"This planet was a wasteland once," Max said casually as the wind swept through his coat. "Now? It's mine. Ours. And it's still growing."
The girls stared in silence, awe etched across their faces.
Finally, Lan Xue spoke softly, her voice like falling snow:"It's… beautiful."
Max's smirk softened into something almost like pride."Yeah," he said quietly. "Not bad for something I dragged across a galaxy, huh?"
They reached the spire—his mansion, an elegant fusion of obsidian and shimmering glass, crowned with floating rings and cascading waterfalls that defied gravity. Defensive wards shimmered faintly across its surface, layered with enough power to make an archangel sweat.
The gates opened as they approached, revealing vast halls lined with black marble veined in blue light, statues carved from stardust alloy, and walls alive with slow-moving streams of data sigils. At the center of the grand atrium floated a holo-projection of the entire solar system, Horizon now glowing softly as the ninth planet.
"Home sweet home," Max said, spreading his arms as they stepped inside.
Gwen whistled. "Not bad for a guy who claimed he was 'lazy.'"
Max smirked. "Delegation is an art."
As the girls wandered deeper into the mansion, Gaia's voice echoed softly:"Alert: Earth-based surveillance networks have detected Horizon's presence. Estimated global political destabilization in T-minus three hours."
Max froze mid-step… then laughed."Oh, this is gonna be fun."
Of course, he never planned to conceal Horizon. Why would he? Even if Earth's scientists detected the planet, they couldn't reach it with their current tech—not in a thousand years.
"As long as Tony doesn't give them a free upgrade," he muttered under his breath with a smirk.
Shrugging off the alert, Max turned to the girls."Forget Earth for now. Come on—I'll show you the real heart of this place."
He gestured, and the mansion's main hall shifted. Walls slid silently apart, the floor extending into a sleek hovering platform that carried them deep underground. The lights dimmed as layers of stone and steel whisked by.
Finally, the platform emerged into a vast chasm lit by cascading streams of pale-blue energy and crimson glyphs. The Hollow Mausoleum—his most secure facility.
The girls stared in silence as the world unfolded below them. Black spires jutted from an endless abyss, floating platforms orbiting like shards of a shattered moon. Bridges of hard-light connected colossal monoliths engraved with runes that pulsed in time with the planet's heartbeat.
At the center of it all floated the Gaia Core—a massive crystalline heart locked inside a fortress of energy rings and shifting geometric fields. Every few seconds, a wave of pure mana-tech radiance rippled out, harmonizing with Horizon's global grid.
"Welcome," Max said, stepping off the platform as it docked on a bridge of polished obsidian, "to my sanctum."
Lan Xue whispered softly, "It feels… alive."
"It is," Max replied. "This place breathes. Every ley line, every circuit is a part of Gaia's neural structure. This is where the real power of Horizon sleeps."
As if on cue, Gaia's avatar appeared again—shimmering like a goddess forged from light and stardust."Primary sanctum secured. All protocols stable, Master."
Max nodded. "Good. Now…" He turned to the girls, grinning like a wolf."Want to see the war machine halls?"
Gwen's grin matched his. "Hell yes."
The next doors slid open, revealing a cathedral-like chamber filled with colossal constructs—titanic mechs fused with necrotic alloys, skeletal dragons embedded with plasma cores, and void warships suspended in gravity cages as engineers of flesh and steel grafted weapons onto their frames.
"This," Max said with casual pride, "is how we make nightmares."
The girls walked forward, awe painting their faces as a mech the size of a skyscraper turned its head slightly, glowing crimson optics scanning them. Rows of techno-undead soldiers marched in perfect silence across glowing platforms, their bodies laced with adaptive cyber-lich plating.
"Each one," Max continued, "is stronger than the Armangda generals we crushed. And they're still just prototypes."
Malia glanced at him, a soft smile curving her lips. "You've built an empire… in a month."
Max shrugged. "I get bored easily."
They moved deeper into the chamber, their steps echoing through the hollow cathedral of steel and bone. Massive assembly lines stretched out like rivers of molten black, feeding skeletal warships suspended in magnetic fields. Chains of lightning snaked across conduits, powering abyssal forges where necro-tech engineers fused flesh and alloy into perfect war-beasts.
A sudden roar echoed across the hall—low, primal, metallic. The girls turned as a colossal creature stirred within a containment field. Its body was an amalgamation of shadow-forged bone and cybernetic plating, wings that stretched like fractured night, eyes burning with crimson flame.
Lan Xue's breath caught. "What… is that?"
Max looked up at the beast as if greeting an old friend."Void Reaper," he said. "Engineered from the genetic remnants of a black hole serpent… fused with techno-lich armor and a singularity core." He smirked. "It doesn't fly through space—it eats it."
Mu Qing frowned slightly, though her voice was calm. "And you're building… how many of these?"
Max's grin widened. "Enough."
They walked past rows of towering construct frames, each one designed for war beyond comprehension. Humanoid titans with ten arms and blade wings. Floating artillery platforms fused with demonic skulls. Swarms of nano-wraith drones that shimmered like liquid shadows under strobe-light energy.
"This is only the first sector," Max said casually. "There are seven more, each specializing in a different combat doctrine. One for orbital sieges. One for psychic warfare. One for biological corruption. Horizon isn't just a planet anymore—it's a forge. An empire seed."
"Why are you even building all this?" Gwen asked suddenly, folding her arms, an eyebrow arched. "I don't think you'll even end up using it."
Max stopped mid-step and looked at her. For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air. Then… he shrugged."Well…" he said slowly, scratching his chin. "Originally, I was just trying to merge tech with my undead. Experiment a little. Maybe make them… cooler."
"Cooler?" Gwen repeated flatly, exchanging a glance with the others.
"Yeah," Max said, as if that explained everything. "You know, for fun. Guns, armor upgrades, new combat styles."
The girls collectively groaned.
"That's so… you," Malia muttered, shaking her head.
Lan Xue gave a soft laugh. "You conquered an entire galactic pirate union… because you were bored and wanted to upgrade your army's fashion?"
Max grinned. "Not just fashion. Function too." He turned, gesturing toward the towering skeleton of a warship as engineers grafted glowing bones into its hull. "Besides, admit it—it looks badass."
***
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