The end of the civil war and the corruption spread by the Supreme Human Alliance ended rather quickly. It was anti-climactic. Michael learned how to use Extraction to remove Lepodya from patients as long as they allowed him to infuse a considerable amount of Extraction’s power into them.
After that, Michael would heal them with healing serum. It was rather simple. 𝚏r𝐞𝚠ebo𝐯el.com
However, finding Alice and the other Descendants was far from simple. Michael and the others read some reports about a pristine pillar emerging out of nowhere and swallowing Descendants. The Descendants disappeared with the pristine pillars, leaving traces of spatial fluctuations behind.
These fluctuations were the only hard proof they had to determine that the Descendants weren’t dead but that they had been kidnapped.
Neither Michael nor the other powerhouses could tell how it was possible for someone – presumably the Supreme Human Alliance – to kidnap the Descendants. Among them were Higher Lifeforms, including Tier-5 powerhouses with strong willpower and remarkable natural resilience. The firmament was torn as well, preventing any Divine Lifeforms from entering the Tritan Alliance’s territory.
That could only mean a few things. Either the Supreme Human Alliance used a teleportation with enough energy to overpower the natural resilience of hundreds of Descendants, rendering them incapable of resisting the teleportation, or a Divine Lifeform outside the Tritan Alliance passed through the torn firmament with its power to teleport everyone away.
There were also other possibilities, but the first possibility was the most likely. The only questions left were how the Supreme Human Alliance marked everyone, pinpointed their location to use the teleportation device with great precision, and where they were brought.
“It’s good that Divine Lifeforms are banished from the solar system and the Lumina Stellar System. To think that the battle of three Divine Lifeforms ended up tearing the firmament of the entire solar system apart so that it would be considered a problem for Divine Lifeforms to appear in the adjacent stellar system as well.” Kraft Viton shook his head lightly.
The Descendants’ disappearance was a shock, but Kraft Viton wasn’t personally affected by it. He could understand how the others must feel, but it wasn’t a challenge to remain calm and composed or to point out their advantages.
The Supreme Human Alliance wouldn’t be able to attack them with Divine Lifeforms anymore. For a few centuries, at least.
Several hundred years were more than enough to prepare for the SHA’s attacks and create their own Divine Lifeforms. As long as they had Michael and his Soultraits by their side, it wouldn’t be impossible to empower their Divine Lifeforms enough to emerge victorious against Hyumans and their unique techniques.
But that meant Michael would have to keep supplying them with Soultrait Symbols and upgrade them.
The Tritan Alliance was already in Michael’s debt. Without his Soultrait Symbols and his active parts in the whole situation, the Tritan Alliance wouldn’t exist anymore in the first place. They owed Michael their lives.
But Michael didn’t feel like that. He had been too late to rescue the Descendants… Lincoln, Zeke…Kaleb…and Alice.
It was infuriating, endlessly frustrating to have been too weak to deal with the issues in the Tritan Alliance with a snap and to remove the Supreme Human Alliance’s feelers the moment they’d manifested.
‘I am a Higher Lifeform, but I am still too weak to do anything.’ He ridiculed himself, his mind drifting toward the kidnapped Descendants…to Alice, ‘I have to do something.’
Michael couldn’t sit idle and do nothing. The Lord IDs of Alice and the other kidnapped Descendants were still intact. Of course, it was possible that they malfunctioned, as was the case with Daniel’s Lord ID in the past, but Michael and everyone else wanted to believe that their friends and beloved were fine. Thus, they trusted the Lord ID and thought everyone was alive.
That was good. At least they were still alive.
Still, Michael had to do more.
He retrieved a communication device specifically for Curse Users – it connected to the Nest, which was a lot more difficult than Michael had expected when he entered the Nest first. To access the communication device, one would have to be alone with nobody else in a range of 100 meters before channeling curse power into it. Once empowered, the communication device spent the next 10 minutes checking the Curse User’s identity, his mental health – ensuring he wasn’t manipulated to do something – and countless other things to ensure that nobody would be able to use the communication device to track the Nest’s location.
[“Michael, is that you? Is everything alright in the Tritan Alliance?”] Michael heard Evee’s voice ring through his ears. His ears twitched, but he remained calm.
“I’m not sure if I would say that everything is alright, but the threat of the Supreme Human Alliance has been removed – mostly, at least. The Blaze Patriarch managed to flee into the Origin Expanse, but we’re going to build a fortress around him with enough traps and alarm runes to restrain him and warn everyone when he returns,” Michael explained. He took a deep breath and shook his head.
“There is a lot more I could report, but the most crucial point is that hundreds of Descendants were kidnapped. We don’t know what they will do with them, but I have a bad feeling about it. Do you think you can forward me to the Nest Leader? I must talk to her to figure out what to do now.”
[“Are you planning to charge into the SHA’s territory in an attempt to find and rescue your friends?”] Evee asked, not forwarding him Selena right away.
“That would be the best solution. If it’s possible, that is,” Michael nodded, only for Evee to look deeply.
[“Even the Nest isn’t strong enough to deal with everything, you know? There is a reason the Nest’s headquarters is hidden and why we’re so focused on keeping the Nest hidden while the Supreme Human Alliance is acting openly as if the cosmos belongs to them. Our military might isn’t low, but we are too few powerful Curse Users.”]
“You’re saying even the Nest Leader won’t be able to find and rescue Alice and the others?”
Michael could hear Evee groan and fall silent before she answered.
[“Things aren’t as simple as you might think. You make it look like everything is so simple, but do you even know where Alice and the companions are kept? The Supreme Human Alliance’s territory spans several galaxies. In fact, our data are so outdated that the Supreme Human Alliance might have already conquered a few more galaxies since we were able to check the facts. So tell me, Michael….Where are your friends and your lover kept?”]
Michael’s lips parted, but no word escaped from them. There was nothing to say. He had no answer. Michael had no idea where the Supreme Human Alliance would keep his friends and lover.
Would they be on the outskirts of their territory for experiments, or would they be brought closer to the Origin to spread their corruption and convince the Descendants that the Supreme Human Alliance was in the right and that the Tritan Alliance was wrong and against the laws of the cosmos…that only the purest of all humans were supposed to rule the cosmos.
He had no idea, and that was the worst of all.
If Michael knew what the SHA did to his friends and Alice and where they brought them, Michael could come up with a plan.
However, he didn’t have a chance to do anything. Not like this…