As Knowhere drifted closer to Cybertron, the Transforrs naturally wouldn’t just throw it directly onto the planet’s surface. Instead, Cybertron set up a gravitational control device that fixed Knowhere securely into its satellite orbit.
That made mining far more convenient.
Once the gravity lock was engaged, nearly all the Transforrs responsible for towing returned to the surface of Cybertron, leaving only a few behind to monitor the orbit.
Inside his ti-folded collection chamber, The Collector peered at Cybertron through one of his treasures—and his jaw nearly hit the floor.
"1, 2, 3... 66... 172... 362..."
He counted on his fingers for a long while, only to lose track after making a mistake. Even so, from what he managed to count, there were at least several hundred Elder-level Transforrs! They filled the skies of this planet, blotting out the sun.
The Collector studied Cybertron’s surface in awe. The landscape was stunning—steel and machinery blending seamlessly with lush natural ecosystems, patterned across the planet like squares on a chessboard.
It was beautiful. Far more beautiful than the cold chanical empire he had imagined.
At that mont, so of the Elders, having received news of the captured resource-rich planet, erged from Cybertron’s core to inspect it. Their sudden appearance gave The Collector another shock.
"There are even more of them!?"
At first, all Elders looked the sa, since they were created by Lorien using the Planetary Engine. But things had changed.
Depending on their preferences, so Elders now carried entire national-scale production facilities within their bodies. Others were bristling with weapons—cannons, plasma artillery, and more. A few even resembled scientists, clearly specializing in research and developnt.
What now stood before The Collector were hundreds of unique Elders, no two alike.
"My god..."
The Collector was left utterly speechless.
Among the gathered Elders, one raised a device and scanned Knowhere. Monts later, the readout displayed a detailed breakdown of its resources.
"This planet was once the skull of an ancient being. It has been mined about nine percent. Excluding the waste, seventy-one percent is still harvestable," the Elder reported with satisfaction.
"The advanced resources here are enough to raise Cybertron’s technology by another tier and create a central brain to command our chanical legions."
The Elder was clearly very pleased. The skull of a Universal-level entity contained untold treasures—enough to push Transforr civilization to new heights. In truth, even now, not all of its riches had been uncovered.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, the Elder frowned at the coordinates and data analysis on his instrunt. He quickly transmitted the location to the Transforrs stationed on Knowhere.
"There’s a space-ti anomaly here."
"I’ll check it, Elder," ca the reply.
With that, the Transforrs on Knowhere leapt into the air, transforming mid-flight into combat ships as they shot toward the marked coordinates. The others followed suit, turning into warships over fifteen ters long, engines blazing as they sped off.
Yes—these Transforrs were not like the car-based Autobots of another Cybertron in another universe. They were starship Transforrs.
Because this Cybertron was located directly on Mars, their civilization had skipped the planetary developnt stage entirely, leaping straight into the space age. As a result, their descendants were all spacecraft, capable of interstellar travel from the mont they were created.
The Collector nearly fainted when he saw the Transforrs suddenly heading in his direction. At first, he thought it coincidence—but as they veered toward his door, he panicked, rushed outside, raised his hands, and shouted,
"My na is Taneleer Tivan! I am a Collector of the cosmos!"
"I’ve lived for hundreds of millions of years! I know most of the universe’s secrets! I want to communicate with you!"
His reaction was instant and decisive. The mont he realized he’d been discovered, he rushed to declare his identity, his abilities, and his value.
In his panic, he even dropped his prized white sable cloak, too focused on the incoming Transforrs to care. His eyes stayed locked on them as they descended.
The warships transford again midair, landing heavily in front of The Collector.
"Wow..."
He couldn’t help but gasp in wonder. In all his endless years, he had never seen a race so extraordinary. A fully chanical species!
The newly landed Transforrs relayed his words back to the Elders.
"Bring him here."
At the Elders’ command, the Transforrs stuffed The Collector into one of their cabins and flew him straight to their location. Once they arrived, they set him down on the ground.
"Clack~"
Imdiately after, one of the Transforrs tossed him a headset.
The Collector was confused, but the Transforr explained,
"You cannot communicate directly with the Elders. Use this."
The Collector put on the headset, then looked around in puzzlent.
"Elders? Where are they?"
He searched for a long ti but saw nothing but towering forests of steel. Where were the Elders? Could these colossal tal structures themselves be the Elders?
"Look up."
The Transforr’s voice echoed.
The Collector instinctively tilted his head back—
And froze.
Dozens of unimaginably massive chanical eyes were staring straight at him.
His heart nearly stopped. Every hair on his body stood on end as cold sweat poured down his back.
So those towering steel cities were not cities at all. They were the Elders—though what he was seeing was rely their toes.
When he raised his gaze fully to the sky, he realized the Elders’ height surpassed anything his mind could comprehend.
At first, lacking any fra of reference, he had assud the Elders stood about a kiloter tall. But now he saw the truth—tens of thousands of ters. Their sheer scale was overwhelming, flooding him with a primal terror of the colossal.
But the Elders had no ti for pleasantries. Their deep chanical voices rumbled as one asked,
"You have lived for hundreds of millions of years?"
The Collector snapped out of his stupor and quickly replied,
"Yes. I possess immortality, though outwardly I appear no different from an ordinary human of the galaxy."
As they scanned him with their instrunts, the Elders spoke again,
"In form, your body resembles that of our Creator. But the data shows you also possess the ability to traverse ti and space—sothing you did not ntion. You are capable of carrying your folded-space chamber with you through such travels. Yet you chose to remain. According to our calculations, this proves you truly wish to communicate with us."
The Collector was stunned.
I haven’t said a word, and they already know?
It was true. He did have the ability to travel freely through ti and space, and his folded collection chamber could co with him. He could have left at any mont.
But his insatiable curiosity about Cybertron and the Transforrs had kept him here—and now the Elders had laid it bare.
So he no longer tried to hide it. Instead, he spoke plainly,
"I want to understand you. You are the newest race in the universe. For that, I am willing to pay a great price. I know where the greatest sources of value lie, the distribution of powers across the cosmos, the territories of empires, the locations of mineral-rich systems. All of this exists within my collection chamber and my mory. And in return, I only want to learn about you."
His expression was utterly sincere. He truly wanted to know.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he added,
"Oh, and if you could spare a small robot, that would be even better. I don’t need a Transforr, but my collection chamber could use a butler to clean and keep things in order."
After hearing him out, the Elders quietly initiated a secret vote among themselves—whether or not to accept this bargain.
The outco was obvious.
A deal like this was pure profit. Why refuse?
Right now, the Transforrs were in desperate need of information. With what The Collector had offered, Cybertron’s developnt could accelerate by leaps and bounds.
...
anwhile, on Earth, New York, at the Northern Tower.
After a day of slacking off, the clock finally struck five in the afternoon. Lorien and Hela appeared right on ti outside the office door.
"Click~"
The lock turned, and with a thought, Lorien opened it, bringing Hela ho with him.
Once inside, they headed to the living room and glanced to the right. Wanda was busy inside her little universe.
Lorien walked closer and saw her crouched on the ground, using a small shovel to turn the soil. She placed flower seeds into the earth, covered them, and carefully watered them.
Looking around, Lorien noticed she had already cultivated an entire plot of land. Aside from cooking lunch, she had spent her whole day on this.
Silently, he stepped up behind her, reached both arms around from either side, and clasped them together.
"Mmm~!"
Startled, Wanda jumped up and rolled her eyes at him.
"You’re awful."
Lorien chuckled, giving her a slight squeeze that made her fall into his arms.
"Stop."
Wanda quickly pushed his hands away.
"We’re still outside."
"Outside?"
Lorien glanced around at the surrounding mountains, grasslands, and forests.
"Wherever there are mountains, isn’t that still our ho?"
When Wanda heard that, she really wanted to knock Lorien on the head with her little shovel. But instead, she lifted the seeds in her hand and said,
"Once I plant these, I’ll use magic water every day to help them grow. In at most a week, this place will be full of flowers!"
Lorien looked at the freshly turned soil.
"Then why not just use magic to do all of this?"
"If I did, it wouldn’t an anything." Wanda held up her shovel. "This way, it feels like I planted them myself."
Well, that was indeed part of the reason. Using magic for daily chores was faster and easier, but it never felt like her own effort.
Not that it mattered to Lorien. He never intended to do the work anyway.
But...
He looked up at the vast world within the little universe, then gestured around.
"We’ve got a world this big."
Wanda shook her head casually.
"In the future, we can raise animals."
"We can take our ti with the land here."
"After all, our world still has a long, long ti ahead."
Her last words reminded Lorien of what he himself had once said: We still have a long, long ti.
That was why Wanda tended this place by hand. It wasn’t about finishing everything at once. It was about gradually shaping it into sothing beautiful, piece by piece.
The purpose wasn’t the point.
The process was.
Lorien let out a long breath and pulled Wanda into his arms.
"I was overthinking it. Sorry."
"No, you weren’t." Wanda kissed his cheek and nose. "In my eyes, you can never be wrong."
Lorien chuckled.
"Then I’ll give you a reward."
Wanda narrowed her eyes.
"I’m not afraid of you anymore."
"Want to test that?"
"Let’s test it!"
With that, Lorien carried her into the bedroom.
A knight’s duel began—black-haired male knight against red-haired female knight. The outco was obvious. The red-haired knight was no match. Under his relentless offense, she was like a rookie fresh from training and was quickly defeated.
But the black-haired knight didn’t push for total victory. After all, it was still early. Better to save so energy for round two.
Afterward, Lorien went out to rest.
Not long after...
"Clack~"
A figure bounded into the room.
Spotting Lorien on the sofa, she leapt straight onto him.
"Lorien, today’s monsters were a little strange."
With one arm around Gwen’s waist, Lorien flipped through TV channels with the other.
"How strange?"
"There was a humanoid monster—and its recovery speed was crazy fast!" Gwen showed him her phone.
"They just kept chasing those two won. Even when I got between them, they still went for the won."
That was what puzzled her. The two won were like magnets, drawing three monsters that were dead set on killing them.
Lorien nodded.
"Go call Wanda out. I’ll explain everything at once."
Gwen nodded, slid off his lap, and went to fetch her.
When Wanda ca out on unsteady legs, Gwen imdiately knew she had just been punished by Lorien.
Smack!
Gwen swatted Wanda on the back.
"Bad woman!"
Wanda rolled her eyes but didn’t respond—she didn’t have the strength.
Soon after, Hela was called out as well.
With Gwen and Wanda seated on either side of Lorien and Hela cross-legged on the carpet, he waved his hand.
Before them appeared a diagram outlining the relationships between the Deviants, the Eternals, and the Celestials. As he manipulated the chart, Lorien explained,
"Let’s start with the Celestials. They were among the earliest life forms in this universe. Their forms are colossal, and they are abstract entities. Their task is creation and destruction, maintaining the natural order of the universe.
In other words, they created both the Deviants and the Eternals—but the Deviants spun out of control.
Overall, the Celestials are not the enemy of every lifeform, but they are also the enemy of every lifeform. The stronger you beco, the more they stand against you. This isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about position.
Now, about the Deviants...
And then the Eternals...
And finally, their relationship, and why they ca to Earth..."
This was the longest introduction Lorien had ever given. But there was no helping it. The Celestials were deeply entwined with this universe, and Earth had been dragged into the ss as well.
By the end, when Lorien finished speaking, the three won finally nodded in understanding.
But they also realized sothing else.
"There’s a Celestial Seed at the center of Earth."
Gwen frowned with concern.
"Lorien, then what do we do about it? If Earth is destroyed, do we move to Cybertron?"
Lorien just smiled.
"You’ll be the one to kill it."
Gwen froze.
"?!"
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