Chapter 62 — Umbra's Obsession

The "Corridor of Copper Stench" in the Ring of Molten Iron was a massive, enclosed mine shaft cutting through the cores of several meteorites.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of high-pressure heavy oil, low-quality glowing gases, and a mix of lower-class alien races. Outside the makeshift shops welded from abandoned spaceship hulls on both sides hung various flickering, multicolored high-energy neon lights. Vagrant apprentices reselling contraband neurotoxins, bounty hunters peddling poached cubs of interstellar alien beasts, and gloomy-faced Divine Court fugitives jostled through this crowded, narrow passageway.

"Everyone, pull your hoods low." Caleb walked at the very front of the group, his rough palm constantly resting on the gun grip beneath his trench coat, "There are no security codes here. The patrol squads under the Taurus Lord only care about collecting their monthly protection tax. As long as you don't detonate a high-energy antimatter source in the middle of the street, even if you slit someone's throat and they bleed out by the roadside, no one will spare a second glance."

Orion followed closely behind, his towering, iron-pagoda-like body shielding Elias and Vespera at his sides. His eyes, like those of a falcon in the dark night, vigilantly scanned every suspicious person brushing past. Suddenly, Orion's gaze narrowed slightly; the Orion star-map tattoo hidden by his heavy wool cloak at his right collarbone abruptly burned with a stinging pain without any warning.

He snapped his head around, his sharp gaze falling on Vespera, who was walking just behind Elias.

In that very instant, Orion's hunter instinct had perceived an imperceptible trace of higher-dimensional fluctuation—a profound, cold ripple of pitch-black gravity that seemed capable of swallowing all physical light, flashing past the fingertips of this "fragile mortal woman" in a split second.

Vespera seemed to sense Orion's scrutiny. She slightly tightened the canvas trench coat Elias had draped over her; beneath the shadow of the hood, those large, mesmerizing violet eyes slowly lifted, meeting Orion's gaze with cold ruthlessness.

In that fleeting moment, Orion felt as if he saw a boundless, deathly silent abyss piled high with the remains of countless stars deep within her pupils. An indescribable higher-dimensional majesty surged wildly up Orion's spine like ice water, actually forcing a cold sweat out of this demigod who had once fought interstellar behemoths alone.

"This woman..." Orion was severely shaken inside, thick veins involuntarily bulging on the hands resting on his notched combat blade's hilt.

Just then, a terrified commotion suddenly erupted from the noisy crowd ahead.

"Out of the way! Get the hell out of the way, all of you! Taurus Seventh Patrol Enforcement Squad, routine inspection!"

Several Taurus divine soldiers wearing heavily armored suits that flashed with blinding gold light, holding holy spears crackling with high-voltage electrical arcs, were driving away the crowded mortal throng. Walking at the very front was an arrogant-looking high-ranking security officer; he carried a higher-dimensional scanning instrument radiating pale gold brilliance—the Divine Polarizing Spirit-Eye.

"Bzzz——!"

That instrument continuously spat out translucent golden beams into the surroundings. Any lower-dimensional mortal swept by the beam had their identification code and fate-track energy fluctuations instantly presented holographically in the air. The moment any individual marked by the Divine Court as a "contraband heretic" or "unclaimed waste-scum" was discovered, the divine soldiers behind would step forward without hesitation, dragging them away like dead dogs using gravity chains.

"Damn it! It's the Divine Court's centralized horizon scanner!" Caleb's face paled drastically, gritting his teeth and lowering his voice, "Elias, your 'Anomaly code' has no record in the divine astrolabe. Once swept by that golden light, the instrument will immediately trigger a red alert!"

Elias's eyes darkened, the "embers" in his body faintly heating up, his right hand already gripping the short blade hidden beneath his trench coat.

The golden scanning beam advanced rapidly toward the narrow corridor where the squad was located, like a web of death. It was less than ten meters away from them!

A look of extreme, disdainful cold light flashed through the clear eyes of Vespera standing behind Elias.

"This kind of low-level spectral algorithm cooked up in the Taurus Lord's territory dares to call itself 'divine'?" Vespera mocked coldly deep in her mind.

Her slender, pale hand, hidden under the wide cuff of the trench coat, moved slightly; her fingertips pinched out an ancient and bizarre divine rune with extreme lightness. An imperceptible dark-matter gravity deflection membrane, thin as a cicada's wing, silently followed the physical gravitational waves in the air and covered the surface of Elias's body.

"Bzzz——"

The golden light of the Divine Polarizing Spirit-Eye instantly swept over Elias.

The flowing light on the higher-dimensional instrument flickered violently, but under the disguise of the dark-matter gravity deflection membrane, Elias's "Anomaly code"—which originally couldn't be recognized by the system—was forcibly tampered with and displayed as "Tier-3 heavy-labor mining waste-scum" on the scanner. The flowing light then glided past without sounding even half a beep of alarm.

The haughty Taurus security officer swaggered past them, not even sparing a second glance at this "mortal kid covered in coal ash".

It wasn't until the patrol squad whizzed away into the distance that Caleb let out a deep sigh of relief, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead in disbelief: "That's weird... the Divine Court's instrument actually malfunctioned?"

Forcibly invoking the supreme dark-matter laws to deflect a polarized scan while in a mortal body with 99% of its divine power sealed had inflicted a severe physical backlash on her fragile flesh.

Elias didn't think much of it. He silently walked over to a steaming wasteland food stall by the roadside, dug out two crude brass coins, and bought a cup of rich, steaming synthetic high-energy hot soup, along with a pair of wasteland goggles fitted with dust filters.

"Here." Elias walked up to Vespera, handing the cup of warm, fragrant hot soup and the goggles into her hands.

Vespera was slightly taken aback; she looked down at the cup of hot soup—something extremely lowly and crude in the mortal world—then looked up at Elias's lake-green eyes, which were clear and full of sincere concern.

"Your hands are very cold." Elias's voice was light, yet carried a reassuring warmth, "The mine dust in the black market is heavy; wearing goggles will make you feel better."

Vespera pursed her tender, pale lips, the corner of her mouth curling into her habitual sharp-tongued, cold sneer: "I just don't want to see my 'karmic buffer' be so stupid as to get forcibly dismantled by a few low-IQ patrolmen before I've squeezed all the value out of him."

Despite her words, her slender, cold fingers still tightened, gripping that cup of scalding hot soup firmly.

The scalding temperature spread along her palm, falling through her esophagus into her cold stomach.

In the long, lonely billions of cycle-days of the supreme God of Darkness Umbra—days filled with endless slaughter and rational calculation—this was the first time she had tasted what lower-dimensional beings called "temperature".

"What an absolute fool..." Vespera held the hot soup, slowly taking a small sip in the shadows, yet a ripple that couldn't be calmed for a long time arose in the divine awareness horizon deep in her mind.

Her elder sister Astra had stubbornly believed that as long as these mortals were given painless memory-soothing and radiant healing, the order of the world could be maintained; whereas she herself firmly believed that the essence of the universe was cruel physical stripping and the dead-end reconstruction of "breaking before building." In the long, lonely billions of cycle-days of the supreme God of Darkness Umbra—days filled with endless slaughter and rational calculation—this was the first time she had tasted what lower-dimensional beings called "temperature".

Looking at this blonde youth before her, who clearly bore the tragedy of his people's extermination, who clearly knew that ahead was a dead end laid out by the gods, yet was still willing to trade his only copper coins for a cup of hot soup to hand to the person beside him—deep within Vespera's heart, that divine core sealed for countless cycle-days shook violently for the first time.

The reason she braved higher-dimensional risks and insisted on tagging along in the identity of the mortal woman Vespera was absolutely not just to enjoy his unique "radiator" function from close range.

The true obsession deep in her heart, which she had never disclosed to anyone, was her divine origin that firmly believed in "breaking before building." In her eyes, the old Star-network order of the Divine Court had long since become rigid and corrupt, beyond saving. And Elias was the only "Anomaly code" to escape the astrolabe's capture in millions of years. She wanted to personally watch this youth step step-by-step into the sinful star-realm where the Divine Court's surveillance was densest and its system most ruthless; to see whether he could truly tear open the cage of the old Divine Court with a mortal body, and smash open a breakthrough rift on this deathly silent cosmic Aegis—a rift that even the supreme Twin Gods couldn't foresee.

"Elias..." Vespera stared coldly at the youth's back under the shadow of the trench coat, putting on the goggles to conceal those soul-stealing violet star-eyes, "Then let me see just how wide you can tear this rift open."