[Dragon peaks]
In the weeks that followed, the preparations for their departure were in full swing. Though barely making any visible change on the dragon peaks that were already a hub of dragon activity before, the effects were very much noticeable among the beast leadership and Venrie's elven court.
For the former, this took the form of even more responsibilities being transferred to Odrei. But whereas he previously bore the tasks she had delegated away from herself in his role as her second-in-command, he now did so as her successor as she moved her focus toward her long-term goal of unifying the lesser dragons throughout the multiverse under her.
In preparation for this, they were using the opportunity of her impeding absence to already transfer her role to him in all but name. Due to that, the beasts of Ikrus were in the middle of a huge structural shift, with the lines between the factions among them hardening at the prospect of Neandra's near-absolute power no longer keeping them in line.
Amid all of this, Odrei had the momentous task of restructuring their hierarchy to keep the peace and stability after Neandra's departure. That meant making strategic deals with beast lords that had previously been irrelevant due to Neandra's overwhelming power, leading old beast herds to scatter while new ones rose to occupy the newly vacant territories.
Among the elves meanwhile, this activity took the form of an expansion of the ruling apparatus instead. Unlike Neandra, Venrie had no plans to stop ruling her home even while also aiding Darganth's rule.
Despite this, changes were necessary as her attention would be split over a far larger area in the future. To deal with this without neglecting her people, she and the council that had already been supporting her rule before spent the time until her departure creating entirely new branches of government.
Though some matters would still require her personal attention, they intended for these groups to take over many of the tasks that were traditionally the job of the elven emperor. And even when they couldn't do so fully, they would streamline and prepare the work to ease Venrie's burden, giving her the freedom necessary to optimally aid Darganth in establishing his burgeoning empire.
As such, she found herself standing together with Neandra and Yldra on the date of departure. Standing at the patch of forest that a Locis had cleared on the dragon peaks, the three let their gazes trail across the restored Starweaver in wonder.
What had only been a ship made from strange materials and with unusual decorative structures after the crash was now a vessel worthy of being called one of the peaks of magical engineering. Magical spells and physical components were interwoven so seamlessly that practically none of the former's energy leaked, with the various barriers connecting perfectly to the material components of the ship that any excess mana simply flowed back into the hull.
Around the beacon of mana as which this ship appeared to the three's mana senses, half a dozen Locis dragons were hovering in humanoid forms. Having their arms outstretched and pointing them toward the vessel, they were in the midst of channeling mana into the spherical device in the ship's bow that served as the storage container for its mana supply.
Thanks to the extensive upgrades the master artificer among them had made to the magitech vessel, and this part in particular, the mana crystals that made up much of the sphere had no problem holding this exorbitant amount of energy. The outer layer's less mana-attuned material meanwhile ensured that the energy stored inside them stayed there despite the damage the mana crystals inevitably suffered during their fusion into the massive sphere. Thus, mana can only escape through the half a dozen openings in this outer layer, with pipes of a similar isolating material that encased highly conductive metals being mounted in these holes to transport the mana to where it is needed.
Standing a few dozen meters away, Darganth and Irsyr were presently overlooking this process. Behind them, Allaire, Jennia, and Serania stood similarly departure-ready as the former, with all four already wearing at least the chestplate piece of their respective armor.
Seeing this, Neandra soon took the initiative and flew toward them, with Venrie and Yldra following shortly behind her.
"The results of the repair look far better than what I expected considering what state the ship was in." Yldra commented as the three landed next to Darganth's group.
"I still find it only barely acceptable considering we'll at least spend a month on board. But we can't change the starweaver too much, so it'll have to do." Darganth replied.
"Really? It looks quite spacious."
"Trust me, after a week or so it won't be anymore. In the past, that's about the time after which I'd take a quick trip through the astral to stretch my wings for a few hours, but, aside from Neandra, none of us have that luxury at this time."
Surprised by his words, Jennia asked, "Then why even use them?"
"Alone I never did, but some of the many gatherings I attended were on one."
Even more surprised now, Jennia inquired further, "Still, someone had to plan it like that. So they must've had a reason for choosing a starweaver as location, or?"
"It varied. Sometimes it was simply an aesthetic choice or to brag with a new acquisition, other times it was because non-ascendants were invited and there wasn't a suitable universe or other location that could accommodate them in the vicinity." Darganth said.
Though this raised the question of what kind of topic would bring his past self and non-ascendants into the same gathering, Jennia knew she'd have enough time to ask this later. Thus, she didn't press further and instead nodded her head in understanding.
In her place, Venrie interjected after a few seconds of pause, "We're only waiting for Alicia and her two friends, right?"
"Yes." Darganth answered, sweeping his gaze over Enilla and Vorthos who were waiting near the Starweaver together with Sarkia and over twenty more passengers that would accompany them, among them Vagha and his group of eight solar dragons as well as the six dragons that had qualified for the rewards given out during the victory ceremony after the war.
Following his answer, a short pause fell over their conversation. Amid it, first Yldra and then soon after that Jennia started drumming their fingers against their legs to keep busy. But before this backdrop of their rhythmical movements and the wind currents howling past them, only silence hung over them as all seven watched the metallic golems under Irsyr's control load their luggage into the Starweaver.
After a few seconds, Darganth's lips suddenly curled up in a grin.
"She's underway." He said.
His words were immediately followed by Alicia arriving at the wooden ramp leading up to the Starweaver's entrance in a blur of speed, her expression filled with anticipation for their journey. As Sonita and Vika appeared next to her, the women in Darganth's group also made their way down from the small cliff they stood on, leaving him and Irsyr the last ones there.
"I wish you luck." Irsyr said and held out his hand.
"You know me, luck will barely be a factor." Darganth replied and took him up on the offered handshake with a confident grip.
"Still. The multiverse isn't the same as you remember and you're weaker than ever before."
Darganth's gaze hardened at those words. Beneath the confidence he wore on his face, a calculating glint briefly shone through while he nodded in acknowledgment.
"I know." Darganth said unperturbed, "It's part of what I'm looking forward to."
Closing his eyes and sighing, Irsyr nodded in response to Darganth's answer. Though still hesitant, he made no attempt to persuade him and instead wished him a calm farewell.
"Just be careful and don't stand out too much. Once you return I'll have brought the Locis beyond even the heights of power my clan once had in the past, then we can return to prominence."
"And I'll have recovered enough of my power to stand on the stage of ascendants." Darganth promised in return.
"Until then." "Until then."
With those final words being spoken by both of them simultaneously, Darganth let go of Irsyr's hand and unfurled his wings. Turning around and stepping off the cliff, he spread them wide and slowly flew toward the ship that stood below.
Landing next to his wives while the other companions that would join them on the journey started moving toward the entrance, he folded his wings back in before joining Jennia in stepping on the ramp leading up into the ship.
"So it's finally time." She muttered as he stepped next to her, her gaze filled with excitement and focused on the door before them.
"Never thought I'd get to leave this universe before turning at least a few thousand years old." Yldra added afterward, her lips curling up into a wide smile while she slowly walked up along the ramp.
Watching the two walk ahead for a moment, Darganth soon felt Allaire's fingers interlink with his. Looking at her after she spun around him and arrived in front of him, he raised an eyebrow as she locked eye contact with a warm smile.
"I know this isn't new for you but that doesn't mean you have to be so serious. Enjoy the moment." She said before stepping back and dragging him along onto the ramp.
Captivated by the lighthearted attitude she so often displayed in more relaxed situations and that he loved so much in her, Darganth let her and followed with a small smile. On their way, he wrapped his arm around Serania's waist when they passed by her, dragging his other beastwoman lover along toward the Starweaver's entrance.
Walking along while sweeping her gaze across the massive vessel, Serania's eyes widened in awe when they reached the ship's deck a few moments later. Encased in a cage of magic shielding, the over fifty-meter-long topmost floor was cast in a soft, wavy yellow glow as the sun's light was distorted by the barriers that hung above.
In this yellow hue, dozens of structures became visible scattered across the deck. With a teleportation platform in the center, barricades, weapon racks, and weapon emplacements were anchored into the wooden floor, with stacks of crates and a few golems that were slowly but surely moving them below deck being found in between them.
Winding through this chaos while their other companions for this journey kept on arriving on deck for a few more minutes, Darganth, his wives, as well as Yldra, Neandra, and Venrie soon found themselves standing on the ship's bow. From there, they overlooked the last few moments of the mana storage being filled and the complete clearing of the area that followed shortly after, with the Locis taking to the skies only for most to land in formation to Irsyr's sides.
With the area thus cleared, Volthos thus stepped behind the control console. Using it to link his mana to the ship itself, Jennia's father met Darganth's eyes and waited until the latter did one last scan of everyone and everything atop the deck before signaling him an OK with a nod.
Shortly after he received this confirmation, Vorthos' voice then echoed across the ship, "Everyone, get ready. His Highness has given the OK, so we'll set off in a few more moments."
Though as none of the passengers were even remotely focused on him, instead keeping their attention toward the outside in anticipation, he only received a few murmured words of acknowledgment in response.
But with no push-back being voiced, Vorthos took this silence as agreement. With a pulse of mana that flowed into the control console through the ethereal tether between them, he then completed the Starweaver's activation a moment later.
Sensing the anti-gravitational enchantments activated from his position at the helm of the ship, Darganth preemptively moved his arms behind Serania and Allaire's backs. When the wing-like sails at the sides of the ship then caught the currents of mana the vessel attracted and made it jump into motion with an abrupt leap forward, his two wives then fell against his palms when they stumbled backward from the sudden motion.
Nearby, Neandra similarly held Venrie, while Jennia, who had remembered the warning Darganth had given a few minutes earlier, watched in amusement as Yldra and Sarkia both stumbled next to her. About half of their companions for this journey fared similarly, though as these people caught themselves this mishap was forgotten almost immediately once they laid eyes on the cracking fabric of space ahead of them.
Only taking the form of small spatial tears when it first appeared a few seconds after takeoff, this phenomenon soon became stronger as the Starweaver's spell formations built momentum and tore ever larger holes into the universe's walls.
Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of Locis who had come to witness the event and the looks of cheering masses in the draconian cities they passed, the vessel quickly accelerated while rising ever higher into the sky. Though not necessary, they soon broke past the planet's atmosphere with spatial disturbances still being pushed along in front, until the ship finally vanished as two tears touched and merged to create a single opening multiple times larger than the sum of its components.
Pulsating briefly as its edges kept shifting, the spatial tear already started closing again when the Starweaver tore through it a fraction of a second later. Experiencing not even the slightest turbulences as flew through the portal, the vessel then vanished from inside the universe while the spatial tear snapped shut almost directly behind it.
With this, the vessel carrying Darganth and over twenty other passengers arrived in the astral realm. Emerging from a slight gap that opened up in the gigantic sphere that was the universe of Ikrus from the outside, it smoothly entered the near-endless expanse that existed around the universe where it continued on its path forward.