the change represented and if it mattered; they felt as strong if not stronger than ever to me. Especially the pointy ends. I'm positive I could puncture proper plate armor with ease at this point.

That said, they still seemed to be covered in a black tar-like substance that luckily didn't smear off, or I would have one grumpy passenger later, with her new clothes and all that.

Not able to help myself, I set off on the tunnel on my own legs, passing the spot where it turned from a tunnel into a hallway. The feeling of using my muscles was satisfying beyond belief, and it dispelled the tiny voice that had been in the back of my head, claiming I would never walk again.

I had asked Umbriel if it wanted me to close up the entrance to its hull but was asked not to. It seems Umbriel took great pleasure in turning non-humans into dust. It didn't matter to it if they were captives or people willingly attempting to enter it. If it wasn't human, it was the enemy. At least that confirmed it to be an Imperial AI.

Humans that were forced towards its hull were a dilemma it had requested proper protocol on how to handle. Until it got that answer, it would treat them based on its deduction of the situation. So far, the only survivors of that method were my passenger and me. Whether that was a good thing or not was still up in the air. I had explained to it that I doubted it would find anyone but me able to communicate with it, but that seemed to matter little to the AI. Protocol was protocol, or the lack of one in this instance.

Entering the top level of the prison, I was surprised to see it was empty. According to Umbriel, I had been asleep for almost half a day while healing.

I would have expected the few surviving prisoners to be back in their cages by now, but only splattered guards remained.

Activating the ritual Summon Voidling since my previous friends seemed to have left this plane, with the exception of the one in Mira's shadow, I was surprised to discover I could force more power into the ritual before it started becoming unstable.

With the usual tear in reality, a voidling crawled its way out of the inky darkness of its home domain to land before me with a soft thud. This one was almost twice the size of my previous summons. While it only seemed to have twelve tentacles and looked more like a crab than a ball of fluff, two of its front tentacles were thicker and ended in claws…

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Testing revealed it had the same ability to move from shadow to shadow at will. Still, unlike my previous friends, this one could cause quite a bit of harm to lightly armored opponents, and by the looks of its spiked carapace, it looked like it could take a stomp or two before saying good night and goodbye.

I liked it.

It was not only just as fast as its smaller siblings but also a lot stronger and more endurable. It was also extremely venomous, according to what True Sight showed me about the thick, viscous liquid dripping from its claws. The smell of rot and decay came heavily from the creature, like an unexpected punch to the nose. It had to hail from the border regions of Gaia. It was the only explanation I had for its mutations.

Summoning two more, which seemed to be my limit at the moment. Unless I chose to send the one with Mira back to the void and summon another big one, I wasn't prepared to lose that connection yet.

Sending them ahead to warn me of any ambushes or incoming patrols, I set off after the trail of death the prisoners had left when they escaped.

The ground was covered in remdra blood and bodies. All three castes were slaughtered with equal abandon by the looks of it. Since I couldn't see many dead prisoner bodies, I have to admit they appeared to be far more efficient than I had given them credit for.

I did stop to pick up the few of the nasty-looking, ridiculously large weapons the remdra seemed to favor. Since there weren't that many left, I'm guessing the prisoners had done the same.

It was a slog walking over all the dead bodies, the stench of blood and gore only growing more intense by the minute, but we finally made it out. Sort of.

A massive door had once stood as the guardian of the tunnel. It had been torn off its hinges by an enormous force, and the plaza outside spoke of a terrible pitched battle. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, some of them already starting to bloat.

The ground was covered in a brown sludge of all the mixed blood and guts from the fallen of the myriad of different species that had died her.

At a guess, I would say around a thousand of the prisoners had fallen here, but three times as many of the remdra lay slain in the most gruesome manner. To my delight, I even spotted eleven dead untekhi. Now, this was turning into an excellent day. Any dead untekhi was a cause for celebration.

A wild guess told me I would need to go in the direction clashes of battle could be heard from.

Four round towers stood on each corner of the plaza. They stretched up towards the roof of an enormous cavern, ending in a strange egg-like dome. A voidling appeared briefly in my shadow, confirming they were empty expert for a few lecture rooms or something similar by the looks of it.

Not bothering with the stairs, I hauled myself up the side of the tower closest to the battle with my tentacles. In under a minute, I slid us through the oval window of the top floor before I started scouting towards the sounds of battle.

The underground city is enormous. It is not the size of Murktown, but because it was built underground, I had never imagined that something like this would be possible.

Large buildings seemed to be carved out of the rock itself, and smaller one- and two-story houses made of fire-treated mud, at least coated with mud. There were no perfect squares that I could see; some buildings were close to being round, but most of the small houses had at least one or two straight walls. The rest of the house was either built out in a sphere or was simply a half-circle or three-quarter circle.

It was painful to watch; the strange shapes and geometry were messing with my senses. I could feel a headache starting from just looking at the city.

Through the city, enormous pillars rose from the ground and all the way to the ceiling that was so far away. Most of the pillars must have thousands of residents, according to the number of windows I saw carved into the rock. It was strangely disturbing and incredible at the same time. I couldn't spot a single symmetrical building.

The streets were empty as far as I could see, something my voidlings soon confirmed since its inhabitants were up in arms.

On the edge of the cavern, an enormous tunnel entered the city, and a great battle was taking place. I couldn't make out who was fighting, but I had my suspicions.

Closer to the center of the cavern, a building that could only be described as a palace was under siege by the inhabitants. I had no trouble seeing who was fighting who there. The prisoners had managed to occupy the entire building, and things seemed to be at a standoff for now.

I couldn't sense much power coming from that crowd, so at a guess, I would say most of the remdra and untekhi were fighting against the forces trying to gain a foothold inside the cavern. The ones by the palace were more of a picket force sent to keep the former prisoners in check while they dealt with a larger threat.

Getting ready to head for the fight by the tunnel, which no doubt led to getting away from this strange city, my plans were thrown out the window by a voidling that came and sent me an image from the cellar of the palace contained. It looks like I have a date with my former prison comrades. It's too bad I never had time to form a gang, maybe with a few tattoos and hand signs.

Moving over to a window facing the palace, I made sure my passenger was held tight as I activated Jump, flying across buildings and open plazas.

A combination of Jump and Controlled Fall soon had us standing on a building looking down on the besiegers of the temple.

The forces were mostly made up of the short type with massive forearms and a ridged bone plate on the head.

Roaming groups of oversized remdra with claws and short tails seemed to be in charge, pushing threatening their smaller siblings into place and sending out attacks on the wide opening leading into the palace. By the looks of it, the success rate wasn't much higher than the life expectancy of the attackers.

A group of a few hundred would rush across the grounds, where they were immediately bombarded with anything from rocks and furniture to oversized swords and spears. Dozens fell before they even reached the yawning doorway leading into the palace.

The massive palace doors were laid across the entrance, creating a barrier that soon proved to be filled with spear-wielding prisoners.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the discipline of the mixed species making up the former prisoners. They may not be able to communicate extensively with each other from what I could see, but they most certainly communicated well enough to work as a unit

The attack halted at the barricade. Unable to force their way through the stalwart defenders and under constant attack from above, they soon retreated, leaving around a hundred and fifty corpses behind.

It all seemed so wasteful, but I'm not going to pretend I understand either remdra or untekhi culture. Not that I have much pity for either species at the moment.

Sending out my three voidlings to start taking out any of the large enemies that stood alone, I watched for a few more minutes as a large remdra, the short-tailed sort, made its way toward a building closer to my location.

Between steps, tentacles curled around its limbs, and a claw tore open flesh across its throat. The remdra died, twitching in a puddle of its own blood without uttering a sound.

One that stood a few meters behind a group of the short remdra suddenly fell down to its knees. Blood gushed from the grotesque wound across its neck as it fell face-first to the ground.

Well, I honestly hadn't expected the voidlings to understand that I wanted them to only kill in places that wouldn't raise the remdra alarm. Their senses were simply too different from humans.

I did discover something delightful as they kept killing the big and ugly stumpy-tailed ones. The voiding`s killing something gave me energy from the kill, not much, but it was basically free power. Dreams of sending my voidlings to clear out dungeons while I slept ran across my mind.

Gently placing my passenger on the roof, I summoned the two sheets I had used to stash stuff in and placed one under her head and one I wrapped around her, just to be safe.

The clothes Umbriel had fitted for her would take care of any drops or increases in temperature that may come if there were any Awakened nearby.

I'll admit Umbriel did some great work with the clothes. All of mine had been replaced by the durable and resistant wave that the crew would have used. It had just been made into a copy of my old clothes. Too bad my hat was lost.

Originally, Umbriel had made a regular skin suit for my companion, but I managed to talk it into making something more appropriate by local standards. If she showed up dressed in the skin-tight, almost see-through white material in a village or town, she was likely to incite a riot. Bunch of prudes. I'm not going to claim I hadn't seen more beautiful people in my lives, but she was not bad looking.

Admittedly, I couldn't complain about the view with the blouse and pants either. They may have been a bit more revealing than normal, but it was better than the body-clinging crew suits, and I wasn't exactly ogling her; I was just making objective observations.

Yeah, she was quite the sight, even unconscious and apparently drooling.

A head shorter than me, she was about average height for a woman on this planet, but her legs and core muscles told of strength. Not too strange considering she was Awakened, but I had come to understand there was a vast difference in potential and, perhaps more importantly, attitude among us.

Some may not have the affinity to reach further than the first rank of Awakening, but that was not an excuse to stop trying to achieve more power, to stop becoming better than you were yesterday.

This lady was not a quitter, or she was trying to achieve a higher rank. I was leaning towards the first one, considering the state I had found her in. Not many could survive that and still be able to cling to life without any prospect of rescue or healing. Especially healing, considering how time-consuming and expensive healing a body as damaged as hers had been. Only the upper crust of the aristocracy could hope to have enough gold for that, and it would leave a few of the families almost destitute.

Umbriel had even regrown her hair to the longest strands left on her head. I imagine the vile untekhi had apparently not cared too much about it when chopping off her once long blond locks, leaving spots with different lengths of hair on her head.

Since untekhi didn't have hair themselves, I wonder what it thought was achieved by the action. It's not like her cell had contained any mirrors.

I wondered who this warrior was; her jawline and the shape of her nose, now that she had one, was familiar to me, but I could not place it. It was like knowing an answer, but it was just out of reach. Annoying.

Time to get some work done myself. Just got to keep the ritual activating to a minimum.

Standing up, I readied myself to join the fray.

I did not plan to spend too much time taking out the remaining forces since my voidlings had been discovered by now and had groups of the dumb dumbs running in and out of houses, out of sight of the main group. It was almost as if they were following a script I had written for them.

With a grin, I brought up the ritual Jump to the front of my mind, only to feel an iron grip around my ankle and a soft but firm voice saying,

“No.”