Eren was shrouded in darkness.
Despite his exceptional perception and heightened senses, Eren couldn’t see anything. His hearing sense didn’t respond to him either. Only one of his senses seemed to work properly. Eren felt a strong suctioning force dragging him through the narrow pathways of the bridge.
His sense of time was a wreck in the bridge, but Eren used bridges often enough to know how long it would usually take to travel through the cosmos. He knew he would arrive soon as numerous stars clustered in the darkness around him.
Eren prepared for the landing as the fabric of reality was pulled apart and twisted. Space distorted, and he closed his eyes for a second to prepare himself for what was about to happen.
The distortion of time around him dispersed at some point. It disappeared alongside the suctioning force.
Eren opened his eyes, the silver in them glimmering brighter than usual. He was in the middle of nowhere, rolling around in space. He released some energy to turn in all directions, his eyes landing on a few nearby planets. They were beautiful, as most pristine planets were. Once intelligent life was born on the pristine planets, everything would change. That was how it had been, and the way it will be for all times.
Once the Origin reached them, unmarked planets would either be used for their resources, transforming their natural resources into precious goods for countless beings, or become breeding places and be colonized.
Eren’s attention pulled away from the planets. He turned to an empty portion of space, an area where fewer stars twinkled far away in space. An eerie expression appeared on his face when he sensed the remnants of the curse power he’d left behind in the Lumina Stellar System. The remnants were far from his current position, but the distance didn’t matter for Eren to know where he had to travel to reach the Tritan Alliance.
“How long will it take?” Eren asked into nothingness, the wide-open space swallowing his words. However, that didn’t matter. The target of his words heard him very well.
[That depends on how much time you want to waste.] A hoarse yet oddly sonorous voice resounded in Eren’s head.
The corner of Eren’s mouth curled upward. Viscous silver energy oozed out of his body, and a massive pair of leathery wings covered in silver scales sprouted from his back. The wings unfolded, revealing their grand wingspan of dozens of meters, and flapped with tremendous force at Eren’s will.
His viscous silver energy shrouded the leathery wings, amplifying the force of every swing.
“It has been a while since we’ve given our all,” Eren murmured, retrieving a few objects that ought to make traveling through countless stellar systems easier.
He attached a small disc to his chest, added bracelets to his arms, and put on a necklace. His viscous energy trickled into the objects, which hummed quietly in response. They vibrated lightly at first, only intensifying as the seconds trickled.?It was only a matter of minutes before the vibration was so intense that Eren’s entire body vibrated. Even the space around him rippled.
That was exactly what he was waiting for.
He was ready to move, craned his neck to prepare for what would happen, and began moving. He kicked the empty space, a silver platform conjuring right before he used every bit of power to move and dashed into the open space.
One moment, Eren accelerated, and in the next, he transformed into a silver flash.
The space around him continued to ripple, but the phenomenon intensified as he continued accelerating. Eren was like a shooting star, his silver energy leaving behind traces of energy wherever he passed by.
Then…the silver flash vanished. Eren disappeared. The space he had occupied was empty, the only remnants of his presence being faint ripples in the fabric of space.
**
Eren was not sure how much time passed, but the scenery around him changed quite often. At last, he could stop bending and overlapping the fabric of space to slow down.
He reached his destination. Eren arrived at the Lunar Stellar System.
The bracelets, necklace, and metal disc came off his body on their own. The unnatural high and overly compressed energy inside them had been used up.
[You are slower than you used to be. Fera’s spaceship would have been faster.]
“Shut it. I’m just a little bit rusty with those old, outdated things! Evee has to repair and update them!”
[Your daughter cannot perform impossible tasks, you know? Unlike her father, she is intelligent. It’s just a shame that she cannot transform a frail, wrecked body like her father’s with technology. Technology can bring you only this far.]
“You’re annoying as ever, Slyver.”
[Whatever. At least you’re moving your body again. That kid, Mike or whatever his name is, has a good influence on you. I didn’t expect you to come here, let alone that you would travel like this to warm your body for what awaits us. Maybe I should praise this Mikey a little once we leave this backwater galaxy.] Slyver said, his voice overflowing with pride and confidence.
“His name is Michael, but knowing you, you won’t remember his name either way,” Eren responded while approaching a small planet in the Lumina Stellar System. He wasn’t too familiar with the names of the planets, but he remembered that Meku was the planet he fought against Bloodhound. This time, however, Eren moved to the place where the remnants of Michael’s power were the strongest.
He traveled to Kelta and approached the Spahirelake Military Academy.
Eren didn’t have to pay too much attention when he dived down. He pushed through the exosphere with shocking velocity and reached the ground in no time, ignoring the blazing flames that engulfed his body as he accelerated. The planet’s gravitational force pulled him to the ground, but Eren ignored that sensation, just like the sudden temperature change. The space wasn’t exactly what one would consider warm and cozy, however, it was more pleasant than some other places he’d been in the past.
Upon landing softly on the ground, Eren looked around. His appearance drew some attention. It wasn’t often that a meteorite threatened to crash into the campus grounds, only to die down quietly.
Eren made sure that his landing wouldn’t make any sounds. That worked fairly well, though his entrance was still flashy.
Numerous eyes landed on him. Some gazes were filled with curiosity, some with fear…and others with anger. Eren’s attention fell upon the men and women who eyed him in anger.
Unsurprisingly, or surprisingly enough, the men and women gazing at him were standing on a pile of corpses. Corpses of Berserkers, Warlock Centaurs, and Humans alike.
“There is another one of those idiots,” One of the women said, shaking her head. She looked sad, but the glimmer in her eyes was all too familiar to Eren.
[They’re already corrupted. Your friends are working faster than you. These poor beings died because you were too rusty. Slow sloth.] Slyver commented, hitting a nerve.
“Shut it,” Eren grumbled to Slyver, but the woman believed he meant her.
Her sadness was replaced by anger, and she rushed at Eren.
Eren raised an eyebrow and raised one of his arms slowly. The man standing near the enraged woman perceived something off and seemed about to shout something, but it was already too late.
Eren discharged a silver blast from his palm and struck the charging woman instantaneously. The blast dispersed a quarter of a second after Eren released it, but the damage seemed already done.
A see-through hole the size of a football adorned her chest.