The boy's breath came in shallow, uneven gasps, his chest rising and falling like waves about to collapse. Medical drones hovered silently over him, hissing gently as they readjusted IV lines, monitored vitals, and prepared the stasis field for interstellar transport. The blue light of the lab flickered across his frostbitten skin. His pulse was faint but steady. He was alive. Just barely.
Dr. Ruce, whose usual confidence always bordered on arrogance, now looked nervous. His trembling fingers worked slowly, carefully, tightening the seal on the intravenous tubes. A single bead of sweat slid down the side of his temple.
Then, he spoke softly, like he was afraid of the words.
"As he is... dying," Ruce began, swallowing hard, "I'm sorry. We've already contacted the Eternity Federation."
Kaizu's jaw tightened, but he didn't look away from the boy.
"It's fine," he said after a pause. His voice was steady, but there was something hard beneath it. Not anger, not grief, Something colder, Resigned.
A flicker of light appeared beside them as a transmission from the Eternity Federation came to life, an avatar projection, a faceless official, speaking in an emotionless voice.
"The subject will be relocated to our secure facility in Sector 4 His condition... requires specialized containment and care."
Sector 4. The place where Eternity Federation's special centre is located.
Kaizu nodded once, slowly. There was no room for argument. Not now.
The boy still unconscious, still glowing faintly. Machines hissed shut. Steel plates locked into place. And then the transport vessel rose silently into the air and vanished beyond the reinforced walls of the Federation science wing.
Skye stood at the observation window, watching the shrinking trail of blue light as the ship entered hyperspace. Her reflection in the glass looked older than it had yesterday. Her eyes were heavy.
"You know what this means," she said softly, without turning.
But Kaizu didn't answer.
Because his mind was already far, far away.
Eight hundred and fifty years ago, long before the Galactic Federation had even been a whisper of an idea, the universe had bled for the first time.
Destruction of third universe.,
They called it the Great Collapse a cosmic event that shattered laws, defied logic, and erased billions. Not just people. Not just planets. Whole systems were snuffed out as if they'd never existed. Time itself warped around the explosion, Light couldn't escape, Sound didn't travel. For nearly 400 years, the Third Universe remained a cursed graveyard twisted, black, and unreachable.
The Power Source had leaked same as now,
And that tiny leak just a crack in containment was enough to erase entire universe.
Every civilization that tried to study the collapse vanished. Even probes sent to monitor the decay would never return. Until, one day, an explorer ship stumbled through the edges of that space... and found one thing intact.
The remains of the Power Source,
Thank god it's destroyed.
In the wake of the collapse, the universe reeled. The Eternity Federation once the unchallenged rulers of all four universes stood exposed and broken. For the first time in eons, they didn't have an answer Or a plan.
And so, the federations were born.
Sovereign Federation of the First Universe.
Galactic Federation of the Second.
Universal Federation of the Fourth.
But the Third? The Third was lost.
Gone.
Even now, maps skipped its coordinates. It was simply known as "The Dead Void."
Yet, despite all the centuries, despite all the research and sacrifice, no one ever discovered the true cause of the catastrophe.
Except for one name. Only one name that Eternity Federation had to blame, One cursed name whispered by the dying leaders of the old world
"The Butcher."
No face, no known species, no age, no fingerprints. No planetary records. Just destruction.
The universe had many monsters but he was the one they told stories about in whispers.
Some say he was the one who leaked the Power Source, Others say he tried to stop it.
But everyone agrees on one thing, he vanished after the collapse. Not dead, Not caught, Just gone, Until now.
Skye turned from the window and faced Kaizu, her expression unreadable.
"You know who he is," she said, not as an accusation but as a truth already confirmed.
Kaizu didn't look at her. His gaze stayed locked on the distant stars beyond the glass, the same stars that once shone over Earth. His voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper.
"I know what he is."
He had seen the Butcher once. Not during battle, Not in war.
But as a child.
He remembered running through fire. He remembered his mother's scream. He remembered a man with burning eyes kneeling beside a corpse, whispering prayers while the world fell apart.
Some truths were too dangerous to speak. Even to the only person who had stood beside him for twenty years.
As the ship carrying the last Earth survivor slipped into hyperspace, Kaizu's fists clenched tight, his bandaged chest rising with each ragged breath.
The boy was now in the hands of the Eternity Federation but something else was wrong.
Because days ago, on the shattered ruins of Jaya's Moon, two names clashed for the first time in recorded history:
"Destroyer."
"Butcher."
Number Two, Number One.
The two most dangerous beings in the known universe.
And no one knew why they had fought. No one knew who won.
But Kaizu would find out. He would dig through past itself if he had to.
Because this wasn't just the beginning of a new war. This was a prophecy breathing again.
In the distance, the Federation's ship carrying the boy drifted deeper into the Dark Routes those ancient interstellar paths that had no maps, no signals, and no guarantees of return. It was called as Invisible Zone.
And something was already waiting for the boy at the end of that road. Something... older than the Power Source itself.