Chapter 318: The Unstarted Voyage
The disorienting vertigo faded as quickly as it had arrived. When their vision cleared, Welt, Sunday, and Herta found their consciousness anchored to a highly specific, singular viewpoint. They were looking through Stelle's eyes, experiencing the universe entirely in the first person.
The environment materializing around them was deeply familiar. The warm, polished wood and soft lighting of the Astral Express parlor car came into focus. It was the route planning meeting—the exact moment the crew had gathered to decide their next trailblazing destination just before their departure to Amphoreus. Conductor Pom-Pom stood by the navigation console, adjusting their oversized hat, while Himeko, March 7th, and Dan Heng gathered around the star map. The atmosphere was light, buzzing with the casual, infectious anticipation of a new adventure.
Yet, this was a divergent branch of possibility. Unlike the established history they knew, when the holographic star map expanded and the choice was presented to Stelle, her hand moved differently. Her outstretched index finger bypassed the coordinates for Amphoreus entirely. Instead, it tapped firmly against another glowing node on the projection.
A beautiful, sapphire-blue sphere materialized in the air, its surface entirely swallowed by an azure ocean. The moment her finger made contact, a name drifted into the observers' minds, echoing like the gentle crash of a distant tide: Rosalyn.
"Let's go here!" Stelle's voice rang out, vibrating with her usual chaotic enthusiasm. "An ocean planet sounds incredibly fun. Just imagine all the sunken treasures waiting at the bottom of the sea! We could find pirate gold, ancient relics, or maybe just some really weird fish. Just thinking about it gets me fired up."
The rest of the crew exchanged amused glances before nodding in unanimous support, indulging their trailblazer's whims. Then, the vision accelerated. The scenery blurred and shifted, flashing forward like the rapidly flipping pages of a picture book. Snippets of the Express's arrival at Rosalyn played out in rapid succession. The observers watched as the crew boarded specialized, pressure-resistant submersibles, diving headfirst into a magnificent, deeply mysterious aquatic world.
Vast jungles of iridescent coral stretched out beneath the waves, illuminating the dark waters with vibrant neon hues. Schools of deep-sea fish drifted past, their scales emitting a soft, pulsing bioluminescence. They handled around the decaying, seaweed-choked ribs of ancient shipwrecks. It was a picture-perfect expedition, completely devoid of the usual multiversal disasters. Through Stelle's eyes, they watched March 7th excitedly chasing after a cluster of glowing jellyfish, her camera flashing brightly through the reinforced glass. Dan Heng sat quietly by the viewport, carefully logging the peculiar marine ecosystem into his data bank. Meanwhile, Himeko rested in the submersible's lounge, elegantly sipping a cup of exotic seaweed tea gifted by the local inhabitants. It genuinely looked like a rare, peaceful vacation.
Observing this tranquil sequence, the lingering tension in Welt and Sunday's minds began to ease. The tight coil of anxiety loosened, though neither man allowed himself to completely drop his guard. The deeply ingrained caution of seasoned strategists kept them waiting for the inevitable drop.
And then, the illusion shattered.
The vibrant, colorful seabed vanished in a violent flicker of static. The environment abruptly warped into a dimly lit, suffocating space drenched in the stench of decay. They were no longer underwater. The surroundings resembled the interior of a colossal interstellar facility, but it had been reduced to an absolute graveyard of twisted metal and shattered glass.
The reinforced titanium walls were scarred and melted, eaten away by a highly corrosive, dark red energy that clung to the metal like festering, bleeding wounds. The dead air crackled with the ominous, erratic popping of unstable energy currents. Shards of machinery and jagged debris drifted aimlessly through the zero-gravity environment, a silent proof of the brutal, overwhelming violence that had torn the station apart.
Welt's jaw locked, his heart sinking like a stone. Beside him, Sunday's breath hitched. A heavy, suffocating solemnity flooded their shared consciousness.
'Sure enough...'Welt's thoughts echoed grimly.'Even a seemingly peaceful paradise like Rosalyn was hiding an unavoidable catastrophe.'
But the true shock came a second later. In the dead center of the ruined facility, a completely unexpected figure came into view.
It was Herta.
Not a puppet. The woman standing amidst the floating debris possessed a distinct, obvious presence that marked her as the true, original body. Her petite frame stood on a fractured slab of flooring, creating a stark, almost fragile contrast against the sprawling, apocalyptic wreckage surrounding her.
Yet, there was not a single trace of fear on her porcelain features. She wore the absolute, chilling calm of Genius Society Member 83. Beneath that icy exterior, however, her eyes burned with a sharp, deeply provoked anger. She was entirely alone, staring down an unseen horror.
The perspective violently wrenched backward. The viewpoint zoomed out at breakneck speed, phasing through twisted metal corridors and shattered bulkheads until it finally breached the exterior of the facility, plunging into the deep, freezing void of cosmic space.
There, the enemy finally revealed its true form.
It was a colossal, nightmarish robotic construct. Its sheer scale was enough to make a mortal soul tremble, rivaling the size of an actual planet. The cold, jagged metal architecture formed a roughly humanoid silhouette, blotting out the distant stars. It floated in the silent sea of space, radiating a thick, suffocating aura. It was the pure, unadulterated power of Destruction.
The crushing weight of that energy was so immense that, even filtered through the screen of the What-If Television, Welt and the others felt their chests tighten. It carried a terrifying, singular will: to violently erase all traces of civilization and drag the universe back into absolute, silent entropy.
The vision flickered once more, zooming in on the mechanical titan. The massive armor plating on the construct's chest—right where an energy core or command bridge should have been housed—suddenly began to writhe. The metal shifted and unfolded with sickening fluidity, moving less like machinery and more like living, breathing flesh.
Embedded deep within the exposed cavity were countless, perfectly preserved heads of Herta's puppets.
They were packed tightly together, their lifeless glass eyes staring out into the void. It looked like a grotesque, macabre relief sculpture, a horrific display of trophies claimed from a slaughtered enemy—or perhaps the lingering, undigested echoes of something it had devoured.
A spike of pure ice drove itself straight into the minds of the three observers. Before they could even begin to process the horrifying implication of the puppet heads, a line of cold, mechanical text materialized across their fading vision. It hung in the air like a final, absolute judgment.
"In the name of Emperor III, I hereby declare war begins!"
The words seared themselves into their minds, burning with the intensity of a red-hot branding iron.
A split second later, the chaotic vortex of consciousness collapsed. The overwhelming sensory input washed away like a rapidly receding tide, violently pulling the trio's perceptions back to reality. They blinked against the harsh, sterile lighting of the technologically advanced conference room aboard the Herta Space Station.
Welt was the first to fully ground himself. He drew in a sharp breath, his hand automatically rising to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his amber eyes were sharp and deeply troubled. His analytical mind had already latched onto a critical discrepancy. Throughout the entire 'possibility' branch viewed from Stelle's perspective, there had been absolutely no mention, trace, or interface of the Cross-Dimensional Chat Group.
He narrowed his eyes. Was the What-If Television simply incapable of capturing causality tied to the Chat Group? Or was the Chat Group's existence operating on a dimensional level far above this kind of temporal prying? It was a terrifying, deeply complex question that demanded immediate investigation.
Beside him, Sunday exhaled a long, shaky breath. The Halovian's handsome features quickly smoothed over, forcibly maintaining his usual, gentle composure. However, the fleeting flash of raw shock and heavy solemnity lingering in the depths of his golden eyes betrayed his true feelings.
As a former figurehead of The Family, Sunday had orchestrated and witnessed countless grand schemes and high-stakes gambits. Yet, to personally 'experience' a catastrophic future branch—one that guaranteed a cosmic-scale war fueled by the pure, unadulterated power of Destruction—was enough to rattle even his ironclad mind.
At the far end of the long conference table, Herta sat completely unfazed. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands, staring with intense fascination at the What-If Television. The screen had already reverted to a wash of gray static, but her piercing gaze looked as though it were dissecting the very essence of the machine.
Her slender fingers drummed a rapid, rhythmic beat against the polished tabletop. When she finally spoke, her tone carried absolutely zero lingering fear. Instead, it vibrated with the manic, obsessive excitement of a child who had just cracked open a brand-new, incredibly dangerous toy.
"Now that is interesting!" Herta declared, her voice crisp and ringing with genuine amusement. "It seems that in some obscure, boring timeline I didn't care about, I actually got the chance to face off against a..."
She paused, her brow furrowing slightly as she calculated the energy readings in her head. "Hmm. Judging by the specific texture and planetary scale of that energy signature... was that a newly ascended Lord Ravager of Destruction?"
She tilted her head, her lips pulling into a dissatisfied pout. "Tsk. But why is the footage from this piece of junk always so infuriatingly incomplete? The actual combat data, the specific origin of that giant tin can, my brilliant countermeasures—it skipped all the good parts!"
She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "As if I would be so easily dealt with by a mere Lord Ravager. The resolution on this TV is terrible, and its narrative pacing is even worse!"
Her entire focus was laser-locked onto the missing combat data and the structural nature of the mechanical enemy. She was completely, utterly unbothered by the fact that the vision heavily implied her own gruesome death. To a true member of the Genius Society, unknown mysteries and the underlying operating principles of the universe held infinitely more appeal than the concept of 'death.' To Herta, dying was likely just another fascinating state transition waiting to be studied.
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