Within the world of Lorek, Jana stood atop a three-story building, slowly breathing in and out. Her eyes were fixated on the distant horizon, where she felt a sense of impending danger. As if some great predator were staring back at her beyond her own vision.

In the coming days, she would be tasked with leading an expedition in that direction in order to expand the controlled territory of Lorek. Based on the estimates of numerous scholars that had come from various worlds, the size of Lorek should be completely incomparable to that of any of the Keeper’s other lands.

However, the dangers present within Lorek were equally large. They could not carelessly travel from one territory to another for fear that they would encounter a high level star beast out on its regular hunting path. If that were to happen, perhaps Jana herself might be able to escape, but most people within this world would be doomed to become the beast’s food.

So, they took things slow. They used arrays to read the levels of different auras near their territory before using that information to map out the safest route to expand. Since every city had golems left behind by the ancient civilization, ready to defend, they merely had to make it to the next city before they were considered safe.

Unfortunately, the cities themselves were by no means close to one another. And, if they did not journey in the right direction, they might completely miss the nearest city, and travel for weeks before finding a safe haven. Because of this, they always made ample preparations, whether it was in stealth arrays, food, or weapons.

Yet still, Jana felt a foreboding like never before. She trusted her instincts, but at the same time, her instincts alone were not enough to call off the expedition when all evidence pointed to the journey ahead being safe.

“Captain, we’re ready to launch.” An elven man with tanned skin spoke up into his headset, looking at the consoles before him. This would be the first manned voyage beyond the atmosphere since the merging of the worlds. Ever since then, the spatial storms caused by the clashing of mana and ki have swept over the atmosphere, making it impossible for any vessels to leave without the proper preparations.

As a world that had already begun to explore beyond their own planet, such a setback was intolerable, and they had immediately begun working on shielding that could protect their crafts in the new rigors of space. Their unmanned tests had shown success, and now they were ready to launch a proper craft.

The captain of the ship, Sonora Stolas, gave a small nod as he leaned back in his chair with a serious look on his face. “Alright, everyone. Remember, no fooling around. We’ll be deploying the station module, and then heading back. We’re not out for a stroll today.”

His words made wry smiles appear on the faces of several crew members. This was their mission… not reclaiming the ruins of the moon base, but simply deploying the first piece of a larger station that would orbit their own planet.

As the spatial storms had similarly destroyed all orbiting stations, they had to first rebuild. Only when the orbital assembly was completed could they start manufacturing craft able to journey to other solar systems. Still, this was an important mission in itself, the first step to reclaiming the stars.

“Command, this is Captain Stolas, awaiting permission to launch.” The captain spoke into his own headset.

“Understood, Stolas. Clear skies, begin the countdown. Launching in ten…” Slowly, the voice spoke back, and the crew within the ship began running through the pre-launch systems. When the countdown was finished, everyone felt a jolt as they were launched upwards, rising into the sky.

The craft shook as it rose higher and higher, soaring up through the sky. “Deploying storm shields.” One of the officers spoke up, flipping several switches on their own console.

Outside of the craft, a translucent blue barrier appeared, wrapping entirely around its surface. This was the result of their research, a barrier which was able to simulate the effects of an atmosphere in regards to stopping the spatial storms. Everyone held their breath as they broke through the upper layers of the atmosphere, knowing that it was the moment of truth.

Yellow and blue energies clashed against one another before their eyes, sending shockwaves that crashed against their barrier, shaking the craft. However, the energies themselves did not push past their barrier, resulting in only a small amount of turbulence.

Seeing this, the crew of the craft let out sighs of relief, before briefly cheering. Now that they had made it this far, they had become the first pioneers of the new age of space exploration, ready to take their people once more beyond the bounds of their own world.

“Alright, let’s get our orbit lined up to deploy the station.” Captain Stolas smiled happily, seeing the morale of the crew rising. The vessel was still shaking, but he was quickly becoming used to these small tremors.

It was then that a voice spoke up over the radio. “Captain, I’m reading movement within the storm off our right side, but I can’t get a clear view of it with the scanners. Too much interference.”

Raising an eyebrow curiously, he nodded towards a female elf within his crew, who pulled up an external camera display. The storms were… colorful, to say the very least. Enough so that they provided a constant aurora effect when looked at from the ground. It was no surprise that it became difficult to properly track objects within these storms due to this.

At this moment, they were able to see a small black figure within the storm, one which looked like a black bird. It was no bigger than a grown man’s hand, but… it seemed to be consuming the energy within the storm? Stolas furrowed his brow, wondering if they were simply unlucky enough to have encountered a monster on their journey into space when he noticed something unusual about the creature.

Its skin, while black, emitted a faint hint of silver light. This light would be hard to come by in almost any other world, but as a resident of Spica, he could recognize it all too well. “Plot a return course.” He ordered immediately. “We’re aborting the mission. Get us back on the ground as soon as you can.”

“Captain?” One of the elves looked at him in surprise, having not noticed the silver glow within the colorful explosions. It’s not surprising, as this type of creature had almost never been seen within Spica.

“There are star beasts out here.” He spoke with a strained voice. He could recognize the starlight glow that came whenever a man or beast cultivated, and was able to roughly understand what was going on. “The shields we have for the module won’t defend it from a deliberate attack.”

Hearing the words ‘star beast’, everyone immediately moved into action. The dangers of Lorek were well known, and it was entirely because of this special breed of monster, which could only be found within their cultivation world. For such a creature to appear in the atmosphere of Spica…

“Most likely, there will be numerous of such monsters.” Stolas speculated out loud, his eyes fixated on the bird. “They don’t descend to the surface of the planet because the ideal circumstances for them to evolve would be here, where the energy is at its thickest. Right now, it’s busy ‘eating’. If it thought we were here to steal its food--”

“Captain, left side!” The voice from before spoke up over the radio again, and the view immediately shifted to a different camera. Once again, there was the image of a black bird. However, this bird could by no means fit within the palm of a hand. Instead, it was arguably as large as their craft itself, with a massive wingspan and glowing silver eyes.

“Abandon the mission. Everyone, emergency evacuation!” The captain called out, slamming his fist against a button on his chair. Silver light shone around his body, as well as the bodies of the rest of the crew. They could see giant, steel-like claws tearing through the hull of their ship moments before they vanished, returning to a prepared room on the ground.

“Captain Stolas?” A voice spoke up from the doorway, a female scientist surprised to see the crew of the recently launched vessel returning in such a manner. This was the recall room, after all.

“I need to speak with command.” Stolas said, rising to his feet with a stern expression. “The Javelin has fallen.” Hearing his words, the eyes of the researcher went wide, and she nodded her head, running from the room in haste.

“Well… that could become a problem.” I muttered as I watched the scene of the spaceship being torn apart. Out of curiosity, I checked the rest of the atmosphere, only to find hundreds of thousands of different monsters all absorbing the spatial storms in the atmosphere. Each one was a star beast ranging from the protostar to binary union stages.

Thankfully, there were no monsters beyond that point at this time, but such was unlikely to remain the case in the future. In the atmosphere of Spica, the concentration of ki and mana was thousands of times greater than at the surface, so it would not be unusual for creatures to be able to evolve if given enough time.

If they were lucky, and only encountered a protostar stage beast like the small black bird, then they could still deal with it. Protostar beasts did not differ too much from regular animals, aside from their stronger physique. Anything beyond that level, on the other hand, would offer a serious challenge to space exploration missions.

“Why didn’t the unmanned craft pick them up?” I muttered, my hand squeezing Terra’s waist as she leaned against me.

“Simple.” She said, letting out a light yawn. “The collision of ki and mana cause interference with a number of different scanners. Anything that relies on detecting energy waves would be thrown off, and only visual clues can be considered trustworthy. The drones wouldn’t have had any ki or mana signatures, so any star beasts in its area would have ignored it.”

“With the Javelin, on the other hand, the crew all had a level of ki and mana training. The star beasts recognize this, and deem them as competitors for their food. Or in this specific instance, the black bird considered the crew of the ship as a potential threat to its chick.”

I gave a small nod when I heard that. “What about Tsubaki’s ward system? Would they attack those as well?”

“Not intentionally.” Terra shook her head with a shrug. “She set the array flags outside of the main concentration for the storms. Although they are close enough to feed on some of the energy to maintain effect, the star beasts would have to be in their immediate area at the time that they become active in order to really sense them. Even so… I think three array flags have been taken down so far through accidental collisions?”

I let out a small sigh when I heard that. “Looks like Spica and Lorek will need to start work on siege weapons that can defend against star beasts sooner rather than later.” Such research was already taking place on Lorek, but their population was rather small compared to the other worlds, so it was no surprise that they were proceeding more slowly. Maybe with Spica’s help, they would be able to build something suitable before it became too late for either party?

As I thought about that, I began wondering about a different possibility. Would it be feasible for priests of Leowynn to be able to drive away, or even control star beasts? As stars were a major aspect of power within these two worlds, and also one of her domains, this made her eligible to become a primary deity within Spica and Lorek. Perhaps, even on par with Ryone and Tubrock themselves.