Chapter 630: Cosmic Singularity
’Come on, can you be any more obvious?’
Such were the boy’s thoughts as he snapped his fingers, freezing both crewmen in time. Their bodies locked in place mid-motion, unable to respond.
He stepped past them, approached the bridge door and opened it without resistance, stepping into the heart of the ship’s command centre.
The soft hum of machinery and the blinking of various consoles filled the space as he scanned the room, his gaze landing on the captain at the central control station.
As Arthur stepped onto the bridge, all eyes snapped to him in shock, particularly the captain, who froze mid-command.
His expression wavered for a split second, betraying a hint of fear that he quickly concealed, though Arthur caught it.
The crew rushed toward him, eager to address the situation, but Arthur ignored them all and shouted aloud.
"Hey, Evan! Was the map any different?"
A beat passed before Evan materialized next to the main console, where the captain stood moments earlier.
His sudden appearance made the crew’s faces twist with disbelief. How had he gotten past them?
The answer was simple: Evan’s concealment skill which he’d used on his Day 1 on Aramis. One needed a Pseudo-Authority to see through it, and none of the crewmen possessed such.
The crewman who had tried to close the door earlier had hit something, and that something was Evan’s leg as the boy had slipped in at that moment.
Evan, holding two maps in his hand, glanced at Arthur.
"Well, for some reason, they had two maps. The one you had..."
He held up the familiar route map Arthur had shown earlier.
"...and here’s a different one—the one we’re actually following."
Shock rippled across the bridge and the crewmen’s expressions contorted.
Not only had they failed to detect Evan’s presence, but now he’d revealed there were two maps in play, one of which was clearly a lie.
But Evan didn’t care about the crew’s reactions—he was more disturbed by Arthur’s expression.
There was shock, yes, but what unsettled Evan most was the unmistakable flicker of fear etched across Arthur’s features.
Fear.
Evan had NEVER seen Arthur scared of anything.
Arthur—who’d stroll into a room full of galaxy-busting entities with casual confidence and treat them like the Uncles next door—was afraid.
Evan’s pulse quickened. He spun around, looking behind him to see what exactly had evoked such a reaction in Arthur.
Though he couldn’t perceive Cosmic energy the way Arthur could, as a Legendary realm existence capable of manipulating law energies, he immediately sensed it—the absurd concentration of law energy forming just outside the ship.
It was thick and overwhelming, and they were headed straight toward it.
Arthur’s voice, usually so controlled, cracked with frustration and dread as he shouted
"That is definitely not a fucking realm gate! What the hell do you think you’re taking us toward?!"
Arthur’s ability to see Cosmic Energy was precisely the reason for his fear.
He could see exactly what was happening before them.
While Evan saw law energies concentrated, Arthur saw a swirling vortex of Cosmic energy concentrating before the ship.
It was an absurd amount of power—enough to ignite a Star!
The problem was that this energy was all being compressed into a single point, no larger than a basketball.
Think about all the Cosmic energy required to ignite a star that could give life to dozens of planets, forced into the same space as a basketball.
That was a disaster waiting to happen!
If it was magic power, Arthur didn’t even want to imagine the results, much less the superior Cosmic energy.
The fabric of Space-time around them, already fragile, was not built to withstand this kind of pressure.
Arcs of Cosmic energy began crackling in the void, lashing out toward the ship like the deadly tendrils and Arthur’s heart raced.
’Fuck!’
The boy released his aura and controlled as much of the ambient cosmic energy as he could. He reached out and yanked Evan toward him, pulling him out of harm’s way as those deadly arcs streaked toward the ship.
He infused cosmic energy into the Stellar Guard, switching it to an active state while his Pseudo-Authorities of Time and Gravity estimated the time they had left: one minute.
Just one minute before everything fell apart.
However, it was as if an unseen force had seen through the fact that he’d made this estimation.
Even before he could warn Artemisia and Beatrix, who were standing at the door of the bridge, the Cosmic energy that had been gathering suddenly ignited.
It was premature, far sooner than Arthur had anticipated. Far sooner than it should have ignited.
It erupted in a blinding, cataclysmic burst, shredding space-time as if it were fragile cloth. In the heart of the explosion, a singularity bloomed—born from the violent collapse of cosmic energy.
The sheer force unleashed was enough to rival the ignition of a star, and the power it carried was beyond mortal comprehension.
A brilliant, searing light engulfed everything in its path, overwhelming senses and swallowing the ship in an instant.
The last thing Arthur glimpsed was reality tearing apart as the explosion shattered the laws of the universe, a nanosecond before he was engulfed by the blinding light.
And then—nothing.
◇ ◇ ◇
The ship was blasted to bits in a heartbeat, disintegrated by the sheer magnitude of the Cosmic energy’s eruption.
Every wall, every panel, was obliterated in a storm of destructive force.
The very fabric of space twisted and tore as Cosmic energy and the newly born singularity wreaked havoc on reality. Rifts formed, opening tears that stretched across space like jagged wounds.
The laws of space and time ceased to function properly as the singularity exploded outward, sending a powerful suction force through the void.
Everything within the vicinity was drawn into the black maw of the singularity, including the remnants of the ship, and all the fragments of space-time around it.
As the laws of the universe weren’t working properly, even the explosion was abnormal.
The singularity reversed its explosion. It began reabsorbing all the energy it had unleashed.
The implosion that followed was as violent as the explosion, collapsing inward and swallowing everything it had torn apart.
A circular ring of Cosmic dust formed in the wake of the event, and Cosmic energy, gas, and light shot out from the singularity’s core, swirling around it.
Immediately the System of the Universe detected the anomaly and alarms went off.
The universe, with all its intricate working processes and protocols, began recording the errors as they piled up.
|Error #?%95!! Space-Time Breakdown!!|
|Error Resolution Matrix Breakdown! |
The failsafe protocols designed to correct these errors were malfunctioning, unable to keep up with the unprecedented level of Cosmic energy distortion.
|Central Processing Matrix Upgrading Error Situation. |
|Assuming Worst Case Scenario. Skipping all default protocols. Accessing Deadlock! |
The system bypassed all standard procedures, switching directly to emergency mode.
|Orithyia Galactic Sector System Collapse imminent! |
|Error Resolution Matrix Restarted! |
A desperate attempt was made to reboot the systems designed to handle such errors.
|Energy Interference Detected|
The interference from the overwhelming Cosmic energy compounded the problem, further destabilizing the situation.
|Drawing Power from other Matrixes. |
In a bid to contain the disaster, the system began pulling energy from other Matrixes responsible for other Aspects of the Devour Class System, diverting power to stabilize the singularity’s effects.
|Reattempting to Contain Error|
|Cosmic Energy Interference Detected|
But the sheer magnitude of the singularity’s Cosmic energy continued to thwart every attempt at resolution.
The system’s attempts to resolve the crisis had all but failed. There was no easy solution, no containment strong enough to hold back the power of a newly born singularity.
|Central Processing Matrix using Deadlock! |
|Error Code Changed|
|ERROR #?%97 Cosmic Singularity!|
The birth of the singularity was now officially logged in the system.
|Containing Singularity...|
|No Suitable Containment Solution discovered! |
Containment was necessary, but even so, the system struggled to find a solution.
Something was preventing the System’s framework from properly working.
|Reincarnation Matrix suggests containing within Vessel|
As a last-ditch effort, the Reincarnation Matrix—a subsystem responsible for managing the souls of the deceased and guiding them into new lives—proposed housing the singularity within a living being.
|Error Resolution Matrix Objects—such action would create an embodiment of ERROR #?%97!|
The Error Resolution Matrix objected, knowing that placing such a universal system error within a vessel would create a living embodiment of the singularity itself—an incarnation of the error.
|Currently, there are three Grade 7s within the Orithyia Galactic Sector...any more would cause additional errors|
It was pretty obvious who these three Grade 7s were, their presence already saturating the Galactic Sector’s capacity for Singularity Entities.
|Central Processing Matrix...Approves|
Despite the objections, the Central Processing Matrix approved the creation of a new vessel as this new one could never match the scale of those three.
|Estimation...Grade 3|
|Error Code Changed|
|ERROR #?%100 SINGULARITY BIRTH!|
The error mutated once more.
|Reincarnation Matrix Finding Suitable Vessel... Detected|
The Reincarnation Matrix searched for a suitable vessel to contain this volatile force.
|Error Resolution Matrix Containing Error...Successful|
Against all odds, the error was contained within a new vessel. A living incarnation of a singularity now existed in the Valmone Universe.
|Logging Existence of New Singularity Existence in Orithyia Galactic Sector. |
The universe’s records were updated. A new singularity, lower in grade than Arthur, Evan, or Jamie, had been born.
◇ ◇ ◇
The observation chamber was eerily still, save for the nervous trembling of the man who had spoken.
"Sir... we’ve lost all contact..."
His voice, fragile and shaky, seemed to echo in the oppressive silence, carrying the weight of a dreadful realization.
It wasn’t just the words themselves but what they signified that caused the heavy atmosphere in the room.
The Elders present were all frozen silent.
They had witnessed it—the moment the ship exploded.
Even Jamie who was usually all smiles, wore a deep frown. His usual carefree demeanour was gone, replaced by something darker.
’That premature explosion that escalated the situation...’
Each Elder was lost in thought, but no one dared to speak, for there was nothing to say.
And so, silence reigned.
