Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 353: Galactic Landfill

Jamie sat with his legs crossed and arms folded behind his head, relaxing and watching a drama on a floating screen, headphones over his ears.

The movie was about an alien from another world and a human from the planet he had been sent to as a child, locked in battle despite the overwhelming disparity in their strength. As it turned out, the human just so happened to wield a weapon forged with the alien’s one weakness.

Meanwhile, as they continued their pointless battle, the real villain of the story was lurking in some distant corner, using the corpse of another alien in a messed-up experiment.

While Jamie was watching this movie, wondering when the two foolish superheroes would realise that they were being played, Sarina walked in, gave the screen a passing glance, and then turned toward him before speaking. "Can I ask you a question?"

Even though he had headphones on, Jamie still heard her loud and clear. With a simple gesture, he paused the movie, turned toward her, and took the headphones off.

"Yeah, what’s up?"

She telekinetically pulled a chair from across the room, set it behind her, and sat down, her eyes drifting toward the glass window in front of them that revealed a breathtaking view of stars and galaxies trailing past as their ship sailed through folded space.

"It’s about the issue with your power. You said you gave it to a Witch, didn’t you?"

Jamie responded with a casual, "Uh-huh."

At that, Sarina continued.

"You said you gave her your power because of a seal, something that, if released, would destabilise the balance of Chaos and Order in the universe. And because of your Envoy of Balance title, it’s your responsibility to keep that from happening."

Jamie gave a silent nod.

Then Sarina asked, "Am I wrong in assuming that the witch in question is the Witch of Mercury?"

She turned to Jamie as she said this, her gaze calm as ever.

Jamie, smiling with a familiar mischievous glint in his eyes, asked back, "I wonder, is she, or is she not? What makes you think it’s the Witch of Mercury?"

Perhaps not having expected a direct answer from Jamie, Sarina responded plainly, as though her lines had already been prepared.

"It’s your strange relationship with her.

Leaving aside the time you spent millions of years restlessly searching across the universe for her, there’s also the fact that there are many strange things about her, and nine out of ten times, you’re somehow involved, whether directly or indirectly.

The one I find most curious is her longevity. As far as I know, the Witch of Mercury is a Monarch Realm existence who has never attained any form of cosmic superiority. She’s been that way ever since I first met her, which was over a billion years ago, long before you were even born.

The lifespan of a human Monarch Realm existence who hasn’t attained Cosmic Superiority doesn’t even come close to a tenth of what she’s lived.

But somehow, she’s still alive."

That was one of the many reasons why so many people who had encountered the Witch of Mercury and knew the limits of her power were more than just curious.

In fact, there had been more than a few occasions where other witches had attempted to capture her in order to dissect her and uncover the secret behind her unnatural longevity.

Just what trait did she possess that allowed her to live far beyond her natural lifespan and wield magical capabilities that eclipsed even those who were older and far more powerful than she was?

Many had attempted to catch her, and many had failed.

The witches who always led these manhunts were either overpowered or had their spells hijacked and turned against them in ways they hadn’t even imagined possible.

And now, Sarina was questioning Jamie about the role he had played in the Witch of Mercury’s inexplicably long lifespan, and what the true nature of their relationship really was, that Jamie had been willing to hand over all his power, despite the catastrophic risks it carried.

Jamie remained silent for a moment after Sarina finished speaking, then shrugged and leaned back into his chair.

"Well, I won’t deny that the Witch of Mercury is the one I gave my power to. Or rather, the one I let take it while I was asleep.

But I’ve got nothing to do with her unnatural longevity. Honestly, I don’t even fully understand how she managed it. As far as I know, she doesn’t have any inherent trait or special ability that should let her live that long. I’ve got some conjectures, but nothing solid."

"And what are these conjectures of yours?" Sarina asked, her tone curious.

Jamie replied without hesitation, "I think it’s the thing she’s sealing. Who knows? Maybe that’s exactly what’s keeping her alive."

Sarina raised a brow in slight confusion. "The item she’s sealing is what’s keeping her alive?"

Jamie nodded. "Uh-huh. Like I said, it holds enough power to disrupt the balance between chaos and order in the universe. So don’t you think it would definitely have enough power to keep the person maintaining its seal alive for over a billion years longer than she should’ve lived?"

It did sound plausible. If something truly had the power to destabilise the balance of the universe, then sustaining one life for over a billion years was a small price or even a side effect.

Still, the idea of a sealed item preserving its sealer’s life struck Sarina as strange. But with all she had seen and lived through, she had long since learned not to immediately dismiss the improbable.

Nothing was truly impossible.

"Now I’m curious," she said after a while. "What exactly is this thing? What’s so dangerous about it that even with the risk of being boxed and flung to the far end of the Cosmos by the Eternal of Death, you’d still choose to give away your power just to keep it sealed?"

At that, Jamie stood up, smiling faintly. "Well, that right there is Jamie Westley’s greatest secret."

He then gestured toward the screen in front of them and said, "Tell your Nephilim to stop the ship. We can’t go any further."

And almost immediately after he said that, the ship began to shake, as if caught in turbulence. That description was quite accurate, considering they were indeed moving through spatial turbulence.

The space ahead refused to fold any further, as the coordinates ahead had become unstable and unresponsive to spatial manipulation.

Gradually, the ship began to slow, its forward momentum diminishing until it finally came to a complete stop.

A group of Nephilim soon arrived where the two hybrids were to report to Sarina.

"Lady Aster."

Before they could say anything else, Sarina immediately cut them off.

"I know."

She rose from her seat and added, "The two of us will go on from here. The rest of you stay behind and monitor the area. Make sure no one tries to follow us."

With that, she stepped forward, phasing directly through the glass, and Jamie followed right after her. Together, they shot through the space ahead, easily moving through the unstable spatial region without encountering any difficulty.

Before long, they arrived at what appeared to be a galaxy that had stopped forming midway through its birth.

"Ah, the trash ground where the universe dumps all its failed products," Jamie muttered as his gaze swept over the dead, malformed, and half-formed galaxies, stars, and other celestial bodies scattered across the area.

"Been a while since I’ve come around these parts."

Earlier, Richard had said that any further and they would reach the literal edge of the universe. And just like he said, they’d reached that point.

If Jamie tilted his gaze slightly upward, his vision would pierce through the layers of space-time to behold the cosmic energy barrier enclosing the universe.

This barrier was both protector and regulator, shielding the internal universe from the overwhelming concentration of cosmic energy beyond, while simultaneously filtering that energy into the universe, where it was absorbed to sustain the universe’s working processes

while simultaneously filtering that energy to a suitable concentration for the universe’s working processes.

Even though this area served as the universe’s trash ground, it still contained far more cosmic energy than over 90% of the stable regions within the universe. That was expected, considering the stable universe was filled with cosmic energy already filtered to a concentration suitable for the internals of a Primary Universe like Zanerth.