Lord of Annihilation

Lucius, who was the first to awaken, immediately pushed aside the unconscious Olivia and rolled away. Grasping onto his threads of sanity, he opened his [Void Storage] and pulled out multiple corpses of Stage 4 Wild Beasts. 

These corpses were much different from the ones provided by Klytius during his stay in the Land of Giants as Lucius had already run out of his stock of provisions during the last two months of continuous void travel. The corpses which Lucius had on hand right now were the prizes from his periodic hunting on the way.

Extending his shadow to devour the corpses while consecutively stuffing his face in the meal before him, Lucius quickly replenished his void energy. 

As the void energy started to fill up his body, the beastly instincts controlling him receded and in turn increased Lucius' lucidity and control over his body.

Spending a few minutes to completely consume the few dozen corpses stored inside his storage, Lucius finally stood up and wiped his blood-smeared mouth using his hand.

'Haah. 58 Stage 4 corpses and only a little over half my stomach was filled. Looks like the increase in my physique comes with a massive increase in my energy/calorific intake,' Lucius sighed to himself.

Pushing aside these thoughts temporarily, Lucius raised his head and saw the pale-faced, faintly trembling, frozen figure of Anya. 

He tilted his head, unsure of why the person before him was acting strangely like this, when he suddenly noticed the beastly aura that he was emanating. 

Realizing that he was the reason behind her strange behavior, Lucius promptly restrained his aura causing Anya's body to loosen and drop to the ground. Upon regaining control over her body, the latter's trembling intensified while large droplets of sweat continuously formed and fell from her body.

It was at this point that the bulkhead leading to the loading bay opened, allowing the anxious Reyna to rush in.

"Are they okay…?" Reyna hurriedly asked, having not been able to see the recent changes from the small window present on the bulkhead. 

Now that she saw Lucius standing up perfectly alright and Anya on the ground, trembling, she was naturally confused.

Alternating her gaze between the indifferently staring Lucius and Anya, who was trying her best to suppress her trembling and calm down, Reyna faced the former and dubiously asked, "What happened? Is she okay?"

Nodding his head, Lucius replied, "She's was exposed to a tiny bit of my aura. She's not injured."

Hearing his answer only served to confuse Reyna even further as her gaze fell on Anya once again. Inwardly, she thought, 'A tiny bit of his aura has caused that?'

Turning to look at Lucius once again, she continued, 'Just how strong is he?'

Reyna's gaze then fell downward, near Lucius' feet. Seeing the unconscious figure of Olivia, a startled look appeared on her face as she rushed towards the former.

"Olivia!?" Reyna immediately released her soul energy to inspect her.

Meanwhile, Anya had managed to contain the instinctive fear within her heart and suppressed her trembling. Raising her gaze, she met the indifferent gaze of Lucius who was staring at her.

"My apologies," he spoke.

"N-no…problem," Anya eked out a reply. She then hurriedly broke their eye contact and struggled up to her feet. 

Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she then looked towards Reyna and the unconscious Olivia before turning her gaze towards the golden-robed figure.

"Who's that?" she asked, not daring to look towards Lucius again.

"A friend," Lucius curtly replied before walking up to the golden-robed figure and lightly kicking her with his leg. "Stop acting and wake up."

"You! Can you not show me the tiniest ounce of respect? I'm both your elder and your superior, you know!?" a voice grumbled.

As usual, Lucius ignored her complaints and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Ka'lor'ah extended her slender, white arm to be pulled up by Lucius, as she continued, "Apart from making me feel some pain, the corrosion from the void was unable to affect me."

Getting up to her feet with Lucius' help, she continued, "But that was unexpected. Who knew that staying in the void for a continued period of time would start to corrode your existence! Thank goodness that we managed to get out of there before it could irreversibly harm us." She concluded while patting her chest, fear apparent in her voice.

"How's the little one?" Ka'lor'ah asked, referring to Olivia.

"Mostly fine. I warded most of the corrosion that tried to make its way towards her," Lucius replied before walking towards Olivia.

Reyna, who grew increasingly worried after seeing Olivia's strange state of unconsciousness, saw Lucius approach them and hurriedly asked, "What's wrong with her!? Why isn't she waking up!?"

Ignoring her words of woe, Lucius leaned down and gently touched Olivia on her forehead. His soul power rushed out and entered her body, searching and eliminating the remnants of the void's corrosion that managed to enter her.

The instant Lucius began eliminating the minute traces of energy, Olivia's forehead furrowed and her eyelids trembled. The moment he finished treating her, Olivia's eyes snapped awake after which she suddenly lunged up and rushed away from the crowd.

Just as Reyna was about to open her mouth to ask some questions, she was interrupted by another sound.

Blergh!~ Blergh!!~

Olivia's started to puke her guts out. (AN: Not literally, of course.)

----------

Inside the Common Room of the spaceship.

The figures of Lucius, Ka'lor'ah, Olivia, Anya, and Reyna sat around a round table with Iris standing near the entrance door akin to a guard.

"Hahaha, what an embarrassing entrance, am I right? This is not how I wanted us to meet, bu~ut eh! It is what it is, I guess," Ka'lor'ah cheerfully announced.

Around the round table, Lucius, as usual, sat with his eyes closed, arms crossed, and feet up on the table. His entire demeanor was radiating an 'I can't be bothered with this' vibe which automatically excluded him from the conversation.

Olivia sat next to him, with a holographic tablet in her hands and her eyes glued onto the pages of information written on it. This device contained detailed information of all that had transpired in the UEM during the five years of Olivia's absence. 

From production data, profit-loss charts, weekly/monthly reports, population growth, trade volumes…so on and so forth, Olivia's mind rapidly unloaded the plethora of data within the device and analyzed it.

As such, she was also excluded from the conversation.

The only people who remained with nothing to do were Ka'lor'ah, Anya, and Reyna. And so, being the extrovert and conversationalist that she was, Ka'lor'ah took the reign in breaking the quiet, awkward atmosphere with a cheerful greeting.

Unfortunately, her greeting only served to intensify the awkwardness of the situation.

Why? 

Well, it was because Anya and Reyna did not know who this stunningly beautiful lady, who made their hearts skip a beat every now and then, was!

Seeing the increasingly awkward expressions on the faces of Anya and Reyna and feeling their equally intense gazes of doubt, the wide smile on Ka'lor'ah's face turned stiffer.

"Come on girls! Cheer up! This isn't a funeral!" she cracked a joke.

Silence.

"Alright, fair enough. Not my cleverest joke," The smile on her face crumbled as Ka'lor'ah let out a sigh in resignation. "Or do you just not understand the language that I'm speaking?"

Placing her hand on her chin, Ka'lor'ah audibly wondered, "I'm quite sure that I'm talking in the common language of the humans. Perhaps it's a—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but—"Reyna interrupted Ka'lor'ah's monologue and asked, "Who exactly are you? And, have we met before?" Her face reflected the unfamiliarity of her voice.

Hearing her question, a pained expression appeared on Ka'lor'ah's face as she suddenly clutched her chest.