BloodStar

Chapter 268: Through the Portal

Jarek lay on the ground in both physical and mental shock. In a moment, Xenia had stolen his identity from him. He wasn’t simply no longer the strongest ki user on Earth, he wasn’t a ki user at all anymore. Furthermore, as he lay on the ground, he reached down to feel a smooth surface of skin where his cock once hung.

He rolled over to look at Xenia’s stealth fighter jet which had been abandoned in favor of traveling via void portals, and he muttered to himself, “The southern tip of Africa is likely too far away; however, I have to try. Someone needs to warn the new world of her arrival if Xenia can truly activate the portal again.”

Jarek picked himself up off the ground and walked over to the jet. He walked along the perimeter admiring its design thinking to himself, “I haven’t flown since my young days in the Great War.”

He then stopped in front of the ladder which Constance had left in place leading up to the cockpit. He took a deep breath, “Let’s see if I’ve still got it.”

He climbed the ladder, stepped into the cockpit, and took a moment to look over an elaborate digital readout of the controls.

“I know Constance made several upgrades before the Sage-Heraklinos wedding. Let’s see here…”

He flipped the ignition switch, and a loud, controlled explosion began to vibrate the jet as the engines spooled up. He then closed the cockpit and donned the helmet complete with an air mask.

As an experienced pilot from a time long ago, Jarek found the controls to be intuitive. He soon performed a vertical take off and looked over the destroyed capital city with bodies thrown asunder for as far as his eyes could see.

He could only shake his head in defeat as he engaged the thrusters and took off towards the southern tip of Africa within the Starfallen Empire.

Jarek felt the crushing force of climbing G’s as the speed of the jet climbed and climbed continuing past the natural limits of fossil fuel engines.

He then noticed a red hue encompassing the structure of the jet, “Is this ki? But how?! Constance must’ve found a way to store her excess ki within the jet.”

He grit his teeth and prepared to submit his body to a potentially lethal G-force now that he had no ki of his own to protect himself, “It must be done. I have to push through. Every second matters!”

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Elsewhere, Xenia, Nero, and Constance stepped out of a portal in front of a white dome-shaped building in the Starfallen Empire.

Xenia smirked to herself with her hands on her hips as she used her ki to survey the internals of the building.

She then said aloud to Nero and Constance, “54 people inside. Let me address them before we enter.”

Xenia outstretched her hand and used her bloodbending to form a connection to each and every individual within the building. She then began to relay a silent message heard only within their minds.

“This is Empress Xenia BloodStar of the BloodStar Empire. Your master has fled not only her empire but also this world. I am your empress now. You may show your submission by bowing your head to the floor upon my entry. Or you may show your defiance by disobeying. You are free to choose. Either choice of yours will bring me delight. I am coming in now.”

Xenia then led the way as she entered the building to find several men and women bowing to her upon her entry. They had fallen to their knees with their heads bowed all the way to the ground afraid to even dare look up at her.

She continued deeper into the building reaching a blast door guarded by twenty soldiers of the Starfallen Empire. Nineteen of these soldiers had fallen to the ground in a show of submission to their new empress. However, one did not.

A lone soldier stood with his body trembling from head to toe. Nonetheless, he held his arm out aiming a pistol directly at Xenia.

“Oh, good. I thought all of Starfallen’s soldiers would be spineless pussies.” She walked over to the man smiling, “You’ve proven me wrong.”

She then put her lips together and kissed the tip of the barrel, “Well, brave boy. Go ahead. Shoot me.” She then opened her lips and took the barrel inside of her mouth sucking on it like a cock.

Xenia then shot her eyes up towards the man. As they were locked in eye-contact, Xenia urged him on, “Don’t be shy. Squeeze one off for me. Right into my mouth.”

The man trembled more than ever, and whether or intentional or accidental from his trembling anxiety, his finger squeezed the trigger firing a single shot into Xenia’s mouth.

Xenia moved her jaw around before slowly presenting the bullet between her lips and spitting it out to the ground.

She stuck her tongue out and grimaced, “The taste of gunpowder and metal. Yuck. I suppose I’m conditioned to expect a different flavor when I find myself sucking on something.”

Xenia then bloodbent the man holding him still as she took the gun from his hand, “My turn to squeeze one off.”

She stuffed the barrel into the man’s mouth between his lips, and laughed as she slid it in and out of his mouth while watching the fear in his eyes. Then, without warning, she pulled the trigger firing a round. The man’s head exploded, splattering brain and blood on the wall behind him.

She then quickly turned around holding the gun out and sweeping her aim across the room, “Anyone else!”

Her question was met with silence, and she then looked to a massive blast door sealed shut. She pointed to the blast door with a nod of her head, “Nero, if you would be so kind as to open the door for me.”

Nero grunted and immediately walked over to the blast door consisting of solid steel, 10 feet thick. Nero gathered ki around his fist and pummeled the door with a strong punch forming a crater in the steel. He moved forward into the crater and began to throw numerous punches in succession with the ringing of cratering steel sounding throughout the room.

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It didn’t take long for Nero to form a tunnel through the blast door in which he, Constance, and Xenia entered the control room through.

As they entered, no less than 25 of Starfallen’s most loyal soldiers greeted them with raised machine guns. The soldiers were stationed on the ground level and along the upper levels of the room looking down on their targets.

The soldier in charge shouted to Xenia, “You are too late, Empress BloodStar! Starfallen and Jacek have left this world, and there is no way to follow. You can no longer stop them from bringing back a force to end your cruel reign.”

Xenia merely stood and smiled at the aggressive welcoming. Before she could respond, the lead engineer, Elliot stood at the back of the room near the main control panel and shouted, “He is right. You are late! What took you so long!?”

Several of the soldiers looked back at Elliot with confusion as they suddenly realized they had been betrayed. Their empire had been betrayed.

Fearing for the worst, the soldier in charge made a calculated decision to immediately destroy the portal. He pulled the pin on a grenade and yelled, “Whether you can reactivate this portal or not doesn’t matter! Not if I destroy it!”

The soldier cocked his arm back preparing to throw the grenade; however, as he did, his body then froze. Xenia bloodbent his body and raised her arm up throwing the man to the ceiling. As he slammed into the ceiling overhead, the grenade exploded creating a large hole looking out to the sky above.

“Elliot! How many of these men do you need to operate this portal!?” Xenia barked.

“None. Just me.”

Xenia looked around the room, “I’m afraid you bad apples have ruined my mood for the entire bunch.” She then bloodbent every person in the building including those submissive to her earlier, and she squeezed their bodies until each person was no more than a pool of paste where they once stood.

She then looked to Elliot, “As you say, we are late.” She walked up to him and pulled a massive stone from a void portal, “Here is your ki stone.”

Elliot gulped, “It’s a mana stone.”

Xenia eyed him, “Excuse me?”

“It’s not a ki stone, it’s a mana stone. Mana is the engine, it is the source of ki. Mana is the life force of ki. The two are quite different.”

“Thank you for the science lesson, Elliot. Dearly, thank you as there is much to learn. But let’s move it along.”

Elliot took the mana stone and placed it onto a pedestal. The stone lit up the entire room as the pedestal began to harness the mana from the stone, feeding it into the massive portal generator.

He then turned to Xenia, “I know you aren’t one to consider time given your status in the world. People will wait on you, but physics will not! Before you enter into this portal, please consider that the destination signal is below the limit at which I can guarantee your safe arrival.”

Xenia calmly nodded, “So, is this going to spit me out into the cold of space lightyears away?”

“Well, that is highly unlikely. You are likely to exit this portal on the same planet as Jacek and Starfallen, but not in the same place. Maybe not even close to the same place.”

Xenia was relieved to hear his words, “Elliot, the entire planet will be mine sooner or later, so this matters very little to me. Tell me when we can enter.”

“It should take only…” Elliot looked at the digital readouts to find that the mana stone they had provided was already at full power to generate a portal. He looked up with shock, “Where did you say you got this stone?”

“A one, Jarek Heraklinos. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

Elliot’s eyebrows raised in shock, “The Jarek Heraklinos. Oh my.” He then turned back in awe at the power of the stone as the portal was already stabilized.

“You may enter.” He held out his arm for them to pass by into the portal.

Xenia turned to face Nero and Constance, “I will go last. Nero, you first.”

Nero stepped up to the portal and faced Xenia. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips before saying, “Our first true conquest of the unknown. I enjoy the thrill of conquest so much more with you by my side. You’ll need this. Wherever we may go, there will always be those who deserve death by your hammer.”

Xenia reached into a small void portal and pulled out Nero’s warhammer, Blood Cry.

Nero grabbed his warhammer and grunted as he turned and walked through the massive void portal flickering with electricity and whirring as ki fed into it from the mana stone.

Next, Constance stepped up and faced Xenia. Before Xenia could act, Contance jumped forward and kissed Xenia on the lips. After kissing for a moment, Xenia then said, “Let’s conquer our first kingdom and immediately get married. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

Constance smiled and maintained eye contact with Xenia as she stepped backwards into the portal and disappeared while blowing a kiss to her empress.

Lastly, Xenia opened another small void portal and retrieved Blood Scourge and BloodBane before addressing Elliot, “Thank you Elliot. You will find that I have also held up my end of the deal. Your bank account has been funded with one billion dollars as requested. Should you need anything, John Vand has been more informed to take very good care of you.”

Elliot bowed his head, “Thank you, my empress.”

Xenia smiled at him one last time, “See you again, eventually.”

She then stepped through the portal herself, disappearing from Elliot’s sight and the Earth.

Elliot let out a loud and exacerbated gasp of air as his sky-high levels of stress began to abate. He had no idea where the three of them would land on the destination planet, and he could only hope for the best.

He sat at the control panel and initiated the process to shut down the portal; however, he found that the rate of dissipation of the ki from Jarek’s massive mana stone was miniscule in comparison to the previous one.

Elliot frowned as he looked at the data in front of him, “At this rate, it could take 12 hours to fully disconnect.”

He laid back in his chair with his hands behind his head and settled in as he prepared to take this opportunity to gather data for his future research.

___________________________

Eight hours had passed, and the portal had decreased in size by 50% on its way to shutting down entirely. Elliot sat at the control panel napping with his arms crossed as the digital readouts continued gathering data. All was quiet save for the occasional blinking and beeping of digital readouts.

Then, overhead, a loud rush of a jet performing a low fly-by shook the building, waking Elliot. He grabbed his glasses and looked up and through the roof just in time to see a black jet fly across the sky again.

Up in the sky, Jarek was preparing for another fly-by of the white dome.

“It looks like the portal is still active by some miracle. Who knows who is guarding it though. Xenia could’ve left Nero or Constance… or anyone to guard it. Any ki user, any skilled soldier with a gun could stop me in my tracks if I land.”

Jarek hated that he had to think and account for his newfound weakness and vulnerability.

After his last fly-by to assess the roof and portal, he then gained altitude and lined up the jet with the dome, “Here goes nothing.”

He hit the throttle and began to descend while gaining speed. Elliot looked up and realized what was taking place, “That pilot is crazy. Crazy!” He ran for cover through the tunnel Nero had created in the blast doors and threw himself on the ground with his hands over his head.

Jarek yelled as his jet gained more and more speed as he flew towards the ground, “AHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

In an instant, the jet flew through the hole in the roof tearing the wings from the plane, and the momentum of the plane carried the body without wings forward as Jarek and what was left of the jet plunged into the dying portal.

The impact of the wings smashing into the roof cratered the remaining portion of the roof as rubble fell onto the control panel and portal itself crushing the entire system.

After the dust had settled, Elliot ventured back through the tunnel of the blast doors to find the entire control center demolished with no sight of the fighter jet pilot.

“Who the fuck was that???” Elliot was lost in thought as he reached down and picked up the mana stone which had been thrown to the ground. He dusted it off and concealed it away in his lab coat.

“I need to find John Vand.”