The chamber was silent save for the faint hum of holograms orbiting overhead. Stars wheeled in miniature constellations, equations spiraled like galaxies, and in the midst of them stood Lupar Mur and his disciple.
Asto's voice trembled. "Teacher… this isn't invention. This is terror. You're speaking of striking where no one can defend, of breaking the only sanctuary a people can have."
Lupar did not look up from his console. "And what of the Wolves, Asto? Did you not see the eyes that burned in the dark? Did you not feel their gaze pierce through cloaking meant to deceive gods themselves?"
The boy swallowed hard, remembering. Those red eyes. Nothing else. No form, no body just the sensation of being seen, hunted, consumed. He shivered. "I saw them."
"And the Fox?" Lupar's voice lowered. He magnified the recording, the image of the orange-furred Esper in his immaculate grey imperial uniform appearing again. Hands clasped behind his back. Purple eyes gleaming with cold amusement. "That was no wandering predator. That was an officer. A soldier of order. Perhaps even a general. Do you understand what that means?"
Asto hesitated. "…That the Fox belongs to something greater."
"Exactly." Lupar turned sharply, his coat flaring at the motion. "We thought the Wolves to be the largest power fifty galaxies under their claw. But here stands another. Foxes, disciplined, uniformed, imperial. Not beasts of instinct, but a civilization of structure and intent. And if they walk in the shadows of the Wolves, or worse, rule beyond them…"
His eyes hardened, his voice like iron. "…then we are surrounded by predators."
Asto clenched his fists. "But Teacher Faria didn't despair. She's already planning countermeasures, materials that bend perception, defenses against Esper intrusion. If she can cloak us from their gaze, maybe we don't need to become predators ourselves."
Lupar laughed softly an unsettling sound, too amused for the subject. "Cloaks? Walls? Barriers? Do you know what walls are, Asto? They are promises waiting to be broken. Every fortress has a weakness. Every defense is a clock counting down to failure."
He stepped closer, his eyes alight. "What happens when the Wolves learn to pierce even those cloaks? When the Foxes, with their purple eyes, decide no defense is worth acknowledging? Shall we hide forever? Shall we hope they tire of looking for us?"
"No…" Asto whispered.
"No," Lupar repeated, his voice a blade. "We strike first. We strike where they believe themselves untouchable. Penetration Teleportation is not terror, my boy it is survival given form. It is the only answer to those who would otherwise grind us into dust."
Asto's breath quickened. His teacher's words were iron, but his heart rebelled. "But if we do this… we become like them. Wolves. Foxes. Predators tearing through galaxies. Where does it end?"
Lupar's expression softened not with kindness, but with pity. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, the weight heavy and cold.
"Young one, survival does not end. It endures. That is the difference. They conquer to feed. We create to endure. To live. History will not remember us as monsters only as victors. And victors write the stories."
Asto lowered his gaze. His mind screamed that it was wrong, that weapons of terror would poison everything they stood for. But another voice, quieter, colder, whispered of the red eyes and the purple gaze, of unseen forces already watching them. What chance did defenses have against those?
The boy's chest ached. He hated that he understood.
For hours, the two worked in silence. Holograms shifted as formulas were refined, diagrams overlapped, engines took shape in simulations.
At last, Lupar straightened, his face illuminated by the glow of a completed model the first draft of a Penetration Teleportation Core.
He smiled a thin, terrible smile. "It begins. The day when even the Wolves and the Foxes will fear the darkness."
Asto stared at the projection. It should have filled him with pride, being part of such genius. But instead, he felt a weight settle over him, pressing on his chest, whispering of nightmares yet to come.