END OF ARC 3: SAVIOUR OR DESTROYER
BEGINNING OF ARC 4: SON OF THETH'VORGATH
The moment Ryuk stepped into the aircraft, it was like entering another world
Judging from how sleek the aircraft had been, he had thought they would have been confined within a small space where their heads would no doubt be dragging on the ceiling, because they were all tall.
Antares had somehow been able to lessen his height after getting into the Apocrypha stage, but even then, he was a freaking 4-meter-tall titan, and Ryuk, with his new exoskeleton, was about 2.5 meters in height.
He could only grow taller after that—he couldn't shrink below that height.
And Elder Celine was just a head shorter than him, around 2.2 or 2.3 meters.
Rak's height was indeterminable. One moment, she's a hulking 5-meter-tall devil, and another moment, she's down by 2 meters of that.
Right now, she was as tall as Isha, around 1.9 meters in height.
They were all taller than the average human, and he had expected it to be hell inside the aircraft—but surprisingly, it was incredibly spacious.
In fact, what stretched before Ryuk wasn't some cramped overhead balcony with a couple of seats lining the edges.
The entire ceiling opened into a grand mezzanine structure—wide, layered, and bordering what looked like a suspended observation deck.
It gave the impression of walking through a palace in the sky, and below was a giant living room, the size of a hall.
And there was an elevator by the side, which they all walked to and stood on as it slowly lowered them to the ground.
The moment they stepped onto the ground, lights surged across the floor, and hidden doors, most likely leading to other parts of the aircraft, shimmered into view.
"Activate spaceship mode..." Elder Celine's voice rang out, and Ryuk watched as the center of the living room silently sank in and quickly transformed.
The central square-like floor sank in, giving way to a new floor—almost like an altar—and in an instant later, holographics covered the surroundings, showing a 3D image of the airplane blasting through atmospheres, along with various other holographics, flashing unknown numbers.
From the side, the comfy-looking sofa instantly dipped, leaving no seats at all.
The floor turned metallic, gleaming with buried neon lights that dimmed the entire room, casting a calm, focused glow over the room.
"You really went all out building this, didn't you?" Ryuk voiced in amazement as he stepped onto the metallic floor, sending a ripple of blue across the ground.
For a second, the slightly cold feeling he had in his body from previously being in the frosty Nagas environment seemed to fade away as he felt a little bit of heat beneath his feet.
Just enough to try and balance his temperature.
"You know, when you reach the Eternity stage, your lifespan not only multiplies by five, but there's also barely any growth at all. You need moments of epiphany—and you're not folding your legs in meditation to get those."
"That begs the question of what to do with the next 200 years of free time, which you could as well spend sleeping."
"And this... this is one of my answers."
She said with pride as they all moved to the center of the room, where the various holographs were.
"I will say yours is a time well-used," Ryuk said as he arrived before the blinking holographics, feeling a sensory white scan over him and watching various stats of himself quickly appear in the space.
It was all part of a cognitive abilities scan—like the response of his right arm or right leg, or which one he used the most—and he watched the various holographic shifting in real time to better cater to him.
"Thank you," Elder Celine replied.
Ryuk found her opposite him, tapping on some holographics in the air before a gigantic holographic display appeared before his gaze.
A map, divided between 2D diagrams with visible labels and a 3D diagram of an entire solar system, along with another holographic of real-life footage of the spaceship currently moving in space.
"Now, let's get into the real deal," she said as Ryuk magnified his attention on a holographic display to better understand what was going on—when he suddenly felt all the other projections pause and then slip into the void as his eyes caught sight of Elder Celine's image flashing into the gigantic holographic before him.
"Firstly, I want to say—I am blown away by the fact that Isha was able to evolve from a Frost Wyvern to a Frost Hydra in literally mere weeks after I reluctantly agreed for her to eventually leave with you."
"When she reached the Frost Wyvern stage, she also broke into the Ancestral Level, which is automatically the Eternity stage powerhouse, and managed to awaken her memories."
"And your Void cat is now also a Void Panther?" she asked, as Ryuk dismissed the projections, watching Void, who was currently carried by Isha, shamelessly hugging around her bosom.
"I don't know what you did, or how you did it—evolving your pets to new races and new levels of power as fast as a finger snap."
"But I have to give it to you. That's genius."
"And for the first time, unfortunately, you're right about me eventually letting Isha be by your side," she said.
Ryuk felt a smile, somewhere between nervousness and pride, press against his lips before the projection instantly magnified, and all the other holographics also reappeared in the air.
"With that out of the way—we got Isha's memories, and with her aid, I was able to get a 37% complete map of those memories," she said. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novᴇlfire.net
Ryuk reached for the beeping holograph, watching as a giant map unfurled before him.
The map had labels, and right now, there was even a tiny dot at the beginning, moving up.
He could guess it was the spaceship they were in.
But he also noticed it was moving towards a part of the map upwards where it turned dark, with no labels whatsoever.
"And let me guess—you couldn't fully decipher the map?" he asked.
"...Yet. I couldn't decipher the map yet." Elder Celine corrected before she continued.
"It'll take some time to fully do that, but trust me, I'll find a way. I have to."
"For now, we have a 37% accurate map of where we're going at least—and there are three major zones we seriously need to look out for."
"One of them we're already closing in on right now."