First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 397: The Engagement Ceremony (xiii)

Xavier didn’t hesitate and bought it immediately. One justice point vanished from the counter as the purchase was confirmed.

The orb manifested in front of him, half-formed for a split second before fully solidifying. Heat slammed into his palm like he’d grabbed a live reactor. Xavier hissed and dropped it instinctively as it scorched the floor, leaving a glowing mark where it hit.

Xavier cursed under his breath and summoned his gauntlets, slipping them on before scooping the orb back up. Even through the gloves, he could feel the power thrumming, violent and impatient, like it wanted to be anywhere but contained.

"This should do it," Xavier said, holding it up. "If it doesn’t melt the gate first."

Xavier raised his voice over the crackle of failing systems. "Rin. I need you here. Now."

Rin looked up from the torn-open core housing, face streaked with grime and sweat. "Give me ten seconds."

"You don’t have ten," Xavier replied. He stepped closer, holding the orb steady while Rin scrambled over, eyes widening the moment he felt the pressure it was putting out.

"That thing’s not just energy," Rin said, hands moving fast as he began aligning fractured conduits around it. "It’s acting like a self-contained reactor. If I can build a temporary cradle and sync it with the gate’s stabilizers, it might hold long enough."

"Do it," Xavier said. "I’ll keep it steady."

Rin worked like his life depended on it, because it did. He fused broken regulators into a rough lattice, bypassed the safety dampeners entirely, and slammed the last conduit into place with the butt of his tool. The orb flared, light bleeding into the frame, the gate’s surface snapping into a clean, stable oval for the first time.

"Temporary core’s live," Rin said, breathing hard. "It won’t last."

Xavier nodded, slipped the orb into a containment slot he’d forced open, and pulled off his gloves. "No interference," he said. "We go now." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

They didn’t wait. Xavier grabbed Rin by the arm and dragged him through the gate just as the warning indicators spiked into the red. The moment they crossed, the gate screamed, energy tearing through the chamber as the orb dumped everything it had left.

Behind them, the temporary core failed catastrophically. Power surged back through every damaged conduit, every planted explosive, every unstable system Xavier had sabotaged earlier. The chain reaction didn’t stagger. It synchronized.

The Blackwood Tower detonated from the inside out.

Across the city, people stopped what they were doing. Feeds froze, then resumed with shaky footage of the skyline tearing itself apart. The explosion rolled for kilometers, a deep, continuous thunder that cracked windows and rattled foundations.

Luther watched from a distance, blood still drying on his clothes, eyes fixed on the collapsing structure. Lucian stood beside him, hollow, unable to speak, unable to look away. Lilia saw it on a public broadcast, hands shaking as the screen filled with fire. Emergency sirens wailed for hours, but no one moved fast enough to matter.

Astraeus City burned.

The city that sold itself as untouchable, polished, eternal, was reduced to smoke and wreckage in a single night. Towers that defined its skyline fell. Districts that housed the powerful went dark. Its glory didn’t fade slowly; it shattered all at once.

Dominic Hart, who bent laws to his will.

John Kane, whose towers decided who lived and who didn’t.

Alexander Sterling, who built empires on buried bodies.

The Blackwoods, who believed their name made them immortal.

All gone.

And it hadn’t taken an army, a rebellion, or a war. It had taken one man who refused to wait for justice to arrive on its own. Xavier, a boy from nowhere, had done exactly what he swore he would do. He burned the city that taught him how rotten power could be, and as the flames spread across Astraeus, he was already gone.

Passing through the teleportation gate felt wrong in a way Xavier hadn’t expected.

There was no clean cut or smooth pull. His body stretched, compressed, then snapped forward as if space itself had grabbed him by the spine and dragged him through a narrow throat. His vision fractured into bands of light and static, pressure crushing his ears while every nerve screamed at once. It lasted less than a second, but it felt long enough for his heart to miss a beat.

He stumbled out first, boots scraping metal, one knee hitting the floor. Rin came through right after him, rolling to the side and drawing a breath like he’d been drowning.

"Fuck," Rin muttered, pushing himself up. "So this is why they make them wear suits before passing through the gates."

"Glad you remembered. Maybe next time, we will be prepared." Xavier straightened and looked around.

They were in an underground chamber, sealed and circular, with smooth alloy walls and recessed panels instead of exposed cables. It reminded him of the chamber back on Earth, but cleaner, more advanced, like someone had refined the design over decades. The cores were fewer, embedded deep into the structure, humming at a lower pitch. There were no guards or movement on sight. Just the faint vibration of a facility that was very much alive.

Rin let out a breath. "We are lucky no one is around. If there were guards waiting on the other side, we’d be dead already."

Xavier tilted his head slightly, eyes tracing the architecture. "This gate’s Blackwood-made," he said. "Obviously, it would open up in their facility."

Rin turned toward him. "Then let’s leave quietly. This place will be crawling in minutes."

Xavier didn’t answer. He reached behind him and drew Serpent’s Fang.

The blade unfolded with a familiar whisper, shifting into its segmented form. Before Rin could react, Xavier flicked his wrist. The chain-whip lashed out, carving through the nearest core housing. Metal screamed. Energy vented violently, alarms exploding into life as the chamber lights shifted to red.

"Xavier, what the hell are you doing?" Rin shouted over the blaring sirens.

Xavier ripped the whip back and struck again, this time shattering the gate’s stabilizers. "There’s no stealth exit," he said calmly. "This chamber is locked down from the outside. The moment someone checks the logs, they’d seal every corridor and hunt us room by room."

He turned, eyes cold. "Chaos gives us space to move."

Rin swore under his breath. "You’re insane."

"Maybe," Xavier replied, striking again as the gate imploded in a burst of energy. "But it’s the Blackwoods. I don’t leave their toys standing."

The first guards rushed in moments later, weapons raised. Xavier didn’t slow down. He moved through them, shots echoing, bodies dropping, Serpent’s Fang snapping back into blade form between strikes. Combat drones poured in next, optics flashing as they locked targets.

"Move!" Xavier shouted.

They ran.

As they tore through corridors, Xavier destroyed anything that looked important—power relays, control nodes, weapon racks—leaving smoke and fire behind them. By the time they burst through the outer exit, the facility was already tearing itself apart.

Outside, the world opened up.

Jupiter’s sky dominated everything. Massive bands of color rolled endlessly above them, storms swirling like living things. Distant moons hung suspended in the darkness, pale and sharp against the void. Light bent strangely here, casting long shadows that felt heavier than they should.

Xavier slowed, then stopped.

The army was still chasing them, boots pounding, vehicles moving in from the distance—but he barely noticed. He lifted into the air with telekinesis, hovering above the ground, arms spreading wide as he tilted his face toward the sky. His eyes closed, a smile tugging at his lips.

"I’m home," he murmured.

Rin stared at him. "You’ve never been to space before."

"I know," Xavier said quietly. "Still feels right."

He opened his eyes and squinted.

Far out in the cosmos, beyond the clouds and moons, he saw something. A figure, impossibly distant, formed of color and starlight. It was small, almost unreal, but it moved. A slow lift of an arm. A gesture that looked disturbingly like a wave.

"What the fuck..." Xavier whispered.

The moment shattered.

A thunderous impact slammed into his face, a heavy artillery strike hitting him mid-air. His body snapped backward, blood spraying as he crashed into the ground hard enough to crater it. Rin screamed his name and sprinted toward him, dropping to his knees as Xavier coughed and tried to push himself up.

Before they could move again, shadows fell over them.

Soldiers. Rows of them. Weapons trained. Engines roaring in the distance.

Xavier lay there bleeding, vision blurred, the sky of Jupiter burning above him.

[END OF VOLUME II — THE FRUIT OF REVENGE.]