For a moment, neither Rhaevia nor Raevor moved a single physical inch.
His heavy, dangerous question remained suspended in the quiet air between them, vibrating with an unspoken intensity.
Who were you before you became Rhaevia Rythundeir?
Rhaevia’s pale fingers slowly tightened against the cold metallic wall behind her, her posture remaining perfectly upright.
In her previous life on a blood-soaked Earth, she had faced apocalyptic armies without flinching, she had stood face-to-face with the terrifying Zombie King, and she had single-handedly commanded humanity’s final survivors while civilization burned to ash around her.
Yet somehow, standing in this sterile corridor and answering a single man’s question felt infinitely more dangerous than any physical battlefield she had ever stepped onto.
Her dark, unblinking eyes remained locked directly with Raevor’s piercing gaze.
"Don’t ask me," she stated simply.
Her voice was remarkably quiet. It was completely devoid of anger, fear, or defensive agitation, carrying only an absolute, final boundary that permitted no further intrusion.
Raevor studied her pale face, searching her unreadable expression for a fraction of a second.
For a brief moment, Rhaevia fully expected another probing question, a formal military order, or perhaps even an immediate high-level interrogation. Instead, the formidable Major General slowly withdrew his suffocating mental pressure, allowing the surrounding air to settle.
"I won’t," Raevor replied flatly, his deep voice devoid of accusation.
Rhaevia’s dark eyes flickered subtly, caught slightly off guard by his immediate compliance.
Raevor turned his towering frame toward the long corridor ahead, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the deck plates.
"Not until you decide you are ready to tell me yourself," he added over his shoulder.
She stood motionless, staring at his dark blue military back in quiet surprise.
That answer was entirely unexpected coming from the youngest Major General in the Empire, a man accustomed to absolute obedience.
"You aren’t going to launch a formal intelligence investigation into my background?" she asked, her tone laced with quiet intrigue.
Raevor paused his stride slightly, glancing back over his shoulder with a sharp, calculating glint in his dark eyes.
"I already know with complete certainty that you are hiding something monumental," he stated.
He turned his head back toward the hallway, continuing his walk.
"But forcing a confession from someone whose mental pathways are currently unstable would accomplish nothing of value."
Rhaevia remained silent, watching him move down the hall. Something deeply guarded inside her soul loosened, if only by a fraction. It was a minuscule shift, but it was enough to alter her perception of the man.
For the very first time since transmigrating into this strange interstellar world, she felt that someone in high command might actually understand the vast difference between protecting a personal secret and being a genuine threat to society.
She smoothed down her uniform cuff and quietly followed him down the thoroughfare.
Neither of them mentioned the terrifying mental synchronization or the visions of blood and loneliness ever again. Yet, the subtle dynamic between them had permanently transformed.
A healthy layer of military suspicion still remained between them, as did a mountain of unanswered questions. Yet beneath the tension, a fragile, unspoken foundation had begun to form.
It was trust.
Several minutes later, as they approached the secondary command junction, a concealed military terminal built into the corridor wall suddenly illuminated on its own.
Rhaevia brought her pace to a complete halt, her dark eyes tracking the sudden glow.
A highly complex, familiar encryption pattern began scrolling rapidly across the secondary display screen. Her dark eyes narrowed into cold, dangerous slits as she recognized the routing protocols.
It was the exact same high-level authorization signature she had memorized during her covert diagnostic sweep back on Planet V-17.
[IMPERIAL MILITARY - CLEARANCE BLACK.]
Someone operating deep within the high command was actively accessing and modifying her official academy records once again.
Without hesitation, Rhaevia stepped up to the console and connected her isolated wrist interface directly into the maintenance port. Highly encrypted data files began scrolling across the translucent glass at blinding speeds.
[FRONTIER TRIAL SUBJECT: RHAEVIA RYTHUNDEIR.]
[CURRENT STATUS: PRIMARY TARGET.]
Her physical breathing stilled completely as her hardened commander instincts took over.
More buried administrative files bypassed the local firewalls, opening sequentially before her eyes:
[INITIAL NEURAL SUPPRESSION: SUCCESSFUL.]
[MENTAL PATHWAYS: ARTIFICIALLY RESTRICTED TO E-RANK.]
[PRE-ACADEMY DISPOSAL ORDER: EXECUTED.]
Rhaevia’s dark eyes turned as cold as liquid nitrogen as she read the decrypted logs.
She opened the oldest, deeply archived record hidden within the file tree. An official military transport authorization document materialized, stamped with classified imperial seals.
Its original timestamp was dated weeks before her official enrollment into the Imperial Military Academy. It was logged long before the shuttle sabotage, long before the Frontier Trial, and long before she had ever set foot inside the capital’s gates.
The final line of execution instructions illuminated across the dark monitor:
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: PERMANENT ELIMINATION OF RHAEVIA RYTHUNDEIR.]
Rhaevia stared silently at the glowing text, her expression completely devoid of fear.
The original kidnapping and abandonment on Planet V-17 had never been a random act of noble jealousy or a chaotic accident. Someone powerful had already marked her physical body for permanent death long before she ever entered the academy grounds.
And whoever had issued that execution order possessed enough supreme authority to erase her existence entirely from the imperial military system.
Raevor stepped up beside her, his tall frame shadowing the console as his eyes locked onto the black-clearance signature.
"This authorization code belongs to the Imperial High Command’s internal oversight committee," he stated, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper.
"It seems someone in your capital was thoroughly terrified of what I might become," Rhaevia remarked softly, a faint, dark smile touching her lips.
"They failed," Raevor replied coldly, tapping his comm-link to trace the connection hub. "And from this second forward, they will have to go through my fleet to finish it."
Before Rhaevia could respond, a high-priority chime echoed from the docking bay, announcing that the Rythundeir Ducal flagship had completed its hard-lock sequence.