Chapter 272 - 273: Silver-marked Expert
The Silver-marked Expert of the pirate ship stood near the edge of the crash site, one hand pressed against a cracked section of the pirate ship’s hull. The silver markings on her temples glowed faintly as she read the living runes that had already started climbing over the broken metal. The once invincible techno ship was dying. They had planned to begin to repair it, but the runes started suddenly consuming the ship directly. Slowly and Patiently. Wrapping new script over old steel like vines over a fallen wall.
It was like the ruin deemed the ship a foreign object or external help. So it suppressed it and slowly devoured it.
They had given up on trying to recover it.
Behind her, the Captain was on his knees in the dirt, both hands gripping a twisted piece of the hull like he could hold the whole ship together through sheer force. His face was red and wet.
"No... no, no, no, no—" His voice cracked. "My ship! Do you know how many years I spent building this fleet around her?! How many sectors I bled for this core?!"
He slammed his fist into the ground, then immediately pressed his palm back against the metal as more runes crawled over it.
"Stop it! Get off her! That’s my ship, you fucking forest!"
A couple of the surviving crew stood a few steps away, looking awkward and unsure whether to say something or stay quiet. One of them opened his mouth, then closed it again when the Captain’s shoulders started shaking.
"Captain," the Silver-marked Expert said without turning around, her voice calm but firm. "We’re wasting time out here."
The Captain’s head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot.
"Wasting time?! She’s being eaten alive right in front of me!"
"She’s already gone," the Expert replied. "The runes get denser the deeper you go. Stronger. More complete. That’s where the real gains are. If we stay here crying over a corpse, the people who entered before us and can actually read the runes will leave us behind for good and we will never be able to catch up."
The Captain stared at her, breathing hard. For a moment it looked like he might attack her out of pure rage. Then his shoulders dropped. He wiped his face roughly with the back of his arm and stood up on unsteady legs.
He stared at the dark treeline for a long moment. The trees stood tall and silent, watching. Waiting. Their bark shifted with slow, living script. He cursed under his breath.
"Fine. Gather anyone who can still walk and isn’t completely useless. We move in 2 seconds. Anyone who falls behind stays behind, you’re on your own."
2 seconds later.
He took one last look at the ship being slowly covered in living script, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful, then turned and followed the Silver-marked Expert into the deeper forest without another word.
The Silver-marked Expert named Sylphy and the others took their first steps between the older trees, the air changed. Thicker. Warmer. The runes on the nearest trunks pulsed with a deeper amber light. And a residual intent brushed against her senses. Not scattered or faint. It was very concentrated and deliberate. As if it was left here for someone to find.
She slowed down and moved towards the tree. Pressed two fingers against the bark. And she let it pull her in.
---
The forest dissolved.
She found herself in a vast empty space. No walls. No floor. Just endless dark and the soft glow of floating script. And in the center of it all, the dark-robed figure knelt.
His hands were pressed flat against something that floated in front of him at chest height. A sphere of compressed runes, no larger than a fist, spinning slowly. The runes on its surface moved like living things. Breathing. Thinking. Almost aware.
The figure spoke softly. Not to anyone. To the sphere. To the thing he was making.
"You will watch. You will judge. You will not interfere unless the rules demand it. You are not a god. You are a referee. Do you understand?"
The sphere pulsed once. The runes on its surface shifted into a new configuration. Something that felt like acknowledgment.
The figure’s hand lifted. He pressed one finger to the sphere’s center. A thread of his own intent — thin, precise, carefully measured — flowed into it. Not much. Just enough to give it direction. Just enough to give it purpose.
"Then wake."
The sphere flared. The runes on its surface exploded outward into a complex, self-sustaining lattice. It was no longer a sphere. It was a structure. A mind. A will. It hung in the air, complete and aware, radiating a quiet, patient authority.
The figure stood. Looked at what he had made. Nodded once.
"The ruin is yours now."
The memory faded.
---
The Silver-marked Expert’s eyes snapped open. Her fingers were still pressed against the bark. Her breathing was slightly faster than normal. Her mind was already moving, already connecting pieces.
’A will. He made a will. A living, thinking will, built from runes and given purpose. And he gave it the ruin. Handed it over. Which means...’
Her thoughts raced.
’The ruin has a controller. Not the Rune Sovereign. He’s gone. He left. But he left something behind to run the place. To enforce the rules. To judge who passes and who fails. The will is the new controller. The one pulling the strings inside.’
And then the bigger realization hit her. The one that made her blood run cold and hot at the same time.
’That figure. The way he wrote runes. The way he spoke to principles like they were servants. The way he created a living will from compressed script with a single touch. The way he spoke about leaving... That wasn’t a Master or even a Grandmaster.’
’That was a freaking Paragon.’
Her hand dropped from the bark. She stood very still for a moment. The forest breathed around her. The runes shifted. The light moved. And she felt very, very small.
’A Paragon-level ruin. We’re inside a Paragon-level ruin. And the aura it released when it opened... it was weak. Faint. Barely enough to draw Master-tier beings. If it had released even a fraction of its true signature...’
She swallowed.
’Other Paragons would have come. The top ten races would have sent fleets. Every major power in the multiverse would have descended on this place instantly. We the rest, would not have gotten a sniff. Not even a glimpse. We would not even have known it existed before it was locked away behind walls we could never breach.’
’But the aura was suppressed. Hidden. Kept small. And because of that, we walked in. Because of that, I am standing here. Because of that, a pirate crew and a handful of independent cultivators stumbled into something that should belong to gods.’
’The Gods and Rulers of the Multiverse.’
’We got insanely lucky... and now the stakes are terrifying.’
Her jaw tightened.
’The stakes just became something I cannot measure. And we cannot send a message out. No signal. No communication. No way to call for help or backup or reinforcements. We are inside, and the door is sealed, and whatever happens next happens with what we have.’
She turned back toward the group. Her face was calm. Controlled. But her eyes were saying something else. And the experts and the Captain noticed.
One of the other Experts — a broad-shouldered man whose power had also been crushed down to Universal level by the suppression — noticed the change in her eyes and said to her.
"Did you see something?"
Sylphy nodded once and walked over to the group of higher-ups. There were five Experts in total, including herself, and the Captain — a Master-tier cultivator whose power had also been heavily suppressed. She kept her voice low so the lower-ranked crew wouldn’t hear everything.
"I got a residual memory," she said. "The one who built this place called himself the Rune Sovereign. He created a Will-lifeform out of pure runes and gave it control of the entire ruin. Then he left."
One of the other Experts frowned. "Left?"
"Transcended. Or at least left the multiverse. From what I saw, he was already beyond anything we understand." Sylphy paused, then added quietly, "He was a Paragon."
Silence fell over the small group.
The Captain stared at her. "A Paragon? You’re sure?"
"I’m sure," Sylphy said. "The way he worked with runes, the way he created a living Will like it was nothing... There’s no other explanation."
Another Expert looked around at the quiet, rune-covered forest, then back toward the half-devoured ship. His voice dropped.
"And the aura when this place opened was so weak. If it had felt like a real Paragon inheritance, the Top Races and every old monster out there would already be fighting over it. We wouldn’t have even gotten close."
"Exactly," Sylphy said. "We walked into something that should have been completely out of our reach. The stakes just became a lot higher than any of us planned for. And we still can’t send a single message out."
One of the Experts ran a hand over his face. He looked shaken, but there was also a sharp, greedy light in his eyes.
"A Paragon’s personal ruin... with the original controller already gone and only a Will left behind." He shook his head slowly. "This is either the biggest opportunity of our lives or the fastest way to die."
"Both," the Captain said, his voice rough. He looked at each of them in turn, then his eyes settled on Sylphy and the silver markings on her temples.
"From now on, Sylphy leads the way."
One of the Experts looked surprised. "Captain?"
"Her bloodline silver markings still work," the Captain said flatly. "The suppression didn’t touch them. The rest of us are half-blind in this place. She isn’t."
None of them argued. They all knew how rare bloodlines were among Multiversal beings. A true bloodline of a multiversal could not be copied or replicated by just reading and duplicating the information particles of the bloodline, there was a deeper foundation that information particles couldnt just copy. Only the Devouring Race and a handful of special existences had ever managed to take or copy one.
And for a Multiversal to carry a bloodline usually meant that one of their ancestors had reached the Paragon realm in the past.
That was why the entire pirate crew had been shocked the day Sylphy joined them. No one could understand why a Paragon descendant would choose to become a pirate.
The Captain didn’t care about the mystery right now. He only cared that her markings still let her sense and see through things the rest of them couldn’t.
"We move deeper," he ordered. "Sylphy takes point. Everyone else stays close and stay sharp and don’t touch anything they can’t read. Every step from here on could get us killed."
The other four Experts nodded, still processing everything they had just heard.
None of them looked calm anymore.
Sylphy glanced one more time at the ancient tree that had given her the memory, then started walking deeper into the forest. Her pace was faster now. More focused. The silver markings on her temples glowed faintly as she led the way.
The rest of the group followed in silence.
"Keep up," she called over her shoulder to the remaining members. Her voice was steady, but there was something underneath it. Something new. "And don’t touch anything you can’t read. This place is not what we thought it was."
The remaining pirates who could still move started following her. Some eager. Some reluctant. All of them aware that staying near the crash site was no longer the safe option.
None of them asked what she meant. They could see it in the way she walked. Faster now. More purposeful. Like someone who had just realized they were running out of time.