Chapter 147: Nova Seeker

?Cassian stared at the floating specifications, his expression hardening into a cold, serious mask.

?He couldn’t help comparing the vessel to the fleet assets fielded by the Astral Dominion.

?The Dominion possessed some of the finest starships in the sector, leveraging technology refined over millennia.

Its military command operated massive fleets capable of deep interstellar transit, planetary blockades, and sector-wide conquest.

?Yet the specifications floating before him were impressive enough to make some of the Dominion’s finest frigates look like second-hand hovercars beside a state-of-the-art battleship.

?The disparity was almost insulting.

?Cassian leaned back against the console, his blue eyes narrowing into sharp slits.

?The Worldbreaker Core wasn’t an isolated anomaly after all.

?The existence of this vessel suggested something far more troubling. The Arachnids possessed technological capabilities that were entirely inconsistent with their public civilization tier.

Their cloaking matrix alone was enough to raise severe questions about their true military strength.

?And if they could manufacture starships of this caliber, then their possession of a planet-destroying weapon like the Worldbreaker Core was no stroke of luck.

?It was calculated.

’?Just how much have they been hiding?’

?He had entered the spaceship expecting to gather routine intelligence on the Arachnids’ planetary cell.

Instead, he was beginning to realize that their entire operation on Roca was merely a fraction of a much broader, deeply hidden secret.

?Their apparent technological limits might have been a carefully cultivated illusion maintained for centuries.

?If that hypothesis held true, the Astral Dominion was facing an enemy far more lethal than anyone in high command realized.

?Cassian wasn’t particularly concerned for his own safety. His [Infinite Mana] and specialized skill set gave him tactical options that most Lords could only dream of possessing.

?However, the Astral Dominion was his anchor civilization.

?Its destruction would directly threaten his progression and jeopardize everything he intended to protect.

?He had zero intention of allowing history to repeat itself.

’?I need to gather every scrap of data before deciding my next move.’

?His gaze drifted to the ship’s official designation registered in the mainframe.

’?Nova Seeker.’

?Cassian repeated the name silently, finding himself strangely captivated by the title.

?It was a fitting name for a vessel built to slip through the silent void of space. It carried an adventurous tone, as though the starship had been engineered to hunt ancient mysteries hidden among the stars.

?A faint, sharp smile touched his lips.

’?Nova Seeker... Not bad at all.’

?He had to admit that the Arachnids possessed a distinct flair for naming their technology.

?As Silas continued probing the central mainframe, a new window flashed onto the main display.

A small, high-priority notification icon blinked persistently in the top-right corner.

?Cassian straightened immediately. "What is that?"

?Silas paused, tilting his multi-eyed head toward his master. "I have not opened it yet, my lord. It appears to be an encrypted system message that was received just before the vessel entered this facility."

?Cassian gestured firmly toward the console.

?"Open it."

?Silas complied instantly.

?The blinking icon expanded into a full window, and the central holographic display shifted to reveal the contents of the pending transmission.

....

The holographic display flickered before projecting the image of an Arachnid directly onto the bridge.

?The recording showed an elderly Arachnid wearing a dark military uniform adorned with metallic insignias.

Its carapace had faded to a dull gray, and the mandibles framing its mouth bore faint signs of age.

Eight eyes stared coldly into the recording device, conveying the absolute authority of a high commander accustomed to issuing orders and expecting instant obedience.

?Cassian narrowed his eyes.

’?Another high-ranking official?’

?Before he could analyze the recording further, the elderly Arachnid began to speak.

?"Agent S, this is a direct assignment from Strategic Command. Your mission is to infiltrate the Astral Dominion’s southern frontier and establish a covert operational presence on an appropriate border planet."

?"Your primary objective is to destabilize the region through carefully coordinated incidents. Target communication networks, disrupt local security operations, and exploit existing societal tensions wherever possible. Your activities must appear entirely unrelated, preventing the Dominion from identifying a common source behind the disturbances."

?"Your secondary objective is to draw the Dominion’s investigative and military resources away from the Orion Rift. Intelligence gathered by our operatives suggests that the Dominion has begun directing considerable attention toward this newly discovered anomaly. That attention must not be allowed to interfere with our operations."

?"The Orion Rift represents a matter of the highest strategic importance to our civilization. Whatever the cost, its investigation and eventual exploitation must proceed without interference from the Astral Dominion."

?"Should your cover be compromised, prioritize the preservation of sensitive intelligence over the recovery of personnel."

?"Your actions will determine whether our civilization secures the opportunity it has pursued for generations. Do not disappoint us."

?The hologram flickered once before dissolving into light.

?[End of Recorded Message]

?For several seconds, silence hung over the bridge.

?Cassian stared at the empty space where the projection had hovered, his expression deeply thoughtful.

?"So that’s it."

?Leaning back into the command seat, he tapped one finger against the armrest in a slow, rhythmic cadence.

?The Orion Rift.

?He was familiar with it.

?The newly opened rift had materialized in the southern quadrant of the Astral Dominion, near the Orion Expanse, a vast sector of space known for its scattered nebulae and dense star clusters.

Its initial discovery had drawn significant interest from Dominion exploration fleets, primarily due to the abnormal, high-density energy signatures radiating from its depths.

?Cassian had already planned to visit the rift himself.

?It had been one of the primary targets on his agenda after returning from the Lord’s Domain. Exploring newly opened rifts offered prime opportunities to harvest rare resources, encounter uncharted entities, and potentially claim high-tier treasures, especially with the specific spatial coordinates and future knowledge preserved from his past life.

?Unfortunately, the Crimson Reckoning’s terrorist strike on Planet Roca had temporarily derailed those plans.

?He had initially treated the Roca attack as an isolated crisis involving a mercenary syndicate and a shadowy Arachnid plot.

The imminent threat of the Worldbreaker Core had demanded his full focus, leaving him little time to contemplate broader strategic connections.

?Now, however, the correlation was impossible to ignore.