World Keeper

Chapter 665: A Fickle Thing

Within an hour, I had my answer from the scouting force. Aside from the world which had been destroyed, no other planets in the surrounding systems had been targeted. This showed that the enemy had a way to detect my inhabited planets, which put me at a rather large disadvantage.

Previously, I had been hoping that I would be able to force them onto the defensive by getting my detection city quickly operating. Now, they were the ones able to come and go as they please, without me being able to properly trace them back to their origins.

Closing my eyes, I felt my brows knit together in focus. Think… There were obviously too many ways to count that they could have detected my inhabited planet. Anything from them having a spy to being able to trace faint electromagnetic waves. However, without knowing how they did it exactly, I had no way to determine what I could do to stop them.

“I need to see the sisters.” I muttered to myself, slowly rising. “Tsubaki, we’re two upgrades away from interdimensional scanning. If I’m not back in time, make sure the progress continues as planned.” I looked towards Tsubaki, who nodded her head with a serious expression.

“It will be done, my Keeper.” She told me, moving to sit in the control chair after I stood and moved out of the way.

“That mean you want to travel the Darkness Express?” Dana asked, already creating a gateway for me along the wall.

I nodded, smiling slightly and ruffling her hair as I walked by, much to her discontent. “Thanks, Dana. Hopefully, I won’t be long, unless they’re able to give me a clear answer.”

After saying that, I walked through the gateway, emerging within Udona’s office. By now, she had already returned to work, and seemed to be writing some form of letter. If I wasn’t mistaken… it was likely to be a notice to the families of the deceased. “Welcome back.” She said in a somber tone. “Please tell me you have an idea.”

“I want to try to use the prophecy of the twins.” I shook my head, knowing that a prophetic hint would be the only way that I could try to get through this without more sacrifices. Who knew how long it would be before the enemies launched a fleet to attack one of my primary worlds? They had already proven themselves more than capable.

Udona had a complicated look on her face when she heard my plan. “Okay, but keep an eye on them. The last time they prophesized, black gunk leaked from their eyes, and it faded away as soon as I touched it.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. “You never told me that before. Is it anything dangerous?”

Udona gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t tell you because it appeared to simply be an aesthetic effect. My Goddess told me that Terra likes theatrics, so it would be something that I could see her arranging intentionally.”

Although I didn’t want to admit it, Udona was right with that. Given everything that I had seen from Terra, she could very well have arranged for something akin to black tears. “I’ll keep it in mind, and will give it a closer look if I see anything strange.”

After saying that, I turned and left the room. However, I hadn’t made it more than three steps before almost falling back, practically colliding with the objects of my search. The Terra twins stood just outside of Udona’s office, smiling towards me. “It’s our turn now, right?” The one on the right asked, before the other one followed.

“We sensed the change in the narrative, and knew you’d be showing up here. You need an answer urgently, or you wouldn’t have looked for something as obscure as a prophecy.”

“Just… tell me one thing, girls.” I let out a sigh, straightening up as I looked at them. “Are you able to give your prophecies in straight answers, or do they always appear as riddles like what you gave before?”

The two sisters had a complicated expression when they looked at one another, shrugging in unison. “The future is uncertain. The power our Goddess taught us allows us to narrow down the scope of the predicted future, but it doesn’t give us an exact answer.”

The other one nodded her head after the first spoke, carrying on with the explanation. “Our ‘riddles’ as you call them are the narrowed interpretations of multiple possible futures. For instance… let’s say you wanted to predict the location of a specific fish in the sea, ten minutes from now.”

The first blinked, looking at her sister. “Right. We’d be able to give you a rough estimate on where it is, but not exact coordinates. We’d see landmarks, vague paths it could take, and those would automatically be translated into the prophecy. In truth… we actually forget the contents of each prophecy after we give it. The Goddess said that this power should only be used to aid others, and never to answer our own curiosity. Something about instinctively changing the future if we know what will happen.”

I let out a sigh at that, realizing that it meant the prophecies were outside of their control. “Got it. Then, can we go somewhere for you to do this? I need to find the invaders before they can carry out any more attacks.”

The Terra twins nodded their heads, turning and walking. Oddly, even the sway of their tails seemed to be synchronized, making it appear as if they were truly mirrored copies of one another. As I followed them I realized that they were leading me back to their room. “Is it common for the two of you to fall unconscious after giving a prophecy?”

“Nope!” They answered at once, before the one on the right spoke with a cheery smile. “It depends on the scope of the prophecy. If the prophecy crosses dimensions, or the border of life and death, it takes a pretty heavy toll on us. That’s why we’re making sure that we’re ready for it, this time.”

I gave a small nod, seeing them push the door open. The bedroom was rather simple, befitting the guest room of a royal palace. The bed was large, with a black sheet. Dark red curtains covered the windows, giving the entire room a sense of eerie darkness. Without a word, the two went over to climb up onto their bed, sitting so that their backs were against one another.

“Is it… necessary to be seated like that?” I asked out of curiosity, and they nodded their heads again, the one facing me answering.

“The past and the future can never look at one another. They can only meet in the middle.” As she said that, the two of them joined hands at one side, as if to represent her meaning. “I am the story that has come to pass.” A golden book hovered over her free hand as she smiled at me, her twin speaking behind her.

“I am the future that has yet to come.” At her words, a golden aura wrapped around both of them, and they truly became synchronized, their voices overlapping.

“We peer into the world’s fate. What is it that you wish to know?” The sister facing me had purely golden eyes, making me certain that this was a divine ability that Terra had created for them. I’ll need to ask her about this when I get back… add it to the list.

“Where is the monitoring center of my enemies, the base that they are using to find their target planets?” I knew that wording was important here. Most likely, the monitoring centers would not be within the void, seeing as radio waves and other forms of transmissions should not be able to escape the bounds of a world’s barrier. And, if I can find their monitoring station, that will give me a clue to find their base itself while preventing them from launching any more attacks.

The pages of the books in their hands fluttered wildly. The two sisters let out an eerie laugh that filled the room. “Infinite darkness, twinkling stars within the abyss. A galaxy the size of a single grain, a star the size of an atom. Surrounded by a metal cage, looking inwards, but never outwards. So tiny, so small, so infinitesimally unimportant. Yet so large… a world apart, a world without boundaries. Beyond boundaries. Beyond what lies beyond.”

The two let out that same eerie laugh again, their golden eyes starting to swim with darkness. Soon, black lines of liquid began to fall from their eyes, and I deployed my World Sight to check the substance. What I found shocked me, as this was not some theatrical effect that Terra had arranged, nor were they bleeding from their eyes.

A chaotic energy, the origin and destruction of all things. For some reason, their eyes were leaking the energy of the void. Knowing that there wasn’t much time, I further deployed my world sight to investigate the bodies of both girls, looking for the source of this energy. I knew from experience that the power of the void could be hidden within a person right up until the moment it was activated.

Sure enough, one of the sisters had a dark core of power within their bodies, while the other had a shining core of divine energy. The dark power of the void and bright light of the divine moved along their arms, each entering the body of the other before cycling back. When chaos and divinity meet… is that how Terra allowed a pair of mortals to peer into the ‘fate system’?

By the time my observation ended, the two of them had already collapsed, their powers returning back to their rightful bodies. Although I continued to observe them for a moment, they did not seem to have suffered any damage from the merging of their powers. Their health bars had not even appeared over their heads. It could be seen that this fusion of power was simply taxing on their minds, forcing them to rest after completing the fusion.

James, I have a question for you, as our resident expert. I muttered through my mana, turning and leaving the room. Thanks to their prophecy, I knew exactly where the monitoring stations were now, though I really wish I was wrong.

What’s up, man? James asked, seeming to catch something from my tone.

Are the Destiny-Class ships able to battle in the void?

There was a slight pause at my question. Theoretically, yes? But, I wouldn’t suggest putting it to the test. The power cores that Tsubaki used on them lose a lot of their power when you take them to the void. They’d need to run on battery power, which wouldn’t last very long in a fight of that scale. On the bright side, they won’t go supernova when destroyed like they do here.

Wait, what? I blinked, my steps stopping. Supernova… that’s right. Tsubaki destroyed one of the orbs to create a giant explosion before… James, is there any reason why Destiny-class ships that were destroyed in this realm wouldn’t explode?

What? I guess if they were lucky enough to not get struck in any of their power cores? Otherwise, just one of those detonating could take out everything within a million kilometers. I took a look at their specs as an advisor, and the failsafe they decided to go with wouldn’t completely eliminate the problem, only move it elsewhere at the last moment. Even then, there was a certain risk of failure, due to the failsafe possibly being damaged or not having time to react.

I gave a nod at that. Tsubaki would never allow the reality gems to be used if it meant that destroying one ship would take out the entire fleet. But, with that risk of failure, what were the odds that none of the dozens of ships experienced that kind of catastrpohic explosion?

It might be risky, but we need to get the fleet ready. Our enemy is in the void, directly outside of each of our worlds. According to my informants, they have monitoring stations built around each realm within the void, and are looking inwards to find their targets. We don’t have enough gods capable of fighting in the void for me to lead the charge.

I would honestly much prefer being able to just rush in with a strikeforce of deities, but James had already given me a warning about fighting in the void. It was not something that I could ask others to do, even if I did have a way around it personally.

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