Chapter 194: Counterattack

?The Arachnids weren’t simply conducting research inside the Orion Rift.

They were operating entirely from the outside, hijacking the Astral Dominion’s gateway, abducting incoming Lords, and locking them into stasis matrix pods.

?Then, they replaced them with artificial doppelg?ngers and sent them back to infiltrate the Dominion.

?It was a terrifyingly elaborate infiltration campaign.

?And considering the thousands of pods he had personally seen lined up in that industrial vault, it was entirely possible that hundreds of influential figures had already been quietly replaced.

?The Astral Dominion was harboring a massive network of sleeper agents without even realizing it.

?’Those bastards...’

?Cassian leaned back, his mind racing through the strategic implications.

?There was another glaring anomaly that had bothered him ever since he burst out of the amniotic pod.

?’That explains why [Gate] failed.’

?He had attempted to trigger the spatial teleportation skill multiple times after waking up, but the skill had consistently failed to initiate.

?At first, he assumed the facility had deployed heavy spatial dampeners. However, the researcher’s confession provided a far more fundamental answer.

?He wasn’t inside the Orion Rift at all.

?He was standing squarely inside the Arachnid Empire.

?[Gate] allowed him to instantly teleport to any familiar coordinate within the boundaries of the Astral Dominion.

Had he been inside the Orion Rift, which was legally and geographically anchored within Dominion space, the skill would have functioned flawlessly.

?But he was no longer within the Dominion.

?He had been forcibly abducted and transported across interstellar borders into enemy territory.

?Cassian’s glacial gaze locked back onto the terrified researcher.

?"What specific directive were you given, and who exactly is your backer?"

?The Arachnid instantly froze.

?Its mandibles twitched nervously, panic flaring in its eyes before it managed to squeeze out an answer. "I... I don’t know the full strategic details of the directive!"

?Cassian’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

?"The commander never shared high-level operational details with low-tier researchers!" the alien squealed. "My sole responsibility was refining the pod synthesis algorithms and monitoring the captured Lords to ensure the replication process completed without errors!"

?Cassian activated [Soul Gaze].

?The creature’s internal mana pathways flickered erratically under the stress of interrogation, but there were no signs of deliberate deception or mental shields.

?It was telling the truth.

?The researcher seemed to sense the invisible pressure analyzing its mind and hurriedly added, "However... I know who our backers are!"

?Cassian raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

?"Yes! The commander bragged about them during one of his drunken rants! He was boasting about the sheer cosmic influence our patrons possess, claiming that even the High Council of the Astral Dominion wouldn’t dare interfere with our work!"

’Drunken Rants?’

?Cassian found the detail almost amusing.

?It seemed the Arachnid commander had a fatal flaw: an oversized ego and a loose tongue.

?"And who are they?"

?The researcher hesitated for a fraction of a second before blurting out the name.

?"Our backers... are the Celestials."

?Cassian froze.

?His absolute composure shattered in an instant.

?His blue eyes widened sharply as he stared down at the bleeding Arachnid.

?"The Celestials?"

?The researcher nodded furiously. "Yes! I swear on my life, that is the exact name he spoke!"

’?The Celestials...’

?It was a name that carried terrifying, apocalyptic weight across the cosmos.

They weren’t merely another aggressive interstellar empire, they were the rulers of a Tier VII Civilization, possessing cosmic power that rendered the Astral Dominion little more than an insect under their boots.

?But their sheer rank wasn’t what caused Cassian’s blood to run cold.

?It was what they had done in his previous timeline.

?The Celestials were the exact civilization responsible for the total annihilation of the Astral Dominion and every neighboring star system.

?In his past life, they were the ones who dispatched a Tier VII Lord to systematically cleanse the galaxy, incinerating everything Cassian had held dear.

?His mother.

?His domain.

?His entire species.

?For several seconds, Cassian sat frozen in stone silence, the ambient shadows flickering erratically around his chair.

’?The Celestials...’

?His fingers slowly tightened against the armrests, crushing the condensed shadow fabric into fine mist.

?’So you’ve already begun laying the groundwork in this timeline.’

....

After calming down from the celestial revelation, Cassian asked several more rounds of questions, and he managed to piece together the full mechanics of the operation.

?The simulation wasn’t merely a mechanism for keeping the captured Lords pacified inside the matrix pods. It served a far more pragmatic purpose.

?Power generation.

?The Arachnids had engineered a specialized feedback loop capable of harvesting mana directly from the Lords trapped within the virtual environment.

Their combat maneuvers and skill activations inside the simulation generated massive amounts of raw mana, which was then siphoned off to power the facility’s localized grid.

?The accumulated energy was subsequently funneled into synthesizing the biological replicas designed to replace them.

?It was an ingenious, horrifying arrangement.

?The Lords were essentially being used as living batteries to fund their own replacements.

?Cassian leaned back against his throne, digesting the intelligence.

’?So that’s how they’ve been fueling the operation.’

?Suddenly, the bleeding researcher spoke up again.

?"H-However... there was one major flaw..."

?Cassian shifted his gaze back to the alien.

?"One of the stasis pods developed a severe diagnostic error," the researcher explained hurriedly. "Its internal mana readings were absurdly high, and the siphoning grid completely failed to absorb the input. The pod became critically overcharged, making it impossible for the system to process a replica."

?The Arachnid paused mid-sentence.

?The exact details of that anomalous diagnostic file suddenly clicked in its mind.

?Its mandibles twitched violently as it stared at the human sitting on the shadow throne.

?The golden-blond hair.

?Those cold, piercing blue eyes.

’?Wait...’

?Its expression shattered in sheer realization.

’?This was that Lord!’

?The exact same Tier II anomaly it had tried to report to the commander right before being dragged into the shadows!

?The researcher opened its mandibles wide. "Y-You—"

?"We’ve gotten everything we need," Cassian interrupted smoothly.

?He glanced toward Nyxara.

?The Undead Champion needed zero further instruction.

?Before the researcher could squeeze out another sound, a crescent of dark violet light flashed through the gloom.

?The alien’s head detached cleanly from its shoulders, and its lifeless carcass collapsed onto the metal floor.

?Cassian didn’t spare the corpse a second glance.

?At that exact moment, the oppressive darkness shrouding the chamber began to recede.

?What had appeared to be a pitch-black isolated room was gradually revealed to be an enormous dome of living shadow that had swallowed the entire pod facility.

?The technique was instantly recognizable.

?It was the exact same spatial isolation skill Nyxara had deployed during their battle against the Arachnid Vanguard on Planet Roca:

?[Shadow Veil]

?The domain suppressed all internal energy signatures and sound waves, preventing external alarms from detecting their movements while concealing the carnage inside.

?The outer veil itself remained active, isolating the sector from the rest of the facility.

?However, the inner layer of shadow used to conceal Cassian’s interrogation was now dissolving into thin air.

?As the curtain of darkness lifted, the true state of the main facility was laid bare.

?Corpses.

?Countless Arachnid guards and researchers were strewn across the metal gantries and control desks.

?Some lay slumped over the stasis pods, while others had collapsed near shattered diagnostic stations.

Dozens had been cleanly bisected or crushed, their dark exoskeletons pulverized beyond recognition.

?The entire security detachment of the sector had been systematically slaughtered in complete silence.

?Cassian had zero intention of letting anyone raise an alarm before he finished extracting every shred of intelligence.

?He rose smoothly from his shadow chair, his expression turning icy and sharp.

?The intel he had gathered was far more than he could have hoped for.

?The Orion Rift trap, the biological replicas, the stasis pod network, and the direct involvement of the Celestials.

?Every single clue pointed toward a cosmic conspiracy far greater than a mere border skirmish between two civilizations.

?And now that he knew exactly where the enemy’s hidden nerve center was located, there was no reason to play defense.

?Cassian glanced at Nyxara, who stood ready at his side.

?Then he looked out over the vast, cavernous facility filled with thousands of stasis pods, his eyes settling on the mountain of slain Arachnids.

?His blue eyes narrowed into glacial slits.

?It was time for a counterattack.

....

A/N: Apologies for any typos in the last three Chapters. A terrible headache hit me while writing, so the editing isn’t up to par today. I’ll clean them up once I recover, thanks for understanding and sticking with the story.