First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 440: Linked Locations

The lift dropped without warning.

Not a smooth descent, not a controlled glide. Just a hard pull downward that forced Arlen to brace and made the lights stutter like the system itself hadn’t decided whether this thing was still supposed to exist. The doors sealed fully, the outside world gone, replaced by a narrow vertical shaft rushing past them too fast to track.

Arlen swore under her breath and glanced at the panel. "This wasn’t in the briefing."

Xavier leaned back against the wall, unfazed, eyes fixed on the shifting numbers climbing down instead of up. "Bull never briefed anyone. He liked watching people figure it out mid-fall."

The lift slowed suddenly, then stopped with a heavy jolt that made the floor vibrate through their boots. For a second, nothing happened. No door opened. No sound came. Just the low buzzing of power running through something massive around them.

Then, the walls changed.

Panels slid apart, not opening outward but retracting inward, revealing a wide underground chamber carved deep into the planet. Old mining rigs stood frozen along the sides, stripped down and repurposed into power conduits feeding a central structure that looked nothing like a vault and nothing like a control room either. It was circular, layered, and filled with data columns that pulsed at irregular intervals.

Arlen stepped out first, gun raised as she scanned the area. "This isn’t storage."

"No," Xavier said, following her. "This is a switchboard."

Before she could ask what that meant, the air shifted. A low-frequency sound rolled through the chamber, not loud enough to hurt but strong enough to feel in the chest. One of the columns flickered, then another, until fragments of overlapping feeds started bleeding into the space like ghosts fighting for priority.

For a split second, Xavier saw Rin.

Not physically, but a distorted feed. Rin and Klatos moving through a different tunnel system, weapons out, backs tight against a wall as automated turrets powered up ahead of them. The image was cut before Arlen could see it.

She noticed his reaction anyway. "You saw something."

"They’re close," Xavier said. "Not here, but connected to this place."

Another feed burst to life, this one showing a different angle entirely. Corporate security teams moving through sealed corridors. Private mercenaries, but close enough to make the distinction meaningless. Someone else was digging. Someone else had found part of Bull’s trail.

Arlen’s expression hardened. "We’re not the only ones playing."

Xavier laughed quietly, more annoyed than amused. "Of course not. We were led here on purpose. Perhaps, I was the key."

The chamber lights dimmed again, then stabilized around a single console in the center.

Arlen approached cautiously. "If you touch that and everything comes down on us—"

"—then at least we’ll know," Xavier finished, already stepping forward.

As his hand hovered over the interface, a new alert flashed across the nearest column.

ACTIVATION WINDOW: OPEN

Xavier cursed under his breath. "That son of a bitch."

Arlen looked between the feeds, the timer, and Xavier. "This feels like a choice we don’t have enough information to make."

The timer didn’t count down the way Xavier expected.

It didn’t tick. It just sat there, frozen on the word OPEN, like whatever system Bull had left behind didn’t care about urgency anymore. It cared about alignment.

Arlen circled the chamber slowly, eyes never stopping in one place for long. "This isn’t a vault," she said again, more certain now. "This is a relay. Something that ties locations together."

"No shit. It was obviously obvious." Xavier was already at the console, not touching it yet, reading the layers the way he read people. "And it’s not meant to be activated by one side alone."

Another feed cut in. Rin’s voice punched through the static before the image stabilized.

"—Xavier, you there?" His tone was tight, breathing audible. Metal clanged somewhere near him. "We hit resistance. Automated defenses, old but angry. Klatos says they weren’t prison tech." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Xavier wanted to ask, ’How the fuck did you know I was here?’ but he assumed that, just like how he had seen their feed, they must have seen his too.

The feed widened just enough to show Klatos braced behind a fractured bulkhead, wings tight, one arm bleeding where shrapnel had caught him. Sparks rained from a ceiling conduit behind them.

Arlen swore. "They’re in a mirrored shaft."

Xavier’s eyes flicked back to the console. Lines of data shifted subtly, reacting to Rin’s signal like it had been waiting for it. "You’re inside the other half," Xavier said. "That’s why nothing here is locking in."

Rin cursed. "That would’ve been useful information ten minutes ago."

One of the columns rotated, revealing a split interface—two incomplete inputs, each clearly designed to be filled from different locations.

Arlen saw it immediately. "They can’t move forward without us."

"And we can’t move forward without them," Xavier said. He finally placed his hand on the console. The surface warmed under his palm.

Rin’s feed shook violently as something detonated nearby. "We’re running out of room here," he said. "Klatos can hold, but not forever."

Xavier exhaled through his nose, irritation sharp but focused. "Alright. Listen carefully. We’re syncing the relay from our side. When it triggers, your defenses should reroute power away from weapons and into transit."

"And if it doesn’t?" Rin asked.

"Then you improvise," Xavier said. "You’re good at that."

Klatos leaned into frame briefly, voice strained but steady. "Do it. The structure here is reacting already."

Xavier glanced at Arlen. "I’ll need you to handle the override when the split opens. It’s not going to like law-grade encryption."

She cracked her knuckles and stepped up beside him. "It never does."

Xavier pressed down.

The chamber responded instantly. Data columns flared to life, feeds collapsing into a single layered projection that showed both locations at once, lines connecting through paths Bull had buried deep enough that no one else had noticed. Power surged sideways instead of up, rerouting exactly the way it had been designed to.

On Rin’s feed, the turrets powering up ahead of them went dark all at once.

Rin didn’t waste the moment. "That worked," he said, breathless. "Doors just unlocked. We’re moving."

Xavier leaned back slightly, tension easing just enough to breathe. "Good. Don’t linger. Whatever else is tied to this place just woke up."

Arlen was already pulling data, fingers flying. "Someone else is pinging the relay. Multiple someones."

Xavier sighed. "Figures."

"So I guess we get to fight while Rin and Klatos get to explore and adventure."

Arlen grabbed her weapon and became cautious of her surroundings.

"I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to fight than get crushed any day."