The figure slowly raised his head.
The stars weren’t moving across the spatial grid.
They were shaking.
A distant planet at the edge of the system trembled, its surface fracturing into jagged, glowing veins.
A second later, the crust simply gave way.
The entire landmass broke apart into silent chunks of rock.
A neighboring planet followed, then another.
The destruction was moving through the local cluster faster than his internal sensors could process the data.
Stars collapsed into dense, dead points of iron.
Crusts tore open.
Entire planetary systems disappeared from the map in seconds.
There was no visible beam of plasma.
No kinetic weapon.
No invading fleet.
The vacuum itself was simply being unmade.
The figure instantly raised his right hand.
Several layered sheets of distorted, compressed space snapped into existence around his torso.
The first layer shattered with a dry sound like breaking glass.
The second gave way a millisecond later.
Then the third.
“Damn it.”
He attempted to force a Law into the local reality.
Nothing shifted.
He tried to invoke an Authority to stabilize the space.
The energy dissipated instantly.
He tried a third personal ability, but the absolute vacuum ignored the input entirely.
His expression finally broke.
This wasn’t an opponent he could outmaneuver or overpower.
He needed to clear the sector immediately.
He glanced back down at the failing status display.
17.9 million.
“2.1 million,” he muttered, his fist clenching until the leather of his coat groaned.
“I only need 2.1 million more.”
The System remained completely silent.
“System!”
Nothing.
The local space shuddered violently.
A massive, silent gravity well opened three sectors away, its event horizon expanding rapidly.
The figure watched a star cluster get pulled into the black center, the light warping into a thin, broken ring before vanishing.
His primary protective barrier dissolved into white mist.
He took a sharp step backward into the dark.
The void continued to expand.
Planets vanished.
Stars disappeared.
“System!” he shouted, his voice tight.
Static filled the screen for three agonizing seconds.
Then the audio clicked back on.
“Boss.”
“What happened to the firewall?”
“External interference,” the System reported, the voice running at half-speed.
“My core systems were bypassed.”
“By whom?”
“Identity unknown.” The screen flashed red.
“The breach has reached the primary database.
I can’t maintain the structural connection.”
“Give me a hard window.”
A brief pause ensued.
“Twenty-six seconds.”
The figure looked back toward the approaching horizon line of the black hole.
“Can the Cosmic Door still clear the sector?”
“Yes.”
“Then open it now.”
“I can’t,” the System replied.
His head snapped toward the text.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“My administrative functions are being heavily restricted by the intrusion.
I can prepare the spatial coordinates for the Door, but you will have to trigger the core manually.”
The figure looked at the dark space directly in front of his palm.
His defensive options were gone.
“Fine.”
The interface generated a small, glowing icon shaped like an archway.
“Boss, hurry.”
The figure raised his hand, centering his weight.
“What is the exact cost for a blind jump?”
The System hesitated for a fraction of a second.
“The minimum activation threshold is still one million soul fragments.”
The figure went completely still under his hood.
He looked at the status screen.
17.9 million.
Then he looked at the dead space rolling toward his coordinates. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
“That’s all I have left,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
Another planet disappeared into the event horizon.
The figure’s jaw set into a hard line.
“Can the drive take the entire reserve?”
“It can.”
“Do it.”
“Boss, that will leave your core completely empty,” the System warned, the text fading to a pale grey.
“I know.”
The figure extended his arm, his fingers sprawling wide.
The small icon expanded instantly, tearing a vertical seam through the dark.
Space split open with a dull hum, revealing a passage of absolute grey light within the blackness.
He looked back over his shoulder once.
The original galaxy was almost entirely gone, reduced to a single spinning disc of dust.
The System’s voice became increasingly distorted.
“Twenty seconds.”
The figure stepped firmly through the grey threshold.
The exact moment his boots crossed the boundary, the numerical string on the interface dropped to zero.
[ Soul Fragments: 17.9M → 0 ]
The Cosmic Door snapped shut behind his back, sealing the tear.
For a brief, singular moment, the empty sector became perfectly still.
Then the remaining space collapsed inward.
There was no great flash of light, no shockwave.
The remaining stars simply vanished from existence.
The planets disappeared along with them.
The gravity well consumed the dust, and then there was nothing left but a clean, silent void.
Far away, in a place that had no name, something watched.
The presence turned its attention toward the empty coordinates where the galaxy used to sit.
“I had already sealed the outer boundaries of the entire region.”
A brief, heavy pause followed.
“And he still managed to force his way through the barrier.”
There was no trace of anger in the tone.
Only a mild, quiet amusement.
“Interesting.”
The presence lingered in the blackness for another moment, its shadow fading slowly from the fabric of the dark.
Then it too was gone, leaving the universe completely silent and empty.
Nothing moved.
Nothing spoke.
The dark remained absolute.