"Nixie dear, Do the honours please. Your mother needs to conserve as much energy as possible."

Carrying Astra into the room, Seth gently guided her so that they were standing in front of the Heaven's Gate. It seemed that the gate had also been effected by Seth's changing of the spaceship, which only made sense.

It had been inside the ship at the time, and was far too big to fit in the new version that had been created to suit humans. So much like the ship itself, it had changed in size, shrinking down from a Dragon suitable size to something more fitting for human use.

Now the grandiose named 'Heaven's Gate' looked like little more than a set of double doors that someone had tried to attach to the wall and quit halfway through, leaving only the door frame in tact.

It was 2 metres tall and 3 metres across, just big enough that it could fit a standard mall's revolving door inside, which would have actually been quite fun to implement but apparently it would be 'A waste of energy' and would be 'a terrible addition to a secret and secure facility'.

Spoil sports.

Nodding quickly at her Father's request, Nixie gave Astra a worried look before flying over to the large crystal that was wired up to the Heaven's revolving door. When Seth had first found the monument, he had found a shard of a crystal, similar to what powered his prosthetic arm.

Like many things, he apparently forgot about that discovery when he returned to the heaven's gate, meaning that he had to expend his own energy powering the door for a few seconds instead of using it the way it was designed.

Now, instead of nearly draining yourself to tear the door open by force, Nixie simply placed her hand against the large crystal battery that had been wired up to the door and poured a fraction of her mana into it.

The large crystal, which was roughly the size of a very uncomfortable bean bag chair, glowed brightly as it greedily absorbed the energy and channelled it into the Heaven's Gate.

The reduced size had nothing to do with the reduced energy requirements. Instead it was the difference between using energy efficiently and being a forgetful moron who brute forces a solution.

It was like using a bunch of horses to pull a car up to 88 miles per hour, instead of using the damned combustion engine under the hood that just needs a little fuel.

With the battery allowing the energy to flow better, the Heaven's Gate opened with little effort or fan fare, flickering to life as the swirling tunnel through space extended into oblivion within its mighty mall door frame.

Nixie was first through the door, flying through without a hint of fear, and Seth was close behind her, slowed down by the need to practically drag Astra along with him. Not that he minded.

Stepping out of the other side of the portal, they were given the warm welcome of spears pointed at their throats. A pair of beady, unblinking eyes stared at them as a human sized fish, with legs and arms, held a spear made of bone in its hands.

It jabbed the spear towards them, speaking in a garbled language that consisted of throaty, guttural grunts and gurgles that didn't sound much better underwater than it did on land.

"Ah, shoot. I don't have my... Oh, thank you."

Seth patted himself down awkwardly as he realised yet another thing he had forgotten, before happily taking Astra's communicator from her hand. That was the problem with having multiple bodies.

Even with one body he was always misplacing his phone in his past life. Now, even if he had it on him, he forgot which body had it at what time.

With Astra's communicator in hand, and thus the translation function actually working, the fish man jabbed his spear towards Seth again. However this time, his gurgles reached Seth's ears as actual words.

{Identify yourself and state your business!}

"I am an attendant of the facility. I was assigned to escort Queen Astra and Princess Nixie to the surface. The Queen is about to undergo her evolution to the next phase. I was given these orders by the Lord himself."

The fish man narrowed his eyes at Seth as if he was trying to check if he was lying - at least that's what Seth thought he was doing. They didn't seem capable of narrowing their eyes because they didn't have eyelids at all, so he had trouble with their expressions. But he bristled in a distrusting way before glancing over to another fish man guard, who pulled out a communicator to confirm Seth's words.

Since they were not able to gain communicators, or any gift, by themselves, these gifts had been given to them by humanity and only one in their group had one. Thankfully the translation function worked both ways, regardless.

There were ten guards in total at all times on this side of the portal, mostly to stop people from getting in but sometimes to stop anyone leaving when they weren't supposed to. They were all fish men, descendent of the one's who had come from the Transit space1 alongside Seth and Astra and who now lived in a city they had built within the Loch.

After forgetting about the goldfish people for so long, he felt guilty and let them live in the Loch. It was just a surprise to him when they bred like crazy and made an entire underwater city. They had even somehow managed to tame the Kelpies, turning them into war mounts.

While the original five were pure goldfish, these ones had some mixed genes that came from... actually he didn't want to think where they came from. But their fish bodies resembled Cod, with golden accents on their scales. They had bone spears and shields, as well as crude clothing crafted from seaweed.

When the confirmation finally came through - which involved Seth answering a message and telling them to let himself through - the fish man lowered his head in a bow and gurgled an apology.

{Your identity is confirmed. We apologise for the inconvenience sir.}

"It's fine, you're just doing your job. I'm sure the Lord wouldn't want it any other way. Thank you for your service. Oh, and I hope your egg hatching season goes well."

{Oh, Thank you very much sir. I do too, I am already looking at over 40 viable children and counting.}

The fish man gurgled excitedly, forcing Seth to bob his head in response as he slowly dragged Astra away. He was just about to free himself from the conversation when he paused and craned his head around.

He narrowed his eyes at the bone shield in the excited father-to-be's hand as he gurgled on about the surprisingly disturbing things they did with the hundreds of 'non-viable' children that reminded Seth of how truly cruel nature could be. But it was none of his business.

Pointing at the shield, Seth put on his best salesman smile as he asked.

"Actually, you don't mind if I borrow that, do you? I promise to give it back when I'm done."

***

A pure black ship hung ominously above the lake side, the engines on its back remaining silent as it hovered as it by magic. Observant eyes might have noticed the strange, softly glowing symbols seemingly built into the underside of its sleek, aerodynamic form. But even if they did, most would be unable to decipher the meaning of such strange, alien runes.

A small white platform floated into the air with a woman curled up on its surface, trembling softly as electricity sparked all over her body. Around the shield that was lifting like an elevator, a young girl flew through the air, flying circles around the platform, as they both rose to meet the silent ship.

The exterior wall of the ship dissolved into liquid as the women approached, giving them the perfect entrance inside, before sealing behind them. As soon as they had disappeared from sight, the ship spun in the air before its engines finally flared to life.

With a single burst of speed, it blasted straight through the clouds and was already rocketing up and out of the atmosphere before anyone could even blink.

As strange as this sight might have seemed, for the people of the new world it was painfully normal. At least in the country ruled by Lord Corvus, where this strange ship was not an uncommon sight.

Not that there was anyone but fish men around to witness this particular appearance of it, and those creatures rarely cared about anything going on above the surface of the lake.

***

Aboard the ship, Seth let out a slight grunt as Nixie immediately tackled him and wrapped her arms around him. He could swear that he could hear his spine cracking and popping from her bear hug, but there was no way he was going to tell her to stop.

Hugging his daughter back, Seth laughed softly and glanced over to Astra, who was still resting on top of the fish mans shield.

"You know I still have to give that back, right?"

"I know... I wouldn't want to keep it. It reeks. Now stop being a smart ass and get us where we need to go. Every second I hold this in hurts like hell, you know."

As if on cue, Astra winced in pain as a convulsion shot through her body and bolts of electricity arced across her arms and chest.

"Then it's a good thing you called Seth's Space Taxi, or Spaxi for short. Best service in the galaxy, as far as you know. So where can we Spaxi you today?"

Astra glared at him, but couldn't hide the slight smile on her lips no matter how much she scowled and tried to look serious.

"How long will it take us to get to the sun?"

For a reminder, check chapter 172

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