Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 387: The Hunt Begins

’By Zanerth’s General Calendar... today should be October 20th, right?’

That thought crossed Miranda’s mind as she glanced at the time displayed on the top left of her tablet, then returned her gaze to the centre of the screen showing a map of ZWF4105.

It had been exactly 430 hours since Miranda had the Proelium Tower attack called off and since Dragon King Ikerth had been reduced to nothing but space dust.

Miranda was currently seated atop the barrier of the Luabos Universe, silently waiting as more and more Firmament Realm presences gathered at the mega station in the centre of ZWF4105.

’Ah, I’d forgotten about the main reason I came here. Finding Eldros.’

Compared to the matters unfolding, the former Zanerth Master, Eldros, was an inconsequential threat, so Miranda had almost forgotten about his existence.

She knew where he was from Ikerth’s memories, but she neither had the time nor leeway to act against him now, so she’d leave him for later, when she was done with the Neo-Extinction Faction.

In the past two weeks plus, some smaller repairs on the Luabos Proelium Tower had been completed, but the tower was incapable of functioning at the same efficiency as before.

However, it was still capable of functioning as an anchor for the Universal Amalgamation plan, and that was precisely what the Neo-Extinction Faction needed to use it for. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Miranda raised her gaze and saw Ulfur’s spaceship fleet heading out of the universe toward the Millennium Council Station, but just before she could return her gaze to her tablet, she suddenly sensed danger.

"!"

The ears on the sides of her head disappeared, and a pair of wolf ears emerged from the top of her head, her instincts warning her to leave Luabos as fast as possible.

Miranda didn’t doubt those instincts and immediately activated the Nexus Fascinator, conjuring a Cosmic Gate that led straight into the Lozion Universe, and leapt into it.

No sooner had she done this than the space above Luabos ripped open, and out emerged the figure of a short grey-haired human with green eyes.

He cast his gaze upon Luabos, eyes narrowing as he scanned the entirety of the universe with his power, yet detected nothing amiss.

Turning to Lozion and Lollao on either side of the roughly circular cluster, he scanned them and detected nothing of note there, his frown deepening.

Even though he’d scanned the universe Miranda had entered, he hadn’t detected her, not because of her stealth abilities or anything, but simply because Miranda had jumped straight into Iccypso right after entering Lozion, a split-second decision that saved her from being detected by this man, the Superior Stage Supreme Realm Herald of the Extinction Legion, Deryn.

[Deryn? Are you in position?]

Salenor’s voice echoed in Deryn’s head, and the man silently nodded before responding.

"I’m heading over to the Tower. You keep watch over that half of the cluster."

[No problem. The last one’s out. Let’s begin.]

With that, Salenor cut off the connection, and Deryn ran one last scan over the nearby universes before descending into Luabos, heading straight for the Capella Galaxy Cluster.

He moved directly toward the Proelium Tower within, his expression darkening as he saw the damaged state of the tower.

Deryn entered the tower along with the crowd, heading straight to the obelisk in the centre of the waiting hall and holding out his right palm, where he conjured a projection of the ’Key’ Tasir had been trying to bring to the cluster when he was caught by Lillie on Miranda’s orders.

He inserted the key into the opening in the obelisk, and the moment he did, cosmic energy silently erupted as the sigils on the obelisk slowly lit up one after another.

It didn’t take long for the process to finish, and soon, the accumulated energy from all who had died or been defeated within the Proelium Tower, along with the cosmic energy that had been absorbed continuously for a thousand years, was released in full, an overwhelming force that spread across the Capella Galaxy Cluster, covering billions of light years in an instant and enveloping the entire Luabos Universe.

The moment it happened, Ulfur, who was on his way to the Millennium Council Station, flinched, his Authority as Master of Luabos instantly warning him that something had gone terribly wrong.

He shot to his feet, aura erupting as he ordered.

|TURN AROUND! NOW!!|

But the moment he gave the order, he quickly realised it’d take too long and unhesitatingly leapt out of his spaceship, shooting through space as he headed for Luabos, ignoring Mei’s startled cries.

The Werewolf unleashed his full power as a Ninth Firmament Realm Existence, tearing through space at several times the speed of light as he rushed back home.

When he reached Luabos, he found it covered by a strange veil of cosmic energy, but as he exerted his Master Authority and tried to enter—

**BOOM!

|!!|

It felt like he had slammed into an impenetrable wall and was pushed back.

Ulfur had been denied entry into his own Universe!

|This...!!|

His gaze snapped to Lozion nearby, and he quickly charged towards it, intending to rush in as he saw the same barrier of cosmic energy wrapping around it, but he wasn’t fast enough, and neither was Lozion’s Master, who had also rushed back after noticing something wrong.

The first Proelium Tower had been activated, and like dominoes, the rest followed, emanating cosmic energy that spread over the boundaries of all 12 universes in the cluster and sealed their Masters out.

Ulfur tried to contact those within, but even communications were blocked, and he couldn’t give any orders at all.

Watching this from the other end of the cluster, right above the barrier of Yoatune, was Miranda, quietly fiddling with the Nexus Fascinator in her hair.

She reached out and tried to touch the cosmic energy barrier generated by the Proelium Tower, and surprisingly, she was rejected and unable to enter.

But when she channelled cosmic energy into her fascinator and tried again, her hand easily phased through the barrier and into the clouds of cosmic energy surrounding the universal barriers, intense storms of energy that could tear weaker beings apart.

At this, Miranda shook her head in silence as she was once again reminded of the kind of power her lover had possessed at his peak.

The ’Authority’ of ’Cosmic Spatial Manipulation’ and ’Space Traversal’ within the Fascinator Jamie had given her surpassed that of the Proelium Tower, so by channelling that power, she could enter and leave any universe she wanted without issue.

’But the Isolation Barrier...’

She hadn’t tried it in case it failed and alerted them, but Miranda was starting to think it might let her leave its range.

With a sigh, she turned her gaze back to Yoatune, silently slipping in and heading straight for its Proelium Tower.

Miranda had no intention of letting the Neo-Extinction Faction succeed with their Grand Plan, and now was her best chance to strike since their strongest combatants were currently split up across the 12 Universes.

And what action was she taking?

Well, nothing too serious.

Miranda shot through space at roughly 200x the speed of light, her hand outstretched as her Second Concretization activated and formed a long Warhammer, one which she pumped full of cosmic energy and swung without hesitation at the head of the unsuspecting human pouring cosmic energy into the obelisk in the centre of Yoatune’s Proelium Tower waiting hall.

The man’s head was bashed clean off his neck, the strike so smooth and fast that it took his body a few seconds to even register it was dead.

The Warhammer’s impact crushed and scattered his soul with force enough to crumble the entire Yoatune several times over, his soul bursting apart as the Origin Cores within shattered and burned away in Miranda’s flames.

Miranda instantly killed her momentum, coming to a dead stop as she swiftly absorbed every trace of excess cosmic energy, not letting even the faintest wisp of power leak out.

"One down."

She muttered calmly as she turned her gaze toward Gathiea, acting as though her absurd feat of killing a Superior Stage Quasi Supreme with a single blow, while exerting such an extreme level of power control that the universe stayed completely stable despite her having used more than enough power to destroy it, wasn’t anything remarkable.

The Nexus Fascinator was filled with cosmic energy, and Miranda silently vanished along with the corpse of the Quasi Supreme she’d just ended, headed straight for the Proelium Tower in Gathiea, and left with the severed head of a Lesser Supreme.

Miranda quickly moved into Zagruetun, draining all the blood from the body of the Lesser Supreme there and compressing that blood into a blood orb, which she combined with her Third Concretization to form a purple-crimson one-edged blade that she wielded as she dashed into Uetera and zipped straight toward its own Proelium Tower.

Having killed three of the existences manning the Proelium Towers, the Universal Amalgamation process began slowing, though Miranda, not directly involved with the process, didn’t notice this.

She had expected their deaths to affect the process, which was why she was moving as quickly as possible, but those effects were unfolding faster than she’d assumed.

When the Universal Amalgamation process began, the twelve universes of the cluster, which had been roughly circular, started drawing closer to each other, close enough that their gravitational pulls began tearing apart the clouds of cosmic dust and gas surrounding them, and they had been moving at an equal pace.

But now, Yoatune, Gathiea, and Zagruetun had begun to slow down, and they were trailing behind the other nine universes in speed, which naturally broke the rough circle the cluster had formed.

While this was happening, Miranda silently shot through Uetera at a ridiculous speed, curving through higher dimensions as she reached the Proelium Tower and swung her blade with the intent to behead the Supreme flying across the Tower to inspect it.

But just as she moved her hand through space to swing her sword, the man shockingly reacted, his eyes snapping toward her as cosmic energy erupted from his body, his Third Concretization instantly activating to form a giant multi-layered shield.

Miranda’s blade slammed into the shield, and a second later, she cut straight through it, but that second was enough for the Supreme to move his neck out of her blade’s path, and her slash ended up severing only his left arm instead.

’Tsk...’

|You—! Dictum of Chronos!|

The Supreme instantly activated the fused expression of his Authorities, every Authority under it activating simultaneously as his arm instantly reappeared.

Not regenerated, but simply restored as if it had never been severed at all.

|Aspect of the Devil: Razor Claws!|

His devilish lineage revealed itself right after his arm reappeared, his nails elongating into claws stretching over a metre long, each one brimming with enough energy to cut the universe in two with a single slash.

Those claws immediately raked toward Miranda’s neck, but she reversed her grip, her sword igniting with purple fire as she switched to her Third Concretization.

’Supernova: Celestial Ignition.’