The Oracle Drive's rings began to spin faster, absorbing the energy pouring in from each of the figures standing on the platform. Light twisted and folded around the device as Quintessa extended her consciousness into its core.
The moment her mind and the core connected, her sight went dark.
Then her eyes opened slowly, disoriented, unfocused, she felt pain in the lower parts of her body and she looked down.
"I'm… injured?" she thought, pressing trembling hands against the gaping hole in her abdomen. Grey energy was surrounding the wound's rough edges, and blood pattered onto the stone floor below.
Whoosh!
Before she could try to heal it, a dark, scaly tentacle shot from the darkness and struck her from behind, piercing into her spine like a needle through silk.
She turned around, instinctively summoning energy attacks to retaliate.
"Damn it… this body's energy reserve is too low," she thought, trying to stabilize herself.
Another tentacle lashed out from above; this one was larger and more invasive, and it latched onto her head.
She screamed silently as her essence was devoured from her body.
"What am I even fighting?"
That was her last thought before everything collapsed into blackness.
When her eyes opened again, she was seated on her throne in another timeline she looked around and saw holograms of battle reports floating in the air in front of her.
The scent of tension filled the palace hall.
"Your Majesty!" an informant burst into the palace, his face pale. "The eastern front is requesting immediate reinforcements. The Zerg… they're outnumbering us!"
Quintessa's expression didn't change.
She looked at the reports, dozens of them, all pointing to the same horrifying truth.
"So this is the enemy," she realized. "And the cosmic beast I encountered before? That was just one, no one of billions." she corrected herself as she looked at the pale blue hologram in front of her.
Her fingers clenched around the edge of her throne. "No wonder we lost so catastrophically. No wonder I died in that timeline."
Without wasting a second, Quintessa teleported and flew toward the eastern front battlefield.
However, before she could even reach it, a swarm of Zerg units—beetle-shaped monsters—appeared, blocking her path.
"Just what I was looking for," she muttered coldly as she launched herself into the swarm.
In just three seconds, the entire Zerg unit was slaughtered, their carapace-covered bodies drifting lifelessly in the void.
Quintessa floated calmly above the aftermath, she reached out to one of the larger Zerg corpses and suspended it in front of her.
"Gene Fanatic, come and see what I'm seeing?" she said, transmitting her voice directly into the Oracle Drive and to the platform, her voice echoed from the drive.
Back at the platform, the Gene Fanatic—who was channeling energy into the Drive—snapped alert when he heard the voice.
He immediately connected his consciousness deeper into the core.
A moment later, his phantom form materialized beside Quintessa, faint and translucent, but strong enough to communicate.
His eyes gleamed as he examined the beetle-like corpse she suspended before her.
"So this is the monster you spoke of, the one with perfect genetics?" his voice echoed into her mind.
Quintessa nodded. "Yes. It's one of them. Last time, when I tried an in-depth analysis, I was… interrupted."
"To be precise—warned," she corrected herself.
The Gene Fanatic's expression grew thoughtful.
"Hmm. That always bothered me," he said. "If they truly intended to destroy us, why warn you? That's illogical. Maybe they couldn't attack you directly, so they tried to scare you off from investigating further."
Quintessa's lips curved into a cold smile. "Possible. But I have another hypothesis."
She glanced down at the drifting Zerg corpses before continuing.
"What if the enemy is so powerful… they don't even consider us worth killing? The warning might have been a spur-of-the-moment impulse, nothing more."
The Gene Fanatic frowned. "Maybe. But if they were truly that strong, they could've crushed us easily. No need for tricks or warnings."
"Or," Quintessa said calmly, her voice lowering, "they're afraid."
"Afraid?" the Gene Fanatic scoffed. "Of what? We are among the strongest beings across timelines. There's nothing stronger—"
"You're forgetting something," she interrupted, locking eyes with his phantom form. "The Eye."
He froze, realization dawning.
"That thing…" he muttered. "The Eye… It wasn't an enemy, was it?"
"I don't think so," Quintessa said. "When I felt its presence, I didn't sense hostility but the purest embodiment of the laws themselves."
The Gene Fanatic nodded slowly. "It was like the laws of the universe converged into a single point. That Eye didn't attack—it judged, and those that died at that time was because they saw something they shouldn't have seen."
Quintessa looked down at the Zerg corpse again.
"I know, because it was the Eye that granted permission for the Oracle Drive to evolve. It didn't interfere directly—but it allowed it."
The Gene Fanatic's mind raced.
"You're saying…" he started hesitating, then pressed on, "that the liquid inside the vial—the one Merita brought—that wasn't a coincidence. It was left behind by it on purpose."
"Yes," Quintessa replied simply.
"A force that can't help us directly, but can guide us… carefully and indirectly."
The Gene Fanatic's expression darkened, realizing the weight behind her words.
"Well, we're getting off-topic," Quintessa said, "The reason I called you was to analyze the genetics of this Zerg race, and formulate a counter-strategy, the enemy is using them to absorb and corrode the laws through them."
"Understood," the Gene Fanatic replied, his eyes gleaming with barely restrained excitement.
"If I can use this so-called perfect genetic code as a template… maybe I can even break my own limits," he thought, his heartbeat quickening.
Without another word, Quintessa extended her hand. Strands of cosmic energy gathered at her fingertips, swirling with a cold brilliance.
With slow, precise movements, she dissected the suspended Zerg corpse.
The creature's chitinous shell split open without resistance.
Both of them leaned closer.
What they saw froze them in place.
Inside, the anatomy of the Zerg monster was too neat. Too perfect. Every organ was minimalistic yet brutally efficient.
There were no redundant parts, no unnecessary tissue, and no exploitable weak points.
"They're… engineered," the Gene Fanatic muttered, shocked beyond belief
He pointed at a strange, translucent sack nestled deep inside the creature's chest cavity that was still throbbing faintly.
"Survival. Destruction. And…" he hesitated, then tapped the sack lightly, feeling the dense essence inside.
"Devouring."
Quintessa narrowed her eyes.
"It's as if they were designed for these three purposes, and nothing else." the gene fanatic concluded.
Quintessa's expression darkened. She extended her hand again and extracted a single drop of blood from the creature's corpse.
She compressed the blood until it hovered before them as a tiny, glowing sphere.
Then she zoomed in—past the cellular level, past the molecular, until she reached the DNA strands themselves.
And what they found in those strands was even worse.
Hidden beneath the flawless surface, they spotted strange patterns, foreign structures embedded inside the genes themselves.
These patterns felt; ancient, complex, and terrifyingly elegant.
"They're seals," the Gene Fanatic whispered, his eyes wide with realization after he examined them.
Quintessa zoomed further in, analyzing the foreign structures.
She found that these seals were not ordinary genetic edits but genetic locks—multi-layered, deeply buried within the DNA, coiled around potential evolution pathways like chains wrapped around a beast.
Each lock pulsed faintly as if waiting to be released. "These creatures…" Quintessa said, her voice tight, "They're not even at their peak stage."
The Gene Fanatic stared at the strands, stunned. "indeed, they are still growing but the seals are impossibly difficult to overcome."
He scanned one of the seals with his consciousness. "If someone breaks these locks, or if they unlock naturally over time," he whispered, horror creeping into his voice, "These Zerg would evolve into something we can't even imagine. Something far, far beyond what they are now."
"Should we open these seals?" the Gene Fanatic asked, his voice laced with anticipation.
"I know you're eager to study these genes," Quintessa replied, her gaze sharp, "but if we do that unprepared, we'll alert the enemy."
"And so what if we do?" the Gene Fanatic countered, a slight grin tugging at his lips.
"Aren't we already at war with them? What difference does it make now? It's not like they can attack through these seals. And even if they could, our true bodies are anchored in another timeline."
Quintessa hesitated, frowning slightly.
He wasn't wrong. They were already locked in battle, and thanks to the Oracle Drive's enhanced abilities, they could explore these fractured futures without risking injury to their real selves.
But a gnawing sense of unease twisted inside her as if the moment they tampered further, something far worse than battle awaited them.
She thought for several long minutes.
But in the end, she made her decision.
"Fine," she said. "We open them."
They focused once more, zooming in further on the sealed genetic structure. What came into their view made even the Gene Fanatic's breath hitch.
Infinitesimal glowing runes.
Tiny, intricate symbols, layered in a strange formation so densely that they looked almost alive.
"What there are more seals within the seals,"the Gene Fanatic murmured, awe and fear slipping into his voice.
"I think they're back up," Quintessa replied slowly, "but they're different. More complex than any rune I've ever seen. And the energy they emit… it's powerful, yet perfectly contained. It's like staring into a living paradox."
They immediately began working to crack the seals, although they were afraid inside they had no choice, to win the battle they had to know their enemies.
But the deeper they went, the more their amazement and fear grew.
"The seals are stacked upon one another," Quintessa said, her tone grim. "So far, I've cracked thousands and I still don't see the end."
"I have cracked three thousand so far but I think we should call for the others," the Gene Fanatic suggested.
Reluctantly, Quintessa agreed.
Within moments, sixteen phantoms gathered around the floating drop of blood, they poured all their focus into the solving of the ancient seals.
Time passed slowly in this state of absolute focus.
What felt like three months dragged by. Finally, only a single, final seal remained.
"That was exhausting," Emperor Vorex's phantom muttered, slumping into the void, his usual composure slipping.
The others nodded, their ethereal forms showing clear signs of depletion.
"We'll replenish our energy first," Quintessa said, her voice steady. "Then we break the final seal."
She sat cross-legged in the void, her body absorbing cosmic energy to restore itself. Around her, the others did the same.
After days they finally replenished their energy.
They now surrounded the droplet, their faces grim with focus. Each of them understood the moment they cracked this final seal, their fate would be altered forever.
Whether it changed for the better or for the worse…no one could tell.
They poured their consciousness into the droplet, slipping past its surface with masterful precision.
Instantly, they reached the DNA level and they delved even deeper. At the very bottom, they found it: the final, infinitesimal seal.
Without hesitation, all of them attacked at once With their spirit techniques.
CRAAAACK!!
A crack sound echoed through the void as if reality itself winced.
The air shifted instantly, even the mood of the platform where their true bodies were changed.
The atmosphere among them turned heavy, and oppressive, instinctively warning them that something had changed.
Meanwhile, in a calm garden within Lex's universe.
Lex reclined lazily on a chair, his eyes closed, basking in the soft hum of origin energies around him.
Then—his eyes snapped open.
Luna, who was tending to the cosmic plants and herbs nearby, paused her new hobby.
She felt the surrounding laws of the universe vibrate, she could feel the subtle irritation of Lex that spread through them.
She turned toward him, frowning slightly. "Who disturbed master's res."
Lex's voice was cold, almost bored as he said; "I let you go once, and you dare try again?"
Back on the platform, Quintessa and the others froze. Even the Oracle Drive's rings, which had been rotating at high speed, came to a sudden, unnatural halt.
Not because they chose to stop, but because they couldn't move.
They left their divination state since the ring stopped working.
Lex's voice, ancient and terrible, descended upon them like an ocean crashing down: "Little one, I warned you once. Yet you still dare to spy."
There was no anger in the voice. No fury. Only the hollow indifference of a being so far beyond them, it saw no point in rage—only the quiet disappointment reserved for fleeting mistakes in an endless cosmos.
And somehow for her that was far worse