NOVEL NEXT Chapter 481: Into the Heart of the Star
Yaya extended a few slender branches into the cocoon, merging her essence with it.
Beneath the towering crown of the Tree of Life, a soft drizzle began to fall, countless droplets cascading like a misty rain. The primal essence that had been forced out by the Sigil of the Wild Legion was immediately drawn into Yaya's form, absorbed and refined.
Time passed in silence, though Ethan couldn't say how long. Eventually the entire space cleared, the haze dispersing until brightness returned to the Gate of Ascension.
"Brother, you can leave now," Yaya's voice chimed gently, her final act sweeping away the last strands of dark mist.
"Alright. I'll be out for a while—keep working on it, both of you," Ethan replied, giving his instructions before pulling his consciousness back from the Mindscape.
When his eyes fluttered open, he was still suspended inside the pod. But the view beyond the transparent canopy was no longer the same. His surroundings glowed a deep, fiery red, as though the entire mech had been plunged into molten rock. Yet despite the sight of seething magma, he felt no heat at all.
Julian, Morzan, and the others had vanished. Only KH3106 remained, encased in another pod close by.
"Ethan, you're awake?" KH3106's voice came through clearly.
Ethan tried to speak, but his words dissolved into silence, swallowed by the liquid in the pod.
"Oh, right. I forgot," KH3106 said quickly. "I'll connect you to the Shatterstar's co-pilot system."
The words stirred something in Ethan's chest, a sudden flicker of anticipation. But before he could respond, a familiar wave of drowsiness rolled over him. It was the same sensation he felt every time he entered Ethereal, yet now it carried a strange weight, as though he hadn't experienced it in ages.
His eyes shut, and when they opened again he was somewhere else entirely—a world washed in blazing crimson light, with him soaring at staggering speed through the air.
He lifted his arm instinctively, only to find it wasn't his arm at all, but the armored limb of Shatterstar. The moment he moved, his balance broke, and his massive body began to spiral downward.
"Don't move around!" KH3106 barked, his voice resonating directly in Ethan's mind.
[Beep... Co-pilot control revoked. Co-pilot set to observation mode.]
"Uh..." Ethan could only gape. He had been stripped of control, demoted to a passenger. He supposed he deserved it; if he'd stayed in charge, they might already be crashing.
"Where exactly are we?" he asked.
Shatterstar righted itself swiftly, its thrusters humming as it continued deeper into the inferno.
"We are outside the Spirit Realm," HK3106 answered, "inside this star, heading for its core."
"A star? Its core?" Ethan's jaw dropped. "You're kidding! We're not going to melt, are we?!"
He didn't need an explanation of what a star was. Humanity had studied the sun for centuries, after all. He remembered the facts clearly: the sun's surface burned at about 5,500 degrees Celsius, while its core blazed at a staggering sixteen million. No Earth probe had ever been able to withstand approaching it, much less plunging inside. Radiation, explosions, solar storms—all of it made stars death traps, even from a distance. And here KH3106 was casually flying them straight to the center of one.
"No way. Is this why it's called the Shatterstar?" Ethan pressed, a laugh of disbelief escaping him. "Don't tell me it was named that because it literally broke a star apart."
KG3106's response was calm. "Shatterstar is an unfinished mech. It has never been tested in battle."
"What?!" Ethan almost choked. "Then why are you so sure we won't melt?!"
"It shouldn't..." KH3106 began explaining, slowly and methodically, Shatterstar's design and the reasons behind its incomplete state. He also revealed that when it had left the First Universe, it possessed only 1.8% of its total energy reserves.
That number rattled Ethan. He already knew Shatterstar consumed energy at an insane rate. How could it have dared to set off with such a pitiful reserve? And why would anyone approve it?
KH3106's explanation shed light on the mystery. Shatterstar, when traveling through interstellar space—even at superluminal speed or during warp jumps—barely consumed energy at all. Instead, it absorbed cosmic rays, stellar radiation, and other hazardous matter, converting them into usable energy faster than geothermal charging ever could.
Unfortunately, on its very first jump, it had collided with an object Ethan believed came from the Underworld, tearing through space at unimaginable velocity. Two colossal masses colliding in that way had ripped apart the surrounding dimension, dragging them into a rift leading to the eighth layer of the Spirit Realm.
Shatterstar's reserves plummeted. Worse, KH3106's arrival drew the notice of the Blazing Qilin —an ancient beast of fire and legend, and ancestor to Red Snow herself.
The battle that followed was chaos. The Qilin had feared others would intervene during its strike and unleashed its full might. KH3106, despite low energy, pushed Shatterstar into combat. Even crippled, its power outclassed that of any War God, overwhelming even the Qillin's innate might. But when the beast fell, the mech's last drops of energy sputtered out.
Shatterstar's advanced sensors then detected a flood of people racing toward the scene. At the same time, something strange happened—the obsidian box shaped slab, the same one Ethan had glimpsed in the magma, suddenly sank. And with it, Shatterstar and the Qillin's corpse were dragged beneath the molten sea.
With no strength left, KH3106 diverted the remaining energy into survival systems and shut down, entering hibernation. He slept for a million years.
It was only through Ethan's persistence that the truth spilled out—why Shatterstar had set off with only 1.8% power, why it hadn't recharged. It turned out the mech had just completed a test run when sudden orders came from above. The Second Universe's flow of time had accelerated without warning, pulling the Path of Ethereal along with it.
What should have been a year before the two universes aligned became ten minutes. No one knew what awaited them on the other side, and hesitation could mean disaster. With no choice, KH3106 was ordered to depart immediately...