Chapter 2: Space Odyssey

A hatch at the bottom of the door to the small, cold vault like cell opened and in slid bowl with a tight lid – yet another meal.

Zax, weak as non cultivator, feeling and looking older than his parents were at their death, trudged the short distance from the dimly lit round corner for the bowl at the other side.

It had been twelve hours since the last meal and his body was hungry.

Through the single window the world outside still showcased the same marvelous scenery, but to the eyes of a prisoner it grew dreary quite early.

To Zax it was about the fifth day of his lockdown in the incarceration vault, when he got tired from the tricks his mind played on him and the heavenly bodies that took the shape of his dead loved ones.

He finished the warm soup under ten minutes. There was no cutlery and it was nothing but liquid anyway, so he drank it long sips. The flavor, as always, was pleasant; however it did not make a difference to him. He was lethargic either way; his actions were merely to fulfil basic bodily needs and were basically done by instinct.

Little did he know, the vague drive was the combined effort of his Infernal instinct and the cocooned beast in his dantian.

Two hours after the meals and placing the bowl back near the shaft, Zax used the toilet, the only utility in the vault.

Six hours later the bowl was gone and he went to sleep.

This was Zax’s routine in the past seven and a half months.

...

Day 257.

WOANG!

WOANG!

WOANG!

...

An alarm sound woke Zax. Inside the vault, red lights were flashing.

Next, the vault began to shake, from mildly to violently, and yet to Zax the disturbance was no more than a slight inconvenience simply due to his weakened state.

“Outside?” Zax hoarsely uttered.

Down on the floor, his line of sight fell on the window, where he noticed odd shadows moving about on the other side.

Getting up, Zax stumbled to see the possible source of the commotion. It was not out of interest or to relieve the boredom. He just did it because there was nothing else to do, apart from numbingly lament.

At first it was hard to gauge what he saw, as it was stupidly gargantuan, but as his eyes trailed figure his mind slowly drew a shape to it.

It walked on two, stark naked, a sort of ... human? It had a hairy armpits, paunch and loins. Its brawny arms dangled from shoulder to knee. On its face an insouciant expression and one brown huge eye at the center of its forehead.

Its size was akin to an entire solar system, though it was too difficult to truly tell in the weird laws of the Plains’ encompassing space.

“A titan?” To Zax the Being looked like something from legends of years past.

In the cell\ vault he was incapable of sensing its awe inspiring aura or realizing how mesmerizing of feat it was to behold someone casually walks outside of Plains.

The titan bent forward, its head next to the Lunar Splitter spaceship it peered with its one brown eye curiously through all the windows. For a brief moment even Zax’s old mug came to its view and the two intersected one another.

Suddenly a giddy smile formed on the nonchalant face. The titan’s lips uttered something that Zax was unable to hear, much less fathom if he did. It then straightened its back, took a step and traversed light years for a delicious looking heavenly body.

...

Day 468.

During his meal, bright light abruptly filled the entire vault until Zax was forced to shot his eyes and even cover them with his hands.

The Lunar Splitter passed by a sun in the space between Plains that was tens of thousands of times bigger than Ercas Mir’s.

...

Day 539.

Yet another alarm rang, but other than the flashing red light nothing happened, even outside there was nothing more strange than the usual to see.

...

Day 700.

A tremor shook the vault for a split second, the recoil from the Lunar Splitter’s main cannon.

Afterwards there was silence and smooth flight.

...

Day 1209.

Something unexpected interrupted Zax’s bemoaning.

The door to the vault, not just the hatch, opened!

A man draped in white silver uniform with a golden star stitched to the upper left side of his chest entered.

“Stand up. Come after me”. He ordered in Netherling.

Zax listlessly looked at the man, as a reaction to understanding his words, yet stayed settled on the floor.

For over three years he received two same liquid meals a day, but in those soup meals there was just the right amount of nutrients to adequately sustain a non cultivator human, even to preserve mental stability.

He stayed put not because he could not carry himself, but because he did not care.

His attitude did not anger the man. Instead of repeating himself he merely gestured and Zax was lifted off the floor by simple telekinesis.

Outside was a long, curved corridor with incarceration vault beside incarceration vault at each side of it. After the first few seconds, Zax disregarded it all.

“What’s your name?” The question was asked by a new voice. By the time Zax noticed its owner; he was already taken to an office like room and placed within a circular formation sketched on the floor.

The speaker was a silver hair and eyes woman, Sergeant Heyxin.

Behind her on an elevated seat, next to a karmic desk ceramic desk sat a long, red haired woman. She had green eyes and dark gray skin. To her uniforms five golden stars glittered as if they were just polished.