"…Your Majesty?" Robin furrowed his brows slightly, his tone wavering ever so subtly as confusion and unease rippled beneath his calm expression.

Althera had already taken two steps back by now, her eyes trembling wildly, and her heart pounding like a colossal warhammer striking an ancient bronze bell, echoing through her entire chest with each beat.

"Your…" gulp "...Majesty?" Robin felt his own heart tighten until it ached.

This woman was a user of a major law from a seventh-stage fundamental path, a woman feared across countless sectors. The weight of that status alone was terrifying enough; she merely needed a Galactic-Spirit to evolve into a Behemoth standing at the very peak of the universe — yet despite all of that, she was literally shaking like a leaf caught in a hurricane!

"Uhh…" Jabba and Shaddad held their breaths and instinctively began stepping back as well, exchanging helpless looks, almost afraid that even breathing too loudly might trigger a catastrophe.

"That thing… that thing!!" Althera finally snapped from her initial shock, pointing at the box with a shaking hand that refused to steady. "That thing can wipe us from existence!! It's beyond anything mortals should ever handle!"

"Your Majesty, please calm down. The Cosmic Elder would never intend to harm us… I think…" Robin was sweating buckets at this point, thin streams slipping down the sides of his face. "Why don't you explain what it is? We can just leave it for him, pretend we never saw it, and depart peacefully."

"You better do exactly that!" Althera glanced toward the portal that was still active, calculating frantically how fast she could reach it and escape if things went wrong, then looked back at the box with dread. "…I've never seen one before, but I've heard the stories passed down in ancient circles. If I'm not mistaken, these things are… Space-Beast Crystals."

"Space-Beast Crystals? Like the ones normal beasts have?" Robin raised a brow, but his voice lost most of its confidence.

Beasts were born with a fundamentally different energy center. They didn't bother studying laws, building foundations, and all those complicated steps mortals spend centuries mastering. Instead, they were born with a crystal — usually oval or spherical — lodged firmly within their chests, and sometimes embedded on their foreheads.

Those crystals were, in truth, their own *energy gathering centers*, engraved with dense law-patterns that absorb energy automatically without restriction. Such a crystal represented 90% of the beast's total power, excluding its monstrous physical might. Removing it meant instant death, without question or hope.

"All of these are Space-Beast Crystals? Well, that doesn't sound that terrifying."

Robin shrugged lightly, trying to appear calm, then casually gestured for one at random to rise from the box. Woosh!

Oooooomnnn…

"Ah!!" Althera instantly flinched backward, darting toward the portal in panic, pressing herself against its shimmering frame like a cornered prey animal. "Are you insane?! Do you know how big that thing is in reality? What if---!?"

Ooooooomnnnnnn—

One of the crystals floated out and began to expand slightly, but stopped when it grew just a bit larger than a human head. It slowly rotated within the transparent cube surrounding it, runic symbols sliding across the surface like crawling lightning.

A dense aura began spilling between the box's edges — a black-purple mist that poured downward like fog made of unimaginable pressure, as if the gravity of a miniature star were condensed into smoke.

"Amazing." Robin leaned closer with his hands tucked behind his back, tilting forward like an intrigued scholar examining forbidden knowledge. "I can feel its power already. What exactly is this cube for? A seal of size? Nature? or perhaps it—"

Ba-doom

The words lodged in Robin's throat mid-sentence.

His heart slammed once, violently… and then stalled, as if frozen by a cosmic hand.

Every hair on his body stood on end like steel needles. His eyes flushed red from tension and primal fear.

Slowly, almost mechanically, he looked down…

That mist had touched his leg.

That was all. Just a touch.

He didn't take any visible damage. There was no malicious intent. It simply… passed over him like a whisper.

"…..!!"

Not far away, Jabba and Shaddad stopped breathing altogether. Their lungs refused to inflate. They wanted to retreat, to scream, to run, but their bodies refused to move. They felt like tiny mice standing before a roaring lion — no escape, no resistance, only submission.

That power…

That overwhelming, suffocating POWER!!

Woosh!

Althera finally moved, her instincts screaming. When she saw what was happening, she abandoned her spot by the portal and rushed to Robin's side with reckless urgency. With painstaking slowness, she pushed the cube back into the box, fingers trembling, then — BAM! — slammed it shut with every ounce of strength she had!

"…Eeeeeeek///"

Jabba and Shaddad finally collapsed onto the ground, their legs giving out as if drained of every drop of strength.

Pof Even Robin fell forward, both knees striking the floor while his palms barely managed to hold him up. His eyes trembled violently, pupils shrinking in shock, and his heart pounded like a war drum gone mad. Sweat poured down his forehead in thick streams, falling to the ground like rain in a storm.

"Hooof…"

Althera also released a heavy breath she didn't realize she was holding. She raised a trembling hand, then pointed sharply at Robin. "Reckless fool!! Do you think everything in this universe bends to your whims? Do you think your current power grants you immunity from death itself? You almost got all of us killed because of your arrogance and carelessness!!"

"Wha… wha…" Robin stammered, his voice weak and shaking, "What was that?! What in all the heavens was that thing?!"

"The… absolute evil of Space Beasts."

Althera's voice turned grave, her expression darkening like a sky before a storm. Her gaze fell upon the still box, fury and dread flickering together in her eyes. "It's clear now… the Cosmic Elder must have already sealed away its intent— its killing will and its urge to destroy. Otherwise, none of you would have survived. You'd have been vaporized before even realizing it."

She clenched her fists, her voice trembling with contained rage. "Do you even understand why they are called by that name? It's not simply because of their affinity with the Space Path. It's because they open their endless maws and devour anything that dares to drift through the cosmos—planets, stars. You could call them walking black holes, eternal voids in flesh, entities that never stop hungering."

She raised her hand and squeezed tightly, knuckles cracking. "They are the ultimate enemy of life. The natural-born nemesis of everything that breathes, moves, or grows in the universe. Even the Plague, with all its three forms, cannot compare. Against the Plague, at least we can rally armies, form defenses, fight. But against this… there is no battle to win, no army to muster. There is no chance at all."

Pof

Robin finally let himself fall fully onto his back, arms spread wide, chest rising and falling rapidly. His body trembled as he tried to catch his breath, to still the storm inside his veins.

"…What a terrifying aura… so this is what you meant when you said we nearly died? It truly felt like… like our souls were about to be snatched away."

"Naive," Althera said coldly, shaking her head. "That was an active Space Beast Crystal. Even if it belonged to a newborn one, it still carries enough power to rupture planets, enough energy to injure me—a Monarch."

"To that degree?!"

Robin's body jerked upright again. His heart seized tight in panic. The memory hit him like a lightning bolt—he had been holding more than twenty of them just minutes ago, turning them in his hands like toys!

He exhaled shakily, the tension finally breaking. "Thank you, Your Majesty… truly. Perhaps we really would have perished today."

"No need for gratitude." Althera shook her head gently, the sharpness in her tone softening slightly. "I might have overreacted for a moment. The seal surrounding them was indeed powerful—too powerful to let them detonate freely. It must have been the Cosmic Elder himself who placed it. Even so…" her voice lowered, "…I would never trust such a seal completely. Especially not after what we just saw from the one you pulled out."

"Don't exaggerate," Robin said, forcing a crooked grin that failed to hide the nervous twitch at his jaw. "It's a seal made by the Cosmic Elder himself. Are you saying he can't suppress the energy inside a single crystal?"

"The Cosmic Elder himself, of course, could—without question." Althera's tone turned cutting. "But if I were you, I wouldn't bet my life on those seals. There are three known kinds of Space Beasts: the newborns, with strength on par with a Nexus State; the young, equal to a Monarch; and the Mature…" she paused, eyes hardening, "…even twenty Monarchs and Guardians together can't kill a mature one. The best they can do is force it to retreat. Only a Behemoth ever managed to face a mature space beast one-on-one—and even then, he could only drive it away, not destroy it."

She then raised her arm, pointing toward the box with visible hesitation. "And that crystal you pulled out—that oppressive aura—there's no mistaking it. It belonged to a Mature Space Beast."

Her gaze snapped back to Robin, filled with barely restrained fury. "What is wrong with that overgrown ego of yours? You had over twenty medium-sized ones and one large, and yet you decided to pull out the largest of them all?!"

Robin lowered his head slowly, his voice quiet and heavy with realization.

"…That wasn't the largest one."

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