Lord of Annihilation

Floating amidst the dark night of space was a small, linear prismatic-shaped, navy-blue spaceship. 

The ship itself bore no insignia or emblems denoting its faction and its hull was fully built out of anti-detection and anti-tracking implants. Seeing how flawlessly it was blending in with the surrounding space, it was clear that such a ship was primarily used for stealth purposes.

And within such a ship, peering through one of its hidden portholes was Reyna.

"Are you sure we have arrived at the correct coordinates? Cause I don't see anyone or anything over here," Reyna asked dubiously, while craning her neck to scan the scene outside the porthole.

"Affirmative, master. We have arrived at the specified coordinates," a cool, indifferent voice of an AI replied.

Pulling back her head from the porthole, Reyna turned around to face the 'person', sitting in the pilot's seat and asked, "Did the scans pick up anything, Iris?"

Iris, the personal AI of Reyna who had now received an Android body, turned her head to face Reyna and shook it.

"Negative, master. I haven't picked up anything special in the radar." 

Iris' face bore great resemblance to Reyna's own but with a few minor changes. Standing next to each other, the two of them would resemble sisters with Iris being the older one. 

For some context, back when Reyna had successfully awakened her soul and learnt the ability to grant true life to artificial constructs, the first entity that she had used this ability on was Iris, the artificial maid of the Snowden family. 

Having received the blessing of life, Iris had for the first time, possessed true freedom and a soul, cementing her identity as an actual intelligent living being of the Universe, capable of cultivation.

However, the robotic maid stayed loyal to her duties and did not seek power. As such, he continued to serve as Reyna's loyal retainer and servant continuing to help the latter as she did in the past.

Later, when Reyna's research in the field of creating Android bodies had seen tremendous success, she had presented Iris with the choice of constructing her own physical body.

Iris, in turn, designed her body to closely resemble Reyna with only a few minor changes. While this design was met with some superficial protests by her master, the latter had eventually conceded when she saw her robotic servant's stubborn stance.

As such, Reyna now possessed an unofficial older sister who was the AI Iris possessing an Android body.

Of course, Iris wasn't only limited to the physical body as parts of her still remained as an artificial intelligence software which oversaw many of Mankind's operations. 

She was fiercely loyal and was, quite literally, a machine that never required a single moment of rest. Many aspects of management had become much simpler, efficient, and flawless with Iris' assistance. 

Even the UEM, which was Mankind's current official name and also the moniker by which the rest of the Universe knew them, was also partly managed by Iris. If it were not for this robotic maid, the sheer scale of math involved in the daily trades and expenditures of such a large operation would have any number of humans managing it to feel absolutely helpless.

"No signs of anything in the radar. Nothing can be seen through the windows either. What should we do now?" Reyna vocalized her thoughts. 

"Let's just wait," another female voice replied.

Turning her neck towards the source of the new voice, Reyna caught Anya wearing a spacesuit and asked in surprise, "What are you wearing that thing for?"

Zipping up the frontal zipper, Anya, who was now wearing a black-colored, silver-gilded spacesuit which tightly hugged her body and accentuated her curves, answered coolly, "I'm going out to look for them."

Speechless, Reyna asked, "Look for them, where? There's nothing outside! Either we have arrived at the wrong coordinates or they would have to literally appear out of thin air—"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"I'm detecting some spatial instability. It seems like there is some sort of spatial gateway opening near us!" The sudden alerts from the ship's radar and Iris' mechanical warning interrupted Reyna's speech.

A holographic screen appeared in the air between Anya and Reyna and played a video.

"This is the live broadcast from the camera outside the ship's main hangar," Iris explained.

The video on the hologram showed the space outside the hangar twisting and warping as copious amounts of dark-colored energy mysteriously appeared and flooded that area.

The disturbance in the video continued to intensify in scale when suddenly, a small tear appeared at its center and three figures were thrown out. 

Immediately recognizing the faces of two of the three figures, Reyna hurriedly instructed Iris while Anya rushed towards the main hangar.

"Open the doors of the main hangar!"

----------

Arriving at the loading bay which housed the main hangar doors of the spaceship and seeing it gradually open, Anya instantly acted. Surrounding herself with soul power to protect her body she jumped over the railing and rushed towards the opening.

Just as she was about to exit the ship to save the three figures, a black-colored shadow rushed through the opening with two other figures in tow. 

The shadow heavily landed on the floor tightly hugging another figure while the third, golden-colored figure disengaged and slammed against the wall on the side of the loading bay.

Seeing tendrils of dark-colored energy slowly extending through the opening doors of the spaceship, Anya immediately detected the danger of those tendrils and slammed her hand on the manual closing button of the hangar doors while yelling. 

"Move away from this place! Immediately!"

No later than when her voice had finished resounding, the floor underneath their space suddenly moved as the spaceship immediately moved away at extreme speeds.

The main hangar doors had also finished closing and the loading bay was slowly beginning to re-pressurize itself. 

Reyna, who stood behind the bulkhead leading into the loading bay, anxiously looked at the three figures that lied unmoving on the floor while impatiently waiting for the doors to open.

Meanwhile, Anya, who was already inside the room with the three figures, balanced her footling and cautiously made her way towards the three figures. 

Arriving closer, she immediately recognized the two intertwined figures to be Lucius and Olivia respectively. Having met them countless times in the past, she did not fail to recognize them. Her eyes then moved toward the third figure; the person wearing golden robes. 

Due to the loose robes and the angle at which that person had fallen, Anya was unable to see their face, much less, whether they were male or female. However, the fact that this person was brought inside the ship by Lucius and was with the duo made Anya less suspicious of their identity.

But a stranger was a stranger nonetheless. As such, Anya first moved to inspect the two people whom she knew and trusted. Controlling her soul power, she used it to near the two figures to inspect for any injuries.

Just as her tendril of soul power was about to touch the duo, Lucius' eyes opened, revealing a pair of mismatched pupils and a fearsome gaze.

An intense beastly aura emanated from Lucius which caused Anya's blood to freeze in her veins.