Chapter 162: Chapter ??? : Star (Part 1)

Choi Ching had been chasing highs for…as far back as he could remember - though, his poor memory was a product of chasing said highs. Alcohol, drugs, sex; he did it all, and frequently at that.

He wasn’t an outlier though. This lifestyle was one common to residents of Sivilan Square. Located in northern Yeador, it was regarded as the home of stars, more specifically those involved in the Psi movie industry.

The thirty-three old Choi Ching was one such star, being a famous director. He produced a dozen hits by now and lived lavishly as a result. Hits, as in high-sellers. When it came to critically acclaimed works or masterpieces, his works were never mentioned. Choi didn’t mind this fact. He preferred his brand of entertainment above all and was exceptionally good at it.

When it came to directing an action set piece or scene, he stood head and shoulders above his peers. ‘The flashier the better’ was what he often said, and this reflected in every work he made. A Choi Ching movie without a single explosion…didn’t exist.

It was thanks to this reputation that he found himself in the position he was currently in.

He had tilted his head when he heard knocks coming from his front door. He lived alone in a mansion and wasn’t expecting anybody at this hour. Sunday mornings were dedicated to relaxing and winding down. He would pass the time on his couch in his underwear and robes, reading a book or newspaper and enjoying a simple breakfast.

Today was no different…well, until, the sound of knocks visited him - or rather, the person doing the knocking did. Confused and in just his boxers, Choi moved to the front door, half-full coffee cup in one hand and Verity newspaper in the other. It was just as he was about to turn the door handle that he was given pause.

As a Rank 3 Onic, he was far from what could be considered a powerhouse, still, he was a psionic nonetheless. He could sense Psi, and did. From beyond the door, a Psi signature reached him - at least, this was what he assumed. It was strange, like nothing he had ever felt. It felt incredibly strong, and yet faint at the same time.

Driven by a curiosity to discover what lie on the other side, he opened the door to find a sight that would petrify him.

Spectacles.

In a world where vision-enhancing potions were commonplace, spectacles were a rarity, mostly worn for fashion-related reasons. The bespectacled beauty before him didn’t wear spectacles for this reason - though, they looked great on her all the same.

A “yo” accompanied by a friendly smile by the guest unfroze his being. What followed wasn’t the bloody scenes his imagination had conjured up in the passing seconds but a somewhat pleasant conversation. The visitor’s mellow aura and complements, especially their complements, had done much to ease his riled-up nerves.

Regaining his balance, Choi Ching invited his guest in and the two made themselves comfortable in the living room. There, he heard out his guest’s reason for coming. He was presented with an offer he couldn’t refuse, and so naturally, accepted.

***

Popleigh…

“What do you say?”

At the question, Sigurd searched for his cup; he needed a drink. The tea sliding down his throat served as a current for his guest’s previous words to ride on. Down and down they went until it was fully digested. Placing his now-empty cup back down, he eyed the bespectacled beauty opposite him.

“What even brought this on in the first place?”

“The boys, them, Silver,” Astra replied as she telekinetically manipulated the wooden dolls on the table. Handcrafted, they both resembled herself in two different outfits. The S-Rank Adventurer had them duke it out. Coated in golden auras, the wooden figures went at it in a brawling manner, punching and kicking with not an ounce of skill or technique.

Playing with them, she continued. “Since I can’t meet them, I’ve been making do with watching their Combat Arena matches on repeat. Ray, Ralf, Silver; they’re dazzling as is, but in battle, even more so. If hunger is the ultimate spice for food, then battle is the ultimate make-up for looks.”

“Hm, doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, but I get your point.”

Astra nodded. “So that got me thinking about my own battle footage. Did I look as good, I wondered. I searched for the answers but met with a disappointing result. For all I did in those few weeks, there’s not a lot of footage of me, and everything there is…isn’t worth seeing.”

She sighed and so did Sigurd, though the two did so for two different reasons. “Figures, I wasn’t going for style back then, just speed and destruction. The result is stills, blurs or flashes. Also…” The Unique’s face turned bitter as her memories were stirred. “...my expressions at the time weren’t exactly photogenic.”

“Definitely not,” Sigurd agreed, his face welcoming its own bitterness as his mind brought up images of the past, of the teenage Astra’s visages during her now-infamous rampage.

To destroy the world, for everything to burn, for all others to vanish from your world…

The desire came in many forms and was had by plenty of people at one point in their life or another, especially after suffering a major upset or loss. Still, for most, this desire, while strongly felt, was fleeting in nature. People cooled down after some time, after confronting their foolishness and powerlessness to achieve their desire.

But what if you did have the power to destroy the world?

Astra was one such individual, with her weeks-long rampage being the perfect case study of this desire playing out.

Following the initial incident involving the insult to her then recently deceased mother, Astra actively sought out things to rile her up - to keep herself riled up to avoid addressing her emotions and reality.

Where others saw her as a destructive monster, Sigurd couldn’t see her as anything other than pitiful. She seemed on the verge of crying, even when smiling. Even as she rampaged, the aged Ascendant couldn’t bring himself to hate her for it as so many of his colleagues did at the time - and even currently. He had dealt with many troubled children, and Astra was just that to him. He had a big soft spot for such individuals, as they reminded him of himself - his much younger self.

He attempted to reach out to Astra during her rampage but saw no success. He wasn’t alone, many others tried and failed, Micheal being the most noteworthy. She wasn’t inclined to talk and was faster than lightning. But where all others failed, someone did succeed. Sigurd heard that it cost him thirteen lives, but Dimitri managed to earn a conversation.

The elderly Ascendant wasn’t privy to the details, but whatever was said, seemed to have gotten through to the young Astra. Shortly afterwards, her rampage ended and she became Astra the Indifferent.

It was only a few months later that Sigurd first made contact. Gone was the irritable easily-triggered teenager; she had been replaced by an easy-going go-with-the-flow teenager.

Still, while an improvement, to Sigurd she remained one in the midst of grieving. If the rampage was her in her anger phase of grief, her Indifferent self was somewhere between that and her depression phase. She had essentially paused the process…and this was no mere metaphor.

Sigurd’s gaze moved to Astra’s figure - or rather, the two-centimetre thick barrier which engulfed it fully.

Endless Expanse.

This was what Astra called her ever-present spatial barrier. The barrier was one of the cornerstones of her invincibility. There were many out there who believed that as long as she couldn’t teleport away, she would be beatable, but Sigurd knew better.

To his knowledge, only two attacks could threaten Endless Expanse, the first being Micheal’s otherworldly black flames and the second being Val’s space-rending Crescent Slash. Everything else, simply wouldn’t phase her - or rather, that’s all they would do if she wished it.

Endless Expanse was Astra’s literal personal space. To Sigurd’s aged eyes, she was just a few metres away, but in reality, she was much further. Endless Expanse, while called that, wasn’t infinite though. From what he knew, it was only several kilometres wide.

This was quite a distance to cover, but this distance wasn’t the only thing that kept Astra safe from harm. In this highly-compressed private space, dozens of spatial arrays were set up for both passive protection and active manipulation. She could warp space within this domain and create rifts, allowing her to do all sorts of things, like storing objects or having things seemingly phase through her.

Sigurd’s current focus wasn’t on these two abilities, but on another, Endless Expanse’s stasis ability. While nearing thirty on paper, Astra’s physical body was still that of a teenager, and it was all thanks to her being constantly submerged in Endless Expanse. She had isolated herself, well and truly. In her own space and time, she interacted with the outside world through a thick screen, like a player would a video game character.

She made it look natural, but those who knew her well, like Sigurd, could sense the incongruity and distance between themselves and Astra. The aged Ascendant’s heart strings tugged whenever he contemplated it, and did so now, driving him into a melancholic silence.

“Ah,” Astra slapped her cheeks. The subsequent sting broke her out of her memories; she straightened her posture before turning back. “Hey, can I get a refill over here?”

“Of course, right away.”

“Oh, me too, please,” Sigurd followed up, even raising his cup.

The senior staff member rushed over to fulfil the requests before zooming back to the counter.

“So anyway, where was I, oh yes, the footage,” Astra resumed her thoughts after downing a gulp from her cup. “Those are no good. I want something cool and exciting, where I’m smiling and easy-going while showcasing my unrivalled strength and badassery. Once at this point, my next set of actions became crystal clear to me. I visited Choi Ching, the famous action director. Hm? You don’t know him?”

“Not by name, no. What did he direct?”

“Most notably, I Am Number Seven, The Purging, and The Great Rock.”

“Oh, yes I’ve seen The Purging, very over the top.”

“My thoughts exactly, that’s why I wanted him. I thought, if I’m going to do it, might as well go all out. I met up with him two weeks ago and presented my idea and he agreed to be the director of my short vanity project. We gathered up a specialised team in a jiffy and have already filmed a day’s worth of quality content, shooting at various locations and setting up marvellous and intricate scenes. But…”

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“You’re not satisfied,” Sigurd completed his younger companion’s words as he moved to take a sip.

“Yep. While I don’t care about the plot being shaky or inconsistent, the scripted nature of it all left me wanting. And that’s when I decided to do real battles instead. And that’s where you come in. So, back to my earlier question, Astra versus the Golden Fang Hunters, what do you say? It’ll only be a few hours of filming tops. Sitting behind a desk all day isn’t good for you. Your old limbs could use some stretching, Sig.”

‘Seems like you’re projecting, young Astra,’ Sigurd thought as he shut his eyes and inhaled the pleasant aroma from his drink. “Hmm, I don’t disagree, some stretching would do me good. Still, as you know, us Golden Fang Hunters can’t just up and leave our posts unattended.”

“No worries regarding that. While on-site, you can be connected to the global network the entire time. If something happens and your presence is required, I’ll just teleport you or the group over directly. Neat, right? You’d be even more effective than usual using this method.”

Sigurd’s brows raised at the words. “Indeed, far more effective. But Astra, this borders on interfering with the story, no?”

“Borders it, yes, just borders it,” Astra said in justification.

The aged Ascendant didn’t press her on her unique worldview; frankly speaking, he was looking forward to letting loose. It had been so long since he could go full-out during battle, so he appreciated the opportunity Astra was giving him.

“I see, good to know. Before I throw my lot in, a few questions. What do you intend to do with the final product? Upload it to Enviso’s database?”

“Nope. This is purely for my own entertainment. You can have a copy if you want, but I have no intention of making this public public.”

“Another question, who else have you asked to join your film? Are we the only group?”

“Nope, I’ve asked a few others already. My first stop was Setsuna. I brought it up to the Head Guardian and she was all for it. We’ll be going at it in a week’s time. Officially, they’re treating it as a special military exercise, but really, they’re probably just bored of doing nothing but drills forever.”

“Better that than the alternative,” Sigurd chipped in between sips.

“Yeah yeah,” Astra agreed. “After the Guardians, I asked pops if he wanted in. He did…so, I’ll be doing battle with him and a bunch of high-level Adventurers in the coming days.”

“You’re just going after groups?”

“Groups and individuals,” Astra corrected. “I want something like the duo had in the Combat Arena, so both group matches and individual matches. That being the case, I popped on over to Luxen to get both…but ended up with neither. I asked Val to join in but he gave me the cold shoulder - no, he didn’t stop there. He was the whole statue; cold eyes and cold feet. He’s always been a sourpuss but now, even more so; he didn’t even say anything, just scowled as he always does before walking away.”

Astra shook her head as she remembered the Ascendant’s miserable face. “The Sword of Light needs to remove the sword from his butt and lighten up, always so grumpy, geez. No doubt, he fired a few Crescent Slashes at me in his visions and ended up missing all of them, that’s the only explanation for it…or maybe, he’s still sour about the library incident…”

“Library incident?” Sigurd’s perked up at the new information.

Astra cupped her chin as she considered her next words. “Hmm, long story short, I was interested in the Radiant Church’s collection of texts. They had Dramen’s Journal in their midst, so what else did they have, was my question. I snuck in and…let’s just say unofficially borrowed some important stuff, some Pope-only level stuff.”

“And?” The Ascendant asked, intrigue thick in his voice.

“And…I ended up learning quite a bit. But that’s a story for another time,” she said then watched as the Psionic Association Head crumbled in his seat.

She was tempted to spill the juicy details but held back at the last second.

“All will be revealed in time, Sig. Back to my story. After getting rejected by Val, I paid Raiken’s messenger on Earth, Pope Rodius a visit, to see if the Radiant Knights or Royal Guard were game. No and no, were his answers, on the account that ‘soldiers of the Divine move only to serve their lord, and cannot be used for trifling matters,’” Astra said with a scowl, doing her best impersonation of the world leader as she made the quote. “Hmph, trifling matters, huh. What a bastard, acting all high and mighty. He didn’t do so after I offered a Divine Relic, no no, that’s when his true colours came out, that greedy glint in his eyes nearly blinded me.”

“You have a Divine Relic on hand?” Sigurd asked just in case.

“Nope, not unless I steal Ares’...and speaking of him, I asked him as well. He gave the go-ahead, of course. We’ll actually be doing the filming today, I’m meeting him shortly.”

“Oh, you got him as well. Who else? Did you ask Micheal and his crew too?”

At the casual question, Astra’s face instantly turned troubled. “Uhm no, I haven’t…and don’t plan to,” she said before taking a long sip.

Sigurd watched her and couldn’t help but sigh out loud. Micheal and Astra’s rocky relationship had always weighed heavily on his heart. He understood the reasons for their respective feelings, but still, felt it was a shame that their relationship had deteriorated to this point.

The pair’s relationship started off close, being no different from an uncle and niece. Micheal had visited Zenas many times and acquainted himself with the young Astra, long before she awakened psionic powers.

The space-bending Unique’s desire to be the strongest there ever was, was born at the same time as she was. She looked up to Micheal as a toddler and wanted to be like him - but stronger.

Their jovial relationship took a turn when Ella, Astra’s mother’s terminal condition entered its final stages. It was a long and painful experience for the Spencer family, especially for the young Astra.

Watching the mother she knew, vanish before her eyes bit by bit tore her apart. She was an Ascendant by then and had unofficially achieved her goal of being the strongest in the world. But this did nothing for her; as powerful as she was, she was powerless to stop her mother’s inevitable death.

She tried her damndest in searching for a solution, flipping the Radiant Church’s archives upside down, ransacking Demon Lords’ abodes and even attempting to enter Azaroth’s Tower for a cure.

The cheeriness was torn from her and replaced by anger and resentment, which then pointed towards herself and others. Micheal, Rachel and the others who tried and failed to prevent her mother’s death received the bulk of these emotions. She ended up lashing out and burning all bridges with them after her mother died, Micheal taking the brunt of this fire.

This wasn’t the be-all-and-end-all of their relationship though, neither was the weeks-long rampage. No, these were individual fires that tore down the bridge. A bridge could be rebuilt, especially given Micheal’s skills. But it didn’t, for while those fires came and went, another had been burning ever since the rampage incident: Astra’s cordial relationship with Dimitri.

Micheal loathed the World’s Shadow and hated the fact that Astra entertained his company in any way. Their currently strained relationship was the result of these feelings. Astra avoided Micheal whenever she could. No faster was she than when she was escaping his disapproving gaze.

Sigurd’s lips vibrated with intention but he stopped himself from carrying it out. No words could magically repair the two’s relationship, only time could, if that. With the World’s Shadow on his mind, he brought up a related question.

“What about Dimitri and the Black Feathers? Did you also invite them?”

“Not yet, I plan to though,” Astra drained her cup. “They’ll agree to it, those villains have nothing better to do after all.”

Sigurd rubbed his beard. “Hm, that’s good to hear. About the footage…”

“You won’t get to see it,” Astra cut in, understanding her elderly companion’s thoughts. “That would be crossing the line. Dimitri will be the one to film my battle with the Black Feathers, and the video will stay with him. It goes both ways though, so he won’t get to see your battle footage.”

“...I see.”

Astra nodded and then had her figure battle conclude.

The two wooden figures dashed towards each other and without concern for what happened next, launched an all-in right hook. The blows struck true, landing with a woody collision. The dolls swayed a bit before both collapsed onto the table, out cold. Match ending as a draw, Astra picked up her fallen selves and stuffed them back into her Endless Expanse to rejoin her vast collection of items.

“Okay, that’s pretty much it. Sig, are you in or in, which is it?”

Sigurd smiled wryly. “Since you’ve given me the choice, I’ll go with the former. That said, I’ll have to ask the others if they’re up for it.”

“Excellent excellent. Then, let’s reconvene at a later date or rather, tomorrow. I look forward to the good news.” She plucked a gold Dradian coin from Endless Expanse and placed it on the table and then got up to leave. “I’ll be off, Ares awaits. See ya, Sig- hm, actually, do you want to come along for the filming?” The S-Rank Adventurer snapped back with the proposal.

Sigurd rubbed his beard, contemplating the matter. A clash, even a mock clash between Ares and Astra; the notion got the aged Ascendant’s heart racing. In the end, he had to follow his heart.

“Sure, why not.”

Astra flashed a smile before approaching her elderly companion. Stopping beside him, she placed a hand on his shoulder and focused on her next destination.

She activated her technique and a moment later, with the flickering of reality, the two’s figures were erased from the world.

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