Beyond the Bloodline

Chapter 448: The Heart of Life

Massive starships spun out of control, crashing into one another before erupting into enormous explosions.

Then, suddenly, the expansion of the explosion of blue flames stopped.

Those who had already resigned themselves to death widened their eyes in disbelief as a translucent barrier manifested around the expanding sea of destructive energy, trapping the entire explosion within it.

The barrier then began shrinking, slowly at first, but as the seconds ticked by, it exponentially sped up.

In less than half a minute, the entire catastrophic blast had been compressed down into a single sphere floating between Jamie’s cupped palms.

Jamie’s eyes glowed with a faint light as he muttered a single word.

|Void.|

The sphere of destructive force he was barely containing became engulfed by a dark blue light, and with immense force, Jamie slammed his palms together, completely erasing the entire blast by casting it directly into the void of nothingness, where it could no longer exist.

Jamie had barely completed his action when a True Voice echoed across the surrounding space, reaching the ears of all those terrified by the immense power they had sensed and fully convinced that their deaths were moments away.

Those who still managed to retain consciousness instead of immediately passing out under the pressure radiating from the two combatants, that is.

|Prayer of—|

|Wait! Akari, calm down for a moment!!|

Jamie hurriedly interrupted, and as he spoke, a figure emerged from the crack in space, the long ceremonial staff wrapped in runes she held pointed in his direction and exuding powerful waves of cosmic energy.

Akari’s fox tails slowly swayed silently behind her, just like the white paper streamers adorning the upper end of her staff that fluttered through space despite the absence of wind.

Her expression was filled with disbelief, her eyes burning with rage as she shouted,

|Calm down? You actually have the audacity to tell us to calm down after all of that?!|

|Taking your anger out on random lower existences isn’t going to solve anything,| Jamie shot back, his brows furrowing with annoyance.

Hearing his response, Akari’s expression turned disgusted as she muttered, |What nonsense. What kind of hypocrisy are you performing here?|

Then, she looked at the space behind him and noticed the Dead Zone before blinking in confusion.

|Why is this thing larger than before?|

Her gaze swept across the battlefield, toward the Accord forces retreating in disorder, then toward Olivia and Richard, who were helping coordinate the retreat.

Then she spoke again.

|Ah, I see. So you know how to care about your own universe, and yet you still dare to go around causing chaos in other universes without considering that others can come and cause chaos in yours?!|

|For fuck’s sake, Akari, liste—|

|Listen to what?!| Akari bellowed, cutting Jamie off.

|What’s there to listen to? You complain about how things didn’t go according to plan?

It doesn’t matter anymore! The damage is already done.

We opposed that plan from the very beginning. You were trying to rope Eternals and an Aggressor into handling your dirty work for you. We warned you about this, and you still went ahead with that damned plan and implicated us when it blew up in your face!!|

Snorting, she added, |Congratulations, Westley. You managed to piss off 2 Eternals and an Aggressor in one move, and somehow managed to drag us into your mess!|

|For fuck’s sake, Akari, this is a separate matter and won’t affect you!|

|Separate?! Have you slept away your intelligence as well!? Did you forget who it is we’re contracted to?? You think Julio wouldn’t go raise hell at Roland!?|

The paper streamers hanging from Akari’s staff glowed as she shouted, and Jamie immediately raised the Galaxy Sword just in time for her to thrust the staff forward and unleash a blast of black cosmic energy.

|We’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences of that!! Because of YOUR actions!|

There was no delay between the energy blast leaving her staff and it reaching Jamie, the order of cause and effect behind the attack reversed by her power.

If Jamie hadn’t already begun swinging his sword by the time she raised her staff, then blocking it would’ve been nearly impossible.

The blade cut through the blast of energy as a powerful shockwave expanded through the surrounding space, the spatial energy coating his blade consuming the blast before it could erupt uncontrollably.

Akari didn’t appear to care about that outcome, as though she’d already expected Jamie to deal with the attack effortlessly. The runes on her staff glowed once more, together with the grey patterns spread across her kimono as she continued shouting in fury.

|You think we want to be worked like slaves for eternity!? The Heart of Life has the power to give us that final push needed to attain Ultimate, and after the problems you caused, you actually had the audacity to hide information about it from us??!|

Jamie’s expression changed instantly, his brows furrowing deeper as he responded, |Do NOT speak of that here, Akari!|

He moved his hands and manipulated the laws of sound, trying to stop others present from hearing Akari’s words, but there was no way a Zenith Haven like Akari wouldn’t notice something like that.

Cosmic energy erupted from her body in furious waves, shattering the veil of silence Jamie created as she snapped at him.

|And why should we listen to you!?|

She swung her staff, releasing pressurised streams of cosmic energy from all directions towards Jamie, and as he swung the Galaxy Sword to block them, she kept shouting at him.

|We could fulfil our long-held wish after billions of years and break free of this cursed bond, and you hid the fastest path to that wish away from us!

Worse off, you took it to your universe and hid it here?|

Her voice turned incredulous there, and the accusation made Jamie finally snap back at her.

|I didn’t hide ANYTHING from you!|

|Then why did the Heart of Life mysteriously appear in Zanerth while you were dragging us into your plan to appease the Witch of Chaos!?

How dare you den—!|

Akari suddenly went silent, her barrage of attacks stopping as a look of realisation formed on her face.

|Ah, so that’s how it is. You want to use the Heart of Life for yourself to attain Ultimate!|

|Huh?|

Jamie couldn’t help but make a confused sound at her words, and as soon as he processed them, he immediately shook his head. |Wait, what?! No!|

However, Akari wasn’t listening to him, already fully convinced her deduction was correct.

|Ha! You think I’d let you beat us to it? NEVER!|

Akari’s tails spread out wide like a fan, her brown fur glowing with a golden sheen as she extended her arms and wrapped her body in cosmic energy.

|IF WE’RE NOT GETTING THAT HEART, THEN NEITHER ARE YOU!|

—Third Concretization: Aspect Armament.—

Akari’s body was instantly wrapped in a skin-tight layer of cosmic energy, with a second layer forming over her kimono, and the number of paper streamers hanging from her staff immediately doubled.

The power of causality mixed with the energies of the other laws that composed her main Aspect, and a cosmic crest resembling a Möbius loop appeared in the space behind her head.