There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 500 - 493. Garden of Stars

Chapter 500: Chapter 493. Garden of Stars

"Is this...a vision?" Bassena looked around the place. It was dark, with only a few specks of light in the distance.

"Yeah," Zein looked down. Seemed like the vision was a big one, if he had his full consciousness. He couldn’t walk around, however, so it wasn’t at the level of what Setnath’s fragment could do.

But then again, it wasn’t like the Fallen Star gave away its existence like Setnath did. In terms of potency, the Fallen Star’s Fragment was more like a shard.

Zein turned toward Bassena in confusion, then. "But...why are you here?"

It was one thing if they were getting transferred somewhere, but together inside a vision was completely new and bizarre.

"How would I know?" Bassena shrugged, and then raised their intertwined hands. "Maybe because I was holding you?"

"You did the last time," Zein reminded him.

"Oh, right," Bassena tilted his head with a frown. "Hmm...was it because I spent so much time with that bastard? Or..."

He looked around again. Something about this place seemed familiar to him. No--not because it felt like his mana core somehow. The specks of light in the distance, the slight pressure all over his body, and the feeling like he was hovering in emptiness...

"...maybe because I experienced this before?"

"You mean the scenery?" Zein raised his brows. His mind churned to where Bassena might experience a vision or a memory like this. It didn’t take long, however, since the memory was rather new. "...the Celestial War?"

Bassena nodded. "It looks kind of similar."

"It is?"

"Mm," the esper tapped on his chin while looking around again. "This is the space, right?"

Zein tilted his head. "Space?"

"Ah, hmm..." Bassena forgot sometimes that Zein didn’t have the same education other children got outside of the red-zone. "You know that Earth is just a planet, right? The place outside this planet supposedly looks like this."

Supposedly; since Bassena had never seen it himself. All of the information about this ’space’ thing came from Old Age knowledge and most of it had gotten buried during the apocalypse--just like everything. Most survivors of that era, like Althrea Mallarc or the first generation of Ishtera, didn’t have the necessary knowledge to resurrect most lost technologies, so they depended heavily on what source of information still available after the world stabilized enough for the civilization to start again.

Zein raised his brows at Bassena’s explanation and looked around. "This darkness?"

"Yeah, I heard people can’t live here too--well, humans anyway," Bassena continued. "Before the apocalypse, they said people could go to the space."

"...doing what?"

Bassena shrugged, chuckling at Zein’s flabbergasted expression. "Exploration? Curiosity? The thrill of the unknown? The thirst for knowledge?"

"With the Celestial Beings and all other hazards?"

"Well, they didn’t know about all of that before, after all."

"Ah..."

Zein nodded. He read somewhere--or did the twins tell him?--that before the apocalypse, people thought these deities were just myths. It was only after the towers and the temples descended that they knew the existence of these Celestial Beings.

Still, he wondered how the humans never encountered one of them, or stumbled upon the other creatures like the ones from the dungeons, during their space excursion. Perhaps this planet was located in such a backwater place...

Or perhaps, initially, there was none of them in the universe where Earth was. But then the Celestial War happened and the gate to the more dangerous worlds opened.

"I heard the Western Republic has been trying to make a vehicle that could bring humans to space. Spaceship? Yeah, I think they call it a spaceship."

"I see..."

Zein fell quiet as he suddenly recalled something he saw in his dream just before they had their Southern Kingdom vacation. A weird dream about a kid standing inside a room looking out into this kind of place...

Bassena tilted his head to look at Zein, feeling worried at the sudden silence. "Why? What’s wrong?"

"No, I just..." Zein shook his head slightly before adding in a doubtful, vague voice. "I think I saw this kind of place once in a dream."

"Really? Maybe you dreamt of Setnath’s memory?"

"Hmm...I don’t think so, but..." Zein shook his head again, this time to clear his mind. "Well, it’s not the time to think about it now."

They looked around again. "Right," Bassena nodded. It was calm now, but they had a busy schedule out there, and looking at their experience, the time in these visions wasn’t the same as the outside. They wouldn’t know how much time had passed outside even though they felt like they only talked for a few minutes. With Bassena here, they could only wish the twin shards protected them, and that nothing bad befell the squad and the base.

"But are you going to keep holding my hand?" Zein wriggled their intertwined fingers.

"Why? I can’t?" Bassena pursed his lips. "What if I got kicked out the moment I let go of your hand?"

"Haha," Zein chuckled and tightened his grip on the esper’s hand. Honestly, it was nice to have someone else here with him instead of the usual solitude. Especially since it was his beloved esper. "Fine, hold on tight then."

"Yessir!" Bassena saluted with his free left hand.

"Pfft--Ah, are we moving?" Zein suddenly realized that the specks of light in the distance were getting bigger.

"Yeah," Bassena nodded, looking down. It was their body, but they were ’moved’ by something else. Kind of like those games Han Shin and Reina played sometimes--role-playing game? Bassena thought it was equally fascinating and disturbing. "Do you think this is that Fallen Star?"

"Should be," Zein shrugged. "This is its memory after all."

"Hoo...fascinating."

They watched with curiosity as the specks of light got closer and closer. It seemed that the Fallen Star was moving across space, and soon, they were greeted with a view of glimmering lights; spherical-shaped things scattered in the darkness, some glowed brightly and had more spherical things rotating around them. They were moving in a concentric manner that fascinated both humans as the Fallen Star walked over the scattering specks of light like the space was nothing more than a glimmering carpet.

"Whoaa..." Bassena couldn’t help but exclaim. "I thought it would be just darkness, but..."

"Those are planets?" Zein blinked in a daze. Places like the Earth they lived in? "They look so...tiny..."

"They are--stars too, I think? I didn’t study much about these things," Bassena had the same thought. "We really are just a speck of dust for these Celestial Beings, huh?"

"Haa..."

Letting out a sigh, they were once again reminded how insignificant they were in these entities’ eyes. The Celestial Beings probably didn’t even know of their tiny planet’s existence. No wonder the planets were left alone in the aftermath of the Celestial War, just like how humans couldn’t care less after demolishing an anthill, dismantling cobwebs, or destroying forests in general. If it wasn’t for Setnath’s desire to be reborn, the planet would have died during the apocalypse.

It was really a conflicting feeling; it humbled them, knowing how insignificant they were, but it also made them angry. As their hearts struggled between fear and annoyance, the Fallen Star entered a fold in the space that looked like a portal. They ended up in a place that was filled even more with glittering lights, as if they were in a garden of stars.

And they weren’t alone. In that place, there were other entities with all sorts of shapes and sizes. Figures in cloaks made of fires or stars, swirling smoke with void eyes, what seemed to be the dragon of all dragons, or an eerie gathering of eyes stuck together in a shapeless fog.

"Are those..."

Zein inhaled sharply. "Celestial Beings."

"Oh--I think I recognize that one!" Bassena suddenly pointed toward a figure that was fully covered by countless wings in every color imaginable. All they could see from behind the intersecting wings was a single, unblinking eye. "That’s the one I saw in Ophiucus’s memory. They looked so big before...maybe because I was just an observer in that memory."

Huh...if the Fallen Star was a part of this gathering...

"Could this be the defeated side?"

"Should be, since the Fallen Star is here, and Ophiucus spent a long time battling those wings."

[You’re late] One of them spoke, but Zein had no idea from which one. Most of them had no visible mouth after all, and the voice wasn’t recognizable as anything Zein had ever heard before. It also sounded distant, like every voice he heard in visions.

[You’re early] the Fallen Star replied dryly. It felt weird, since this one seemed like it came from Zein and Bassena’s mouth.

[Cheeky as always] another one remarked with laughter that sounded like a bell. [Let’s just start then, since you’re the last one]

"Ugh, I still can’t figure out what they are speaking," Bassena grumbled.

Zein blinked and turned toward the frowning esper. "You can’t?"

Bassena parted his lips in a silent gasp. "You can?!"

"Sush--I need to listen," Zein clasped Bassena’s mouth, because he just heard something interesting.

[How’s the plan going for the invasion?]

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