The elevators used by Interstellar Beast Masters were much larger than the ones designated for standard ZENTHRA employees.
The six Trial Guardians entered together, chatting quietly amongst themselves except for one.
The only one who remained calm, distant, and unbothered.
The one they called the Serpent Queen.
Damian paid the most attention to her. Out of all the Interstellar Beast Masters here, she was the only one who gave him that gut-level sense of danger- the kind that felt worse than facing Big Mom or even an Enforcer.
The obsidian serpent wrapped around her arm shimred with a stellar luster that made Kitsuul silently hiss under her breath, though neither the Void Serpent nor its master sensed a thing.
Her na was Serena.
The Serpent Queen.
Damian didn’t know much about these so-called Trial Guardians. The na was new to him, and everything about how Beast Masters were trained or ranked remained a mystery. That’s why this infiltration mattered so much. If he wanted to elevate Kitsuul, he needed to understand how Interstellar Beasts worked first.
He kept his eyes locked on Serena. She stood out among them like a statue carved from moonlight- still, cold, and impossibly poised.
Her ZENTHRA-issued Trial Guardian uniform was a flawless white, tailored with perfection and woven from fiber-reinforced silk. It shimred with ghostly silver threads every ti she moved. The insignia of ZENTHRA pulsed faintly over her chest- white and steady as if the uniform itself could shrug off bullets.
Her skin was ivory-smooth, untouched by sunlight or war. Her long platinum-white hair cascaded effortlessly down her back, just shining and long enough to look both ethereal and intimidating.
Her eyes were pale white, emotionless, and heavy-lidded with the kind of permanent disinterest that said, "I’m here because I have to be, not because I care."
And then there was the Void Serpent.
It was coiled loosely around her slender arm and draped across her shoulders like living jewelry. Its sleek, obsidian scales were etched with shifting starlight sigils that pulsed like tiny galaxies. The serpent’s head rested near her ear as its eyes were twin white voids, hollow and endless.
It didn’t hiss.
It didn’t strike.
It simply watched.
Its presence bent the air around it. Even the other Interstellar Beasts gave it space as if they feared it.
At that mont, the young man riding the Winged Peacock Lion turned toward Serena with the smirk of soone too used to admiration.
"Serena, you joining us in the Testing Grounds? I hear so newbies are showing up to try and claim seats that don’t really belong to them."
...!
His tone dripped with pride- the kind bred deep into his bones.
The girl beside him, seated on a matching beast, rolled her eyes and said flatly.
"Alex, are you still trying to shoot your shot with her? She’s clearly not interested."
The air in the elevator turned awkward fast.
Alex glared at her, then looked toward Serena- his expression caught sowhere between annoyance and hope.
The Serpent Queen didn’t even blink.
"You guys go ahead. I have reading to do first."
With those soft, lazy words, she reached out and pressed Floor 99 on the elevator console.
Then she scanned her badge over the glowing blue panel beside it-it looked almost like a sleek, futuristic tablet embedded into the wall.
The light flashed green.
Floor 99 confird.
Damian’s heart skipped. That was one of the floors Anastasia had ntioned. Data servers were there.
Serena rarely spoke, but when she did, her voice was soft, almost bored—like she was entertaining the world’s noise for one last ti.
The others didn’t argue. Her regal presence dulled any attempts at banter. The elevator dinged at last.
And Serena, the Serpent Queen, stepped out.
What no one realized, however, was that another figure slipped through just inches from the others, even their Beasts- undetected.
Damian.
His heart thundered with every step, but Kitsuul sat proudly on his shoulders, her head held high as if to say: "Told you so."
Not a single Beast sensed them. Not a single person suspected anything.
Kitsuul’s capabilities were now fully confird.
They had reached the right floor.
And it felt like another world.
A glowing holographic banner hovered as the elevator doors opened, reading...
Floor 99: The Bestiary Nexus
Serena strode ahead with purpose. Damian followed, slow and cautious, eyes sharp.
This floor didn’t feel like a data center.
It felt like a sanctum.
A fusion of ancient knowledge and cutting-edge digital dominion, dedicated entirely to the study, cataloging, and history of Interstellar Beasts.
Of course, Damian didn’t know that. Not yet.
The mont the doors opened, the lighting shifted- warm gold filtered through the air, reflecting softly off the obsidian-tiled floor.
Etherglass pillars rose between floating consoles and shelves, each one humming gently with encoded light.
Suspended overhead were gravity-bound bookcases, orbiting slowly like celestial satellites. So rotated in wide arcs; others stayed locked in place, glowing with containnt seals or privacy wards.
Holographic titles shimred across the bindings, so in readable dialects, others in long-forgotten tongues.
At the floor central area, four massive mainfras pulsed with energy. Each one was linked to a glowing console that resembled the digital processors Anastasia had described.
Damian moved toward the nearest mainfra on the right. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out the Cypher Root Core Key.
Now was the mont.
He stepped deeper into the room, which was perfectly chilled and climate-controlled to preserve rare docunts and stabilize data flow.
All around, individuals sat at round tables or worked at holographic displays. A few ZENTHRA employees moved between stations, so organizing digital texts, others deep in interface conversations.
He even saw a Beast Master or two walking alongside their Beasts, quiet and focused.
Damian kept a low profile, whispering into his earpiece.
"On Floor 99. Heading toward a mainfra to plug the Key in."
He kept it brief.
Anastasia responded almost imdiately:
"Okay. Be careful."
The worry in her voice wasn’t subtle. Damian smiled faintly.
He reached a massive wall of tech that was clearly advanced and too complex for him to fully understand. But what mattered was the port- a small slit just wide enough to take the Key that looked like a tiny flashdrive.
He held it up.
A key designed to adapt and ld into the hardware. Once inserted, it would vanish into the interface, thinner than a razor’s edge, invisible even up close.
Damian didn’t know the first thing about this level of tech.
That was Anastasia’s domain.
All she told him was- plug it in, and then get out.
So he did.
He breathed out, scanned the area one last ti, and then...
Plugged in the Cypher Root Core Key.
BZZT.
A soft flicker of power passed through the port- barely noticeable, like static electricity in a quiet room.
Then, the Key disappeared.
Gone, like it had never existed.
A mont passed.
Then Anastasia’s voice ca through his earpiece.
"I’m in."
...!
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