The Spire’s observatory provided a celestial map, but the ground truth of Kyris-9 was written in dirt and mana.

  For three days, we haunted the mountains. We moved like mist, sticking to the shadows of the crags and the blind spots of the sensor sweeps. Nyx’s new Shard Daggers devoured the light around us, turning our small party into a mobile dead zone. Arthur’s golem walked with a silence that belied its weight, analyzing soil composition and radio frequencies with detached, mechanical efficiency.

  Kyris-9 wasn’t just a world; it was a factory.

  The mountains weren’t just geography; they were resources waiting to be skinned. Every valley we scouted was scarred with massive, artificial bores. The planet looked like it had been chewed on by metal termites.

  On the first day, we observed a mining convoy.

  I lay prone on a ridge of oxidized slate, maximizing my [Void Perception]. Below, a column of hover-barges snaked through a narrow canyon. They were heavily guarded by Kyorian Enforcers in white armor, flanking lines of shuffling figures.

  “Identify,” I whispered to Nyx.

  “Laborers,” she murmured, her eyes tracking the movement. “Not prisoners. Indentured Assets. Look at the collars. Green light means compliance. They aren’t chained; they’re chipped.”

  The workers were diverse — reptilian species that looked somewhat like S’skarr with pickaxes, sturdy Dweorg-looking variants with sonic drills, and lanky, grey-skinned humanoids I didn’t recognize. But they all moved with the same dispirited shuffle.

  “The Kyorians extract minerals,” Arthur deduced, analyzing the barges. “Specifically mana-conducive ores. Essence-crystals. Raw Quintessence fragments. Perhaps even some rare resources unique to this planet since they appear to be specifically searching for something.”

  “Where does it all go?”

  We tracked the barges for miles until they reached a Lift Station — a massive, hexagonal tower that fired a hard-light tether into the sky. The cargo pods were shot up the beam, disappearing into the clouds.

  “Orbital processing,” I realized. “They strip the planet and ship it out. It’s an assembly line. That’s good, it gives us more threads we can follow.”

  That night, back in the safety of a smaller, temporary cave-shelter we had fortified with Void-runes, we contacted Bastion. The signal quality was surprisingly crisp, thanks to the daisy-chained repeaters and the Spire’s signal boost.

  “The structure is feudal,” I explained to Jeeves, projecting my findings onto the holographic map table via the link. “But corporate. The planet is divided into Districts. Each District is overseen by a Regional Lord. The Lords compete for output quotas. If they miss the quota, they get demoted. If they exceed it, they get more resources.”

  “A meritocracy of exploitation,” Jeeves summarized from light-years away. “Effective.”

  “The Capital, Kyris-Alpha, sits on the largest Void-Crystal deposit,” I continued, highlighting the massive glowing sore on the planet’s surface. “The High Lord lives there. He’s the planetary governor. Our initial scouting reports from my first Glimpse into a local town say he’s Tier 8. Mid to High.”

  “Formidable,” Jeeves warned. “But potentially complacent. Governors in the Kyorian structure are administrators first, warriors second.”

  On the second day, we probed the resistance. Or rather, the lack of it.

  We infiltrated a settlement on the fringe of the mining zone I made sure was safe with my earlier Glimpse. It wasn’t a city; it was a glorified barracks town built into the cliff face. The buildings were carved directly from the rock, connected by rickety metal walkways suspended over a thousand-foot drop.

  Under my Veil, I walked through the market. The locals traded with currency chits, buying water and processed nutrient paste. There was no joy here. No music. Just the exhaustion of gravity and work.

  But I felt something else. A hum.

  “Mana-sickness,” I muttered, watching a human cough up blue dust. “The ambient mana from the crystal mines is toxic without proper shielding. The Kyorians have shields. The workers don’t.”

  Nyx vanished into an alleyway. An hour later, she returned with a stolen datapad and a grim expression.

  “Resistance is… fragmented,” she reported. “Small cells. Saboteurs mostly. They blow up a track, the Kyorians execute ten workers, the cell goes quiet for a month. There’s no central command. They’re afraid.”

  “Of the High Lord?”

  “Of the Processing,” Nyx corrected. “They say if you rebel too loudly, you don’t just die. You get… recycled. Sent to the Biomass vats to feed the crystal-growth acceleration.”

  I clenched my jaw. Biomass vats. Just like their capitals back on our planet. The Empire wasn’t creative; it was just ruthlessly efficient with its horrors.

  “We need more data on the High Lord,” I decided. “And on the shipping routes. Where are these crystals going? What war machine are they feeding?”

  Day three arrived with my Soul ability ready.

  We moved closer to Kyris-Alpha. The Capital wasn’t built on a mountain; it was suspended between them. A web of high-tension cables and gravity-docks held a sprawling metallic city over a caldera that glowed with exposed crystal energy.

  It was beautiful in a terrible, parasitic way. Spires of white plasteel pierced the smog layer.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  We established an observation post on a neighboring peak. Arthur synced the Spire’s sensors to our local grid.

  “Heavy jamming,” Arthur noted. “The city has a Domain Shield. Tier 8 capability.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Just the challenge I wanted.”

  I looked at the cooldown timer on my Glimpse.

  “I’m going in,” I told the team. “Infiltration and Extraction. I want their navigation charts. I want to know where the fleet that extracts the resources goes. We can start by following the supply chain until we find out more about their planetary structure.”

  Nyx stepped up beside me. “In the vision, I want to try something. I have been working on a mana memory packet construct I can send for you to store in the Void Maw. I am not sure if it’ll work but it could potentially be a way for me to send my own experiences through the timeline, even if we separate.”

  I nodded. “That would be a huge advantage if we figure out how to make it work.”

  In the simulation, I normally would ask Nyx to summarize the information she gathered towards the end. However, sharing her entire memories in a packet would allow much more detailed intelligence without my involvement. She could act autonomously and crack their systems while I could focus on my own tasks.

  I sat down on the cold rock of the peak. The wind howled around us, smelling of lightning and dust.

  “Jeeves,” I contacted home one last time. “We’re pushing the Glimpse into the enemy stronghold on this planet. I’ll let you know how it goes after so we can prepare accordingly.”

  “Very well, Master,” Jeeves replied calmly.

  I closed my eyes.

  I rebuilt the Capital in my mind. The suspended city. The humming crystals. The opulence of the Lord’s mansions and the magnificent suspended bridges leading towards them.

  [Glimpse of a Path.]

  The wind faded. The cold rock vanished.

  I stood on the landing pad of the High Lord’s private spire in Kyris-Alpha. The air here was conditioned, smelling of lavender and expensive filters.

  I adjusted my Veil. Beside me, the memory-construct of Nyx flickered into existence, already holding a data-spike.

  “Target acquisition,” she whispered. “The Central Cogitator. Likely in the penthouse.”

  “Go,” I ordered. “I’ll be providing a distraction while I gather information my own way.”

  Nyx dissolved into shadow.

  I walked to the main doors. I didn’t hide.

  I let the Void-Star spin. I let the Bracelet pulse. I radiated Tier 7 Density like a sun flare in a library.

  The alarms didn’t scream; they chimed politely.

  “Halt, intruder,” a computerized voice smoothed over the PA. “You have violated the sanctum of High Lord Vorakis. Please assume the submission posture.”

  “I prefer the standing posture,” I said, blowing the doors off their hinges with a pulse of gravity.

  I stepped inside. The hall was lined with trophies — heads of beasts, weapons of conquered races.

  At the end of the hall, seated on a floating chair of anti-gravity discs, was High Lord Vorakis.

  He was a Kyorian, pale and tall, but his face was half-metal — extensive cybernetics covered his left side, glowing with green mana-lines. He held a scepter that wasn’t ornamental; it was a focus for the city's shield generator.

  “An interesting change of events,” Vorakis noted, his voice metallic. He didn’t stand up. “Who are you, human? Are you a lost pet?”

  “Not really a pet, no,” I grinned. “Just a man looking for some conversation.”

  He raised the scepter. “Bold words for biological waste.”

  The floor beneath me was electrified. Millions of volts instantly surged. Electrifying the air itself.

  I ate it.

  The Hunger opened. The electricity swirled into my chest, a spicy appetizer.

  “I would like to talk first if you’d be interested,” I remarked.

  Vorakis’ human eye narrowed. His cybernetic eye whirred, zooming in.

  “Energy absorption. Kinetic redirection. High-Tier properties. My readings are clearly very inaccurate, you hide your power well, human.”

  He pushed a button on his chair armrest.

  The walls retracted. Defense turrets — six of them — emerged. They fired plasma bolts.

  I caught them all. I danced through the storm, consuming every shot, growing denser with every second.

  “Is that it?” I shouted over the noise. “Do you fight with toys, or do you have hands?”

  Vorakis snarled. He stood up. His cybernetics flared. He didn’t use mana; he used a strange power that I could only describe as Technomancy. He integrated with the building itself. The metal of the floor rose up, forming massive, crushing claws.

  While we fought, in the background of my perception through our connection, I felt Nyx working. She was slicing through firewalls upstairs. Downloading navigational data. Fleet movements. Supply requisitions.

  “Got it,” her thought echoed in the dream. “Retreat vector confirmed. Core World coordinates secured. Sending the memory packet now.”

  I grinned. “Thanks for the workout, Lord.”

  I poured the absorbed energy into my fist.

  “Impact.”

  I punched the air.

  The shockwave tore through the room, shattering the turrets and throwing Vorakis back into his throne with enough force to dent the plasteel.

  He scrambled up, his cybernetics sparking.

  “Who… what…?”

  “Unfortunately, our time is up for now,” I said.

  The Glimpse ended.

  I snapped back to the windy peak of Kyris-9.

  “Success?” Arthur asked immediately.

  “We have the map,” I confirmed, shaking off the Glimpse lag. “And we know the Lord is a tech-mage. He relies on his city. If we cut the power…”

  “He falls,” Nyx finished, stepping out of stealth next to me.

  “I don’t think we need to resort to any of that though. We were right, he isn’t very strong based on my initial readings but we can’t ignore the possibility he has hidden cards. Besides, we got what we needed,” I said, looking at the distant city. “The shipping logs. We know where the Kyorian fleet went.”

  “Where?” Arthur asked.

  “A place called 'The Foundry',” I said, projecting the star chart Nyx had grabbed. “A Core World. Heavily fortified. It’s where they build the Pyramids.”

  “And the Dreadnoughts?”

  “All there,” I said. “Regrouping. Repairing. Preparing for Phase 2.”

  “So we have a target,” Arthur noted.

  “We do,” I agreed.

  “But first,” I looked down into the deep valley below the Spire. “We need to deal with this place. We can’t leave this resource engine running. If they are using slaves to build the ships… we need to break the supply chain. Of course, we’ll have to make sure not to leave any traces leading back to us.”

  I looked at Nyx.

  “You did well. Finding out information about the local groups giving Kyorians trouble so we can impersonate them is a nice touch. Next stop: The Mines,” I said. “Let’s go start a labor union riot. We won’t take long since we still need to gather more information but this could help stir things up. And with chaos comes opportunity.”

  I touched my bracelet. It throbbed, hungry for the high-density mana of the Crystals I knew were waiting below.

  We descended the peak, vanishing into the fog of the fungal valley, moving towards the city suspended in the sky. The game of empires had begun, and we were the ones with the loaded dice.