Chapter 116: The Enemy’s Mark

Morning arrived beneath the planet without a single ray of sunlight. High above the subterranean city, the golden spire continued to illuminate the crystalline streets with a warm artificial glow, yet the atmosphere across the settlement had grown impossibly tense.

Repair crews worked tirelessly along the upper thoroughfares to restore the damaged energy grid. Armed guardians patrolled the perimeter of the residential districts in reinforced formations, their optics scanning every shadow.

Deep inside the underground research chamber, Rhaevia stood before a suspended holographic display. Her eyes examined the disassembled equipment recovered from the captured raiders, her hands hovering just above the interface.

The black weapon lay dismantled across a laboratory table, its core still faintly vibrating. Its components resembled neither conventional human machinery nor any known biological structure in current databases.

Thin strands of dark material shifted fluidly beneath its metallic casing. The organism-like fibers flexed and contracted in direct response to nearby energy fluctuations.

Rhaevia adjusted the scanner’s sensitivity controls with a quick flick of her wrist.

"Increase the magnification," she commanded the lab unit. "I want every internal component mapped individually."

A blue scanning beam swept smoothly over the weapon’s dark surface.

[UNKNOWN TECHNOLOGY DETECTED.]

[ENERGY SIGNATURE: NONSTANDARD.]

[COMPATIBILITY WITH MODERN TECHNOLOGY: 0%.]

Rhaevia frowned, her gaze fixing on the diagnostic readout.

"Zero compatibility?" she muttered under her breath. "Even Imperial relics share some recognizable principles with modern technology."

Across the table, Raevor watched the scan progress with his arms folded across his chest. A medical technician had already confirmed that the weapon’s discharge could destabilize Guide energy, but its precise underlying mechanism remained unclear.

"Could it be biological technology?" he asked, his voice low and measured.

"Possibly," Rhaevia replied, tapping a command to isolate a structural cross-section. "The material reacts to energy as though it possesses a living nervous system."

She enlarged a microscopic image of the inner lining.

"But that still doesn’t explain how it disrupts my connection to the planetary crystal network," she added.

Driven by a sudden hunch, she reached toward the weapon’s exposed core. She allowed a thin, shimmering thread of Sovereign energy to extend from her fingertips toward the dark housing.

The dark material immediately recoiled from the golden thread, contorting violently.

A clear, audible vibration passed through the laboratory table, sending tiny ripples across the holographic interface.

Rhaevia instantly withdrew her hand, watching the black strands settle back into place.

"Interesting," she murmured softly.

"That looked considerably more dangerous than interesting," Raevor remarked, his brow furrowing slightly.

She gave him a brief, sidelong glance. "Those two qualities are rarely mutually exclusive."

Before he could offer a response, the high-resolution scanner emitted a high-pitched alert.

The weapon’s inner casing had suddenly opened automatically, triggering a hidden release mechanism beneath the housing. It revealed a small, polished crystalline fragment embedded directly beneath its central power regulator.

Unlike the surrounding black material that absorbed all illumination, the small fragment reflected no light whatsoever.

Rhaevia leaned closer to inspect the relic.

There was a distinct, intricate symbol engraved deeply across its dark surface.

The mark displayed a central star surrounded by three curved crescents, each crescent pointing inward toward a narrow, vertical line.

The exact moment her eyes registered the pattern, an unfamiliar, suffocating pressure stirred inside her Sovereign core.

Her calm expression instantly changed as her breath caught in her throat.

"Project Genesis," she called out, her voice dropping into a stern command. "Identify this symbol."

[ANALYZING ARCHIVES.]

[SYMBOL MATCH DETECTED.]

[AUTHORITY SIGNATURE: VERIFIED.]

[ASSOCIATED ENTITY: THIRD SOVEREIGN.]

For several seconds, nobody inside the research chamber spoke.

Raevor stepped close beside her, his silver eyes narrowing as he stared directly at the glowing blue text on the display.

"The Third Sovereign’s symbol," he said, his tone darkening.

"Yes," Rhaevia whispered, her gaze remaining locked on the central star. "And this weapon was used against a civilization that has remained hidden from the galaxy for thousands of years."

She activated the recovered surveillance footage on an adjacent screen, comparing the engraved symbol with the raiders’ distorted, shifting forms.

A cold, heavy realization settled over her mind.

The attackers had not discovered this hidden underground city by accident. They had known precisely which energy junctions to target, how to bypass the city’s defenses, and how to artificially interfere with her Guide abilities.

Someone had prepared them for this specific encounter.

Someone who knew she would eventually cross the frontier and arrive on this planet.

"How long have they been tracking us?" Raevor asked, turning to look at her.

Rhaevia opened the flagship’s archived navigation records and synchronized them with the planetary star map.

Seven forbidden, unmapped worlds immediately appeared across the expansive hologram.

Then she overlaid the fleet’s route since departing beyond Imperial space.

A faint, dark signal line emerged directly behind their flight trajectory, mirroring every single warp jump they had executed.

Her eyes narrowed as she traced the origin point back to the edge of the map.

"This signal predates our arrival on this planet," she declared.

Raevor leaned closer to the console, studying the overlapping flight paths.

"How far back?" he demanded.

"Since the moment we crossed the Imperial boundary," she answered softly.

The climate-controlled laboratory suddenly felt several degrees colder.

They had previously believed the dead star fortress had simply awakened when it recognized her creator’s signature. They had assumed the hidden subterranean civilization’s distress was an isolated, local problem.

But the raiders’ highly specialized technology suggested something far more deliberate and sinister.

The Third Sovereign, or a faction serving her, had already calculated and anticipated Rhaevia’s movements through unexplored space.

Rhaevia straightened her back, her composure returning as she issued clear directives.

"Seal the recovered technology inside an isolated containment field," she ordered the nearby researchers. "Nobody touches it without my direct authorization."

The technicians immediately complied, initiating the containment sequence around the table.

Raevor raised his wrist and activated his military communicator. "I’ll order the fleet to inspect every external sensor and navigation relay across all ships."

Before he could complete his transmission, the laboratory’s main holographic display flickered violently.

A massive new energy signal had suddenly materialized beyond the planet’s outer atmosphere.

It did not originate from the underground city, the crystalline forest, or any registered vessel in the surrounding star system.

The source was impossibly distant, broadcasting from deep within unmapped space.

Yet the transmission effortlessly bypassed every military communication filter and forced its way directly onto the central holographic display.

Rhaevia felt her Sovereign core tighten instinctively against the sudden spatial pressure.

A single line of text materialized in brilliant white letters across the center of the room.

[INCOMING TRANSMISSION.]

[ORIGIN: UNIDENTIFIED DEEP-SPACE SOURCE.]

[AUTHENTICATION: AUTHORITY DETECTED.]

Raevor immediately drew his sidearm, stepping slightly in front of her to position himself between Rhaevia and the display.

"Can you trace its coordinates?" he asked without breaking his gaze from the screen.

"I’m trying," she replied, her hands flying across the console.

Rhaevia extended her consciousness outward, reaching toward the incoming signal’s carrier wave.

The instant her mind touched its outer boundary, a familiar, crushing pressure swept through her mental pathways. It was the exact same sensation she had experienced when the captured raider resisted her attempt to read its thoughts.

Then the transmission stream opened wide.

No face appeared on the primary screen, and no vessel identification numbers followed the signal’s header.

Only a single, voice-encoded message was delivered across the chamber with absolute certainty.

"We know where you are."