First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 439: Same Same, But Different

Arlen looked up, jaw tight. "You pinged a restricted law vehicle. That narrows the list of idiots brave enough to do that."

The voice ignored the insult. "Your passenger is the real reason you’re here."

Xavier tilted his head slightly. "You could’ve just said hello."

There was a pause, long enough to feel deliberate. Then the lights shifted, illuminating a section of the wall where a hologram flickered to life. It wasn’t a face. It was a schematic—old mining tunnels, highlighted paths branching outward like veins.

Xavier stepped closer to the projection. "So you found it," he said. "Or you followed someone who did."

Another pause. Shorter this time. "You’re ahead of schedule," the voice said. "Which means you’re already involved deeper than I expected."

Then stop talking around it," Xavier replied. "What do you want?"

The hologram shifted again, zooming in on a junction point buried beneath Helior Prime’s foundation. A place marked inactive.

"Someone else is moving," the voice said. "And unlike you, they don’t care who gets crushed when they dig."

Arlen glanced at Xavier. "You’re telling me this because?"

"Because if they reach that point first," the voice answered, "whatever Bull left behind won’t be a treasure anymore. It’ll be leverage."

The lights dimmed suddenly, plunging half the room into shadow. The exit door unlocked with a sharp click.

"Decide fast," the voice added. "Helior Prime doesn’t forgive delays."

Then the signal cut.

Arlen stayed where she was for a moment after the signal cut, eyes still on the dead projection as if it might restart on its own. Then she turned toward Xavier, confusion written plain on her face instead of masked behind authority.

"If that’s the right path," she said, keeping her voice low, "then where does that leave Rin and Klatos? Because the coordinates they took don’t line up with this."

Xavier didn’t answer right away. He walked toward the exit, tested the door, and stepped out into the street before speaking. "That’s exactly what we’re going to find out once we reach that junction."

Arlen followed him, falling into step beside him. "You’re assuming they weren’t sent into something else entirely."

"I am," Xavier replied. "Because if someone wanted them dead, they wouldn’t bother sending signals and maps."

She frowned. "And you’re not even a little worried this is a setup."

Xavier glanced at her briefly. "If it were meant to be a trap, it would’ve already closed on us. Look where we are currently standing. That relay hub is clean. Too clean. Whoever contacted you wanted us moving, not boxed in."

Arlen didn’t look fully convinced, but she nodded once. She pulled the vehicle around, routing the coordinates into the nav manually instead of letting the system auto-correct. The path cut straight through lower Helior Prime, skirting controlled districts and dropping into layered transit corridors where public oversight thinned out.

The city changed as they moved. Lights grew harsher, signage more aggressive, species mixing tighter in streets that felt less regulated and more negotiated. Freight haulers passed them carrying sealed containers stamped with private insignias. Patrol drones hovered higher here, watching but not intervening.

Arlen kept one hand on the wheel, the other near her weapon. "If Rin and Klatos walked into something ahead of us..."

"Then we’ll hear about it," Xavier said. "Or we’ll see the fallout."

That didn’t help her nerves, but she didn’t argue.

They drove deeper, the coordinates ticking down as Helior Prime’s infrastructure gave way to older layers beneath it. Whatever waited at the end of this route wasn’t meant to be found easily, and it definitely wasn’t meant to be found alone. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The route stopped making sense halfway through.

The route pulled them down into a section of Helior Prime that felt older than the city wanted to admit. Roads narrowed, then split vertically, traffic moving above and below them through stacked lanes reinforced with thick alloy ribs. Arlen slowed as the navigation began to hesitate, recalculating more than once like it didn’t fully trust what it was seeing.

"This area doesn’t like maps," she muttered.

Xavier watched the surroundings instead of the display. Old transit pylons rose along the sides of the road, their surfaces scarred and patched, logos scraped off and replaced with newer markings that didn’t bother hiding who owned what now. Every few blocks, security changed hands. Different colors. Different symbols.

They reached the coordinates and found nothing that looked like an entrance.

Just a freight platform wedged between two inactive mag-rails, half of it collapsed, the rest fenced off with warnings no one seemed to follow. A few workers loitered nearby, pretending to be busy while very clearly watching them.

Arlen killed the engine. "This is it," she said. "Or whatever’s left of it."

Xavier stepped out first. The air down here was heavier, warmer, humming faintly from power lines buried too deep to reach. He scanned the platform, then laughed under his breath, sharp and humorless. "Of course it’s buried."

He looked up at the fractured rail above them. "That bastard," he muttered. "Even dead, you’re still making everything a mess."

Arlen glanced at him. "Bull?"

"Who else?" Xavier replied. "One location, half a city layered on top of it, and a trail that splits my people in different directions." He shook his head. "And this is just the first one. There are more he has hidden in the galaxy."

Before Arlen could respond, the ground vibrated lightly under their feet. Not enough to feel like an explosion, just enough to notice. Then a section of the collapsed platform shifted inward, metal grinding against metal as something underneath powered up.

Lights flickered on below.

A hidden lift rose slowly from beneath the debris, an old industrial design wrapped in newer security plating that didn’t belong to the prison or the city. Symbols scrolled along its side, briefly visible before stabilizers locked it into place.

Arlen’s hand went straight to her weapon. "That didn’t show up on any scan."

The lift doors slid open.

Inside, the space was intact, clean in a way that suggested it had been maintained quietly for years. A control panel lit up on its own, awaiting input, while a single indicator pulsed beside it.

Arlen looked at Xavier. "If this goes down, we’re boxed in."

"If we don’t," Xavier replied, stepping inside, "someone else will."

He glanced back at the platform, at the workers who were already pretending not to see anything. "And if Bull planned this right, Rin and Klatos just found the other half of the answer."

The doors began to close.

Xavier shook his head once more, irritation bleeding into his voice. "You’re dead, Bull. If I knew what I was getting into, I should have kept you alive and dragged you with me instead."