A few minutes later, the ghost ship stopped in a desolate location of a dungeon and Maya started to arrange the CTF.
Kyle grumbled beside her but set up the space fluctuation cloaking device anyway.
As they were about to take off, Varian turned to Bali who was taking sips of healing potions from time to time.
Since they were in the living room of the ghost ship, it felt like they were sitting in a home and talking.
"By the way, how much did Mirage Queen beat you up?" Varian asked.
Bali's eyebrows shook and he took a deep breath. "Don't be angry. He's a kid. Kid. Kid…you damn kid, can't you speak normally?"
Hearing Bali's outburst, Varian said with a confused expression. "I mean, how are your injuries? You're coming to Mirage Abyss right after I asked you to. Shouldn't you rest or something?"
"So you asked me to come to fight even after knowing I have to rest?" Bali felt like punching Varian.
After fights, Sovereigns typically need to rest for weeks.
Since he was a new Sovereign and weaker of the two, Bali needed rest more urgently than Mirage Queen.
Yet, here he was.
On this damn pirate ship.
"You don't need to fight Mirage Queen. You'll just have to snipe level 9s. Cool, right?" Varian said with a generous smile.
"…Yeah. I might be the first Sovereign to assassinate level 9s." Bali sighed with a helpless expression.
"Don't worry about it. They got 30 more level 9s. If you don't do this, Mars will be invaded even if you stop Mirage Queen." Varian patted the new Sovereign.
"Great. You kill Kreo and kick off this problem. Now, you're doing your best to save it. I don't get it." Bali's expression suddenly turned serious as he stared at Varian. "If someone else is in your position, they'd be gloomy and crushed by guilt, how the hell are you still able to smile?"
Varian let out a small sigh and gazed out of the window into the hills in the dungeon. "It's not a great feeling, honestly. Realizing you're the cause of millions of deaths."
"But," Varian's eyes shone with a black light. "I'll only see more deaths. I'll even be sending millions more to war and cause their deaths."
Bali raised a brow. This boy was talking as if he reserved the ruling position of the Human Race.
But if he really continued to grow at this rate, it's inevitable.
Bali rather appreciated Varian acknowledging his own specialty and preparing for his future.
In fact, Bali was also looking forward to the near future when Varian would reach the Sovereign state.
With the growth rate Varian showed, it was obvious that Varian would go above and beyond.
If Human Race had such a strong ruler, then Bali could rest assured.
Varian was affected by the deaths—he wasn't stone-hearted.
But he was also not crushed by them and in fact, acknowledged he'd personally cause way more deaths in the future—he was realistic and would take the necessary decisions.
Bali was satisfied with Varian's mentality.
Now, the only thing he had to do was to ensure Varian doesn't fuck up.
"Well, I hope you don't touch Xanders for now. At least, not the ones close to Julius." Bali suddenly said. "It's absurd. But I don't want to see Julius dying even by chance. Unlike Mirage Queen, Demon King can't be stopped. If Julius does, Earth is a goner."
Varian rolled his eyes. He already heard this countless times by now. But he still nodded. "I'm not touching them. For now."
As Bali was about to ask about the plan, he sensed something and looked at the boy and girl below the ghost ship.
Varian also frowned as he heard their conversation.
"Something is wrong," Maya muttered.
"I debugged it. It's working fine," Kyle rubbed his chin.
"No. The formation is fine. It's just…" Maya trailed off as a deep frown appeared on her small face.
She then turned to the ghost ship and said. "Boo, call Varian."
Before Boo could even respond, Varian and Bali teleported in front of her.
Maya yelped at their sudden appearance and gave them a glare. "Don't scare me."
Varian laughed before asking her about the problem.
"You have space power, right?" Maya picked up a silvery round box from the formation and threw it to him. "See if you can sense the other side. I have a conjecture."
Varian gave the box to Bali.
Maya stuck out her tongue when she realized she was standing in front of a Space Sovereign.
Kyle turned around and started laughing while Varian joined him.
Bali sighed inwardly. 'Why do I feel like Varian planned this?'
Then, he shook his head and used his space sense to enter the silvery box. He pushed through the complex arrangement of spacorts and space stones in it and the space around him suddenly changed.
"This…"
Bali found that he was staring at a region he somewhat knew.
A sky with silver clouds. The land with armored homes.
Mirage Abyss.
But he could only see it from afar. The connection between the space of this dungeon and Mirage Abyss was cut off.
Retrieving his space sense, Bali narrated what he experienced to the girl.
"It's as I thought." Maya sighed and looked at the three guys with a dispirited expression. "The connection between spaces of Dungeons and Abysses is cut off. CTF is useless."
Saying so, Maya didn't wait for their response. She walked into the ghost ship with a lowered head and a desolate expression.
"My work…my project…it's useless. Useless…"
Hearing her depressed ramblings, Varian gave Kyle a look and Kyle nodded. Then, he picked the CTF and started tampering with it.
'You idiot!' Varian stopped himself from cursing and pushed Kyle to Maya.
'Console her!' He said through telepathy.
Kyle opened his mouth in realization and immediately hugged his girlfriend and took her to their room.
"Now what?"
"We teleport to the planetoid nearest to Abyss and go from there," Varian said with a sigh.
Even though he knew Abyssals would have countermeasures against his surprise attacks, this move still took him by surprise.
But he wasn't dispirited.
Bali went along with the flow.
Varian dropped Kyle and Maya off to send them on a vacation. Bali asked one of his trusted subordinates to take care of the kids.
Then, the Ghost ship teleported to a planetoid and headed for the Mirage Abyss.
On their way, Varian called Sia and the three decided on a battle plan.
As they're about to reach Mirage Abyss in a few minutes, Varian asked. "Bali, you can't use Aether Pendant, right? Can you lend it to Sia during the battle? She's a psychic and will put it to good use."
"Aether Pendant? The artifact?" Bali frowned.
"Yeah?" Varian had an ominous premonition.
"I didn't receive it." Bali shook his head.
"But I saw it on Kreo's corpse." Varian stood up in shock. "And what do you mean? Didn't the officials safeguard the artifact?"
"I asked Mars' president. He said they didn't find it." Bali shook his head.
Varian closed his eyes as he realized something.
"Fuck that traitor."
"Traitor?"
"Bali, there is a traitor among the Sovereigns."
"Oh, I se—WHAT?"
