Planet Teleopea, Capital City: Zyonchunn

The border-station catastrophe hit Teleopea like a shockwave.

No survivors.

No witnesses.

No enemy claiming responsibility.

Humiliation on the interstellar stage— the first in thousands of star-rings—spread through the public like wildfire.

They wanted blood.

They wanted war.

And at the centre of it all, in a quiet elite hospital reserved for Teleopea’s highest classes, Shi moved with a storm behind his eyes.

He entered a private medical chamber without knocking.

The smell of antiseptic and ionised metal filled the air—too clean, too quiet.

A perfect place to hide inconvenient truths.

Inside, two men looked up.

Yuan, perched on the med-bench, legs dangling, pale and uneasy.

Xuan, standing beside him, posture rigid in immaculate black Royal Guard armour.

Shi didn’t bother with pleasantries.

“You were on the station,” he said. “Yet neither of your names appears on the official report.”

Yuan stiffened.

Xuan’s posture barely shifted—but the tension in the air sharpened.

“I… we were there,” Yuan admitted, nervous. “The explosion hit; everything went chaotic. Xuan got to me first. He dragged me away. I blacked out soon after.”

Shi stepped inside, voice tightening.
“Did you see Xiao?”

Yuan nodded quickly. “Yes, we were just hanging out along with Lan. He came a bit later but wasn’t alone.”

Shi’s pulse stuttered.
“Who was with him?”

“Chen.” Yuan said honestly, and grimaced slightly while remembering the person.

Shi kept his composure by sheer will.

“I don’t know Chen well, but he was with Xiao in the bar. We were just catching up on things and then the explosion. I couldn’t remember where they went because the alarms were blasting, and then the crowd pulled us apart.”

Shi listened and forced himself to remain calm, but the words hit like a blow.

Xiao.Tian.Xiao …What the hell have you done!

Shi looked directly at Xuan now, eyes full of constrained fire.

“You extracted your brother,” Shi said. “Yet you erased your presence from the report.”

Xuan’s voice was flat steel.

“That information is not for the Council.”

“You’re saying it’s classified.”

“I’m saying it is not yours to demand.”

Yuan shifted uneasily between the two sides of his loyalty—Council Special Forces versus his older sibling, who worked for the Emperor’s Guard.

Shi’s voice turned hard.

“The official record lists zero survivors. Yet here you stand. Explain.”

Xuan’s jaw clenched. That was the first real crack.

Yuan swallowed, voice cracking slightly. “Shi…I don’t even know. Xuan grabbed me—next thing, we were outside, then military medics, then here. Nobody explained anything.”

Shi turned slowly back to Xuan.

“So you extracted yourselves,” Shi said, voice lowering, “but not the others? Not Xiao? Not the Teleopean he was with?”

Xuan met his gaze with ice.

“I don’t know what happened, and I have no information to discuss with you on this matter.”

Shi’s temper slipped the leash and he sneered: “Did you leave them to die? Or were you ordered to abandon anyone who wasn’t on your list?”

Yuan flinched.

Xuan did not.

“You overstep,” Xuan said sharply. “High Chancellor’s Fronlandii or not, you hold no authority over me. The Royal Guard answers to the Emperor alone.”

“And the Emperor answers to no one,” Shi snapped, “which is exactly why his Guard buries evidence!”

Xuan’s expression darkened. “Careful.”

“Or what?” Shi asked, stepping close enough for their breaths to collide. “Will you silence me the way you silenced the report? The way you silenced survivors?”

Yuan jumped between them, hands raised.

“Please—stop! I don’t know what’s going on. Shi, I have already told you everything I know. But I don’t understand that if they are alive—if they made it out—why aren’t they listed?”

Shi answered first, voice raw.

“Because someone removed them.”

Xuan’s teeth clenched, but he didn’t deny it.

Yuan went pale.

“Shi… are you certain?”

“I am only certain that someone didn’t want anyone to know,” Shi replied.

Xuan snapped, “And none of this is your concern. Yuan, you are forbidden to speak further about the station.”

Yuan froze.

Shi stared at Xuan with a cold, dangerous calm.

“If the Emperor is hiding something,” he said, “I will uncover it—with or without your cooperation.”

He turned to leave.

Yuan’s trembling voice followed him.
“Shi… if Xiao and Lan are out there, please… find them.”

Both of them were Yuan’s friends.

Shi didn’t look back, but his answer was immediate.

“Oh, I will,” he said, tone icy. “And I’ll dock Xiao’s entire star-cycle salary for dragging a minor into a fucking bar.”

Meanwhile in the High Council chamber

The Council chamber roared like a storm.

Holograms of the destroyed station floated above the table.

Chancellors shouted, panicked, demanded retaliation.
And then—

The silver High Chancellor entered.

Silence fell.

Everyone knew who actually kept the government functioning while the Emperor drifted deeper into delusion.

Mien tapped a control.

A schematic appeared—collapse patterns, jamming signals, encrypted footprints.

“This,” he said evenly, “is not foreign work.”

A hush spiked the air.

He highlighted the interference signature.

“It matches Royal Guard encryption.”

A ripple of horror ran through the chamber.

A minister whispered, voice trembling, “You are suggesting an internal strike.”

“I mean,” Mien said flatly, “the Emperor authorised an operation he did not inform the Council about.”

This was treason to say aloud.

Yet no one contradicted him.

Another minister leaned forward.

“But His Majesty insists the Saladians attacked. He demands we mobilise the fleet—”

“The Council controls mobilisation,” Mien said sharply. “Not the throne. Not the Guard. Us.”

Silence.

Fear.

A reminder of the Founding Accords no one had dared to enforce.

Mien flicked to a different hologram.

A bounty notice.

Illicit. Massive.

Encoded with the imperial seal.

Gasps again filled the chamber.

One of the targets: a Teleopean youth. Golden hair framed an extremely symmetrical face—almost too refined to be real.

One councillor’s face drained of colour.

“This is a royal genetic phenotype, but how?”

“Not legally recognised,” Mien added quickly. “He’s a Continuation that has no succession rights. And yes, he carries the divine telepathy marker.”

And everything changed.

Soft murmurs rippled through the room.

The telepathy marker—the biological foundation of the monarchy.

The Emperor’s “divine” mandate.

And only royal lines carried it.

A Continuation legally held none of the rites or power—considered as third-class citizens, even—but that wasn’t what terrified them.

What terrified them was that a Continuation like this could be—

Used.

A breeding anchor.

And the Emperor—who had murdered every legitimate heir—had placed a bounty on him.

Another minister whispered:

“He fears the Council might use this Continuation.”

Mien didn’t deny it.

“The Emperor is accelerating us toward war to consolidate power. The Council must not authorise mobilisation on fabricated grounds.”

He pointed at the bounty hologram.

“And we must locate this Continuation before the Emperor does.”

The air felt thin.

The chamber froze.

Someone asked, barely audible:

“You believe he survived?”

Mien said softly:

“I believe the Emperor buried the evidence that he did.”

He stepped toward the exit.

“Begin a full audit of unlisted evac craft. Someone left that station alive.”

He paused at the doorway.

“And if that someone is the royal Continuation…”
his voice darkened,
“…he may be the last thread of divine blood left in this civilisation.”

Silence choked the room as he walked out.

The hologram of Chen flickered above the table—
an individual with no legal claim,
but a genetic spark both sides suddenly needed.

And feared.