Lord of Annihilation

After receiving the message from the Academy, all the students hastily made their way back to their rooms to take their bags, before heading towards the Transport Dock.

Lucius was no different. Holding his new weapon in his hands, he also quickly ran back to his room.

While running he spoke to Ka'lor'ah,

"Something is wrong in my body..., precisely my soul." he said with an indifferent voice.

"What's wrong?", she asked in a tense manner. Matters related with the soul were not simple matters. Any problems in one's soul, meant their very existence was at risk. Hearing Lucius' casual statement, Ka'lor'ah knew he was serious.

Lucius then began describing the weird hunger state he had felt that day, his mysterious advancement into Stage 1, the emotion to kill Olivia and it's rapid disappearance and the latest wipe of the guilt and other emotions he felt.

'Whenever I feel a sort of strong emotion, my soul proceeds to forcibly erase it and return my mind to a state of absolute calmness. That mysterious sense of hunger too, I haven't felt it since the time in 'The Pit', except the brief reappearance two weeks ago.' Lucius finished his recollection.

After re-establishing their soul link, Ka'lor'ah had gone into a state of deep slumber to recover he spent energy. Hence, Lucius had not gotten the opportunity to ask her these questions.

After two weeks or recovery, she had finally woken up this morning, when he was having breakfast.

Ka'lor'ah digested the information she was given and carefully analyzed it. After a while, when Lucius had almost reached his residence she finally spoke up.

"About your emotional suppression, I think it's the result of your [Killer] soul. Although, you are currently at Stage 1, your understanding and experience of it, is already at Stage 7. As you know, one has to shed any and all types of desires and emotions to reach Stage 7 in [Killer]. This might be the cause."

Taking a pause, she then continued.

"As for that mysterious sense of hunger and that foreign energy that clashed with your soul, I have no idea." Ka'lor'ah honestly admitted her ignorance.

Even after digging through all the knowledge she possessed, she had no idea about Lucius' hunger state. Listening to his recounts, she did not understand why Lucius had turned into a beast, which had gone mad with hunger. Also, what exactly was this hunger? It surely wasn't physical hunger which could be sated by consuming food.

And that ability to devour souls. Something that was supposed to be impossible.

Souls weren't just bundles of energy. They were the direct confirmation and proof of a person's existence. To be precise, souls were the reason, the 'I' could exist.

Hearing her answer, Lucius who partly held some hope, was disappointed. He knew the odds of, Ka'lor'ah answering the question were quite low, still held a modicum of hope.

Alas, she did not know.

Still, Lucius was not too bothered by it. Whatever the actual cause was, he could only prepare and lie in wait for it.

Having made his way back to his room, Lucius threw his newly acquired scythe into his bag. His luggage was very small, consisting only of a backpack, with compacting technology applied to it.

Compacting technology redefined the way suitcases and luggages worked. The technology could forcibly shrink a large object and make it occupy less space. While the density and mass of the object increased due to this, for travellers and shipping companies, this technology was a godsend.

Of course, humanity tried to apply this concept into making weaponry. Alas, compacting energy was still not possible. Explosions and implosions were common, if plasma bombs or other such energy weapons were compacted.

Still, for cold weapons like Lucius' scythe for example this technology worked just fine.

Having already packed the previous day, Lucius carried his backpack and made his way towards the Transportation Hub.

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The Transportation Hub consisted of three large sections.

The Spaceship Section, The Teleportation Section and the Cargo Section.

The Spaceship Section, as the name suggests, is where all manners of spaceship used for transport of personnel landed and parked. It was the section with the largest amount of foot traffic everyday. It was also the place where the students were asked to gather, to board their respective ships.

The Teleportation Section was the section were non-living and smaller goods which required immediate transportation were teleported. Fixed Teleportation points, leading to a few important locations were stationed here. This was also the section with the most amount of security and checkings, as hostile items such as bombs and other objects could also theoretically be transported.

The final section was the cargo section, used to import and export large amount of goods and cargo. The Academy usually leased the ports to the various families for their usage, in exchange for credits and other items.

Currently, Lucius and the rest of the students had already arrived at the Spaceship section. Although a large number of students were present , due to the large areas and the fact that this section was specially reserved for the Academy's use today, it was not overly crowded.

Upon entering, the students were asked to deposit their luggage at a counter for it to be loaded into their spaceships. After that the students were also personally searched to check for possible dangerous items they might be carrying.

The idea of a bomb going off within a spaceship whilst in space, was a scary thing to imagine. Not to mention, it had already happened before.

Lucius easily cleared the checking as he had already registered his weapon and deposited it separately. As for Ka'lor'ah, a quick usage of [Charm] solved that problem.

Making his way towards a large holographic screen, Lucius noticed that the board recorded the student name, spaceship assigned and the destination planet.

Searching for his name on the board, Lucius finally found it.

[Name-Lucius.] [Spaceship Assigned- Voyager 16] [Destination- Deatov]

'The destination has changed.' Lucius sighed within his mind.

While it would not affect his plans, the fact that he was going to an unknown planet was slightly worrying.

No matter, Lucius was confident of succeeding. After all which planet he was in did not matter. What mattered was whether.

'I can survive the initial onslaught or not.' he internally mused.

Now that he knew the name of his spaceship, he started to make his way towards the port where it was stationed.

Walking for a few minutes, Lucius finally made it to the specified location. He checked the time and noticed that it as already 8:45 AM, just 15 minutes from the time of departure.

Voyager 16, was a large distance, luxury class, interstellar carrier. It's pristine white body, had the it's name written in gold, on both sides of it's hull. It was 500 feet in length, 300 feet in width and stood 70 feet tall. It had a streamlined design and looked quite classy.

Looking at its body, the first thing that would occur in any spectators mind was- Whoever is travelling in that thing, sure is rich.

Seeing the luxury class spaceship, Lucius was initially confused. He checked his watch to confirm whether he had come to the right ship.

Seeing someone standing at the entrance of the ship, Lucius thought.

'Might as well ask that person to confirm.'

A teacher stood near the entrance of the spaceship directing the students to their assigned rooms in the ship. Lucius made his way towards this teacher.

"Your name and ID please." the female teacher asked with a gentle smile on her face.

"Lucius." he replied, while handing over his ID.

"Surname?" the teacher continued.

"I do not have a surname."

"That's rare." the teacher directly replied.

She then scanned his ID, to search the database.

"Ah, here you are. Lucius, Interstellar Mechanics, right."

Lucius directly nodded his head.

"Your assigned room is- O29. Please follow instructions sent to your watch and get to your room. Scan your ID to open the door. In roughly 30 minutes, the teachers onboard will be performing a roll-call. Here is your ID." the teacher kindly instructed him and handed back his ID.

Lucius nodded his head once again and directly stepped into the craft. Following the directions, presented to him he directly made his way to his room. Scanning his ID on the interface present to the right of the door, the magnetic locks released opening the doors.

Once he headed inside, the magnetic doors sealed themselves once again, creating a perfect pressure seal and an isolated room. The entire room was sound-proofed with zero noise leaking from within, to the corridors outside.

The room provided to him was actually quite large. It was 50 sq. meters in size, consisting of a single bed, a bathroom and a single desk and chair. Inside the bathroom was a sink, a shower and a toilet.

"Sure is fancy." Ka'lor'ah remarked.

On top of the bed was a black colored one-piece overalls, which was to be worn inside the spaceship. On top of it was a small note.

Making his way to the bed, Lucius picked up the notes and read it's contents.

-Please wear the suit provided and head to the cafeteria on board the spaceship. Follow the signs on the walls for directions.-

'This is completely different. It wasn't like this last time.' Lucius thought to himself.

In his previous life, he had boarded an ordinary spaceship, consisting of an area for seats, a dining area and a common shower area. To the Lucius of that time, those two months he spent travelling were hell.

Alas, the true hell had arrived after he stepped into the planet.

Changing his set of clothes into the newly provided overalls, Lucius then left his room once again, to head towards the cafeteria.

It was time to see who else was aboard this ship.