Sovereign of the Ashes

Although Karazo and Milena were not allowed inside, Black Oblivion and his two relatives were permitted to enter.

The entrance to the core ruins took the form of an elliptical vortex, radiating elemental light.

Sein swept his gaze across it and quickly noticed numerous traces of Magus Civilization alchemy arrays.

It seemed the Magus Civilization had unlocked these core ruins of the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization not through technological means, but through elemental magic.

The moment they entered the ruins, they were met with a violent sensation of spatial tearing.

Only beings at Rank Four or Rank Five, like Sein and his companions, could withstand it without issue.

Any weaker, lower-tier creature would likely have been ripped into countless fragments by the turbulent spatial forces.

After a brief but deeply uncomfortable process, Sein and the others finally emerged inside the ruins.

What greeted them was an endless stretch of yellow sand.

It was a far cry from the magnificent ruins one would expect of a top-tier civilization.

No wonder Hopskin had seemed so uninterested in this ancient site.

Sein lifted his head and scanned the surroundings, but all he could see was sand in every direction.

At the edge of his vision, a small dark speck faintly came into view.

Noticing that Black Oblivion and the others had spotted it as well, Sein said, “Master Howard and the exploration team are probably over there. Let us head straight for it.”

Black Oblivion nodded, and the group flew toward the distant edge of the sandy expanse.

***

HALL-E was a T3001 industrial robot manufactured by the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization.

This solar-powered unit came with a laser cutter mounted between its eyes, capable of piercing the defenses of Rank Four beings.

That said, its primary function was waste disposal and industrial debris cleanup.

Most of the time, its powerful laser cutter was “properly” employed in slicing apart and processing trash.

HALL-E possessed tremendous strength, though it seemed completely unaware of it. There was simply nothing else it could compare itself to.

No matter how tough the scrap metal was, once it passed under HALL-E’s laser, it would be neatly cut and stacked into perfect cubes.

HALL-E did not know why it did this, nor what purpose it served.

It simply felt like an instinct—something ingrained in it since the moment its consciousness first awakened in this sandy world.

HALL-E had gained self-awareness roughly seventeen million years ago.

Time held no real meaning for it. Given the distorted flow of time within the ruins of the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization that was likely very different from that of the Astral Realm, its solitary existence here might have been even longer!

On this day, HALL-E moved through the ruins as it always did.

Its feet resembled tracks, its arms looked like shovels, and a pair of binocular-like metal eyes swept the surroundings in a full 360-degree scan.

After millions of years of weathering, the paint on HALL-E’s body had faded into a dull, rusty yellow, scarred by countless marks of wear and tear.

Enduring so many ages was never easy.

Over time, HALL-E had suffered various malfunctions and failures.

Whenever that happened, it would salvage replacement parts from other discarded robots.

Its laser cutter and hydraulic arms were not especially powerful to begin with.

Perhaps through countless repairs over the ages, using parts taken from innumerable scrapped machines—some of which had possessed astonishing power in their prime—HALL-E was gradually shaped into what it had become today.

Although HALL-E awakened to self-awareness long after the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization had left this place, the blurred image and faint voice of its owner remained buried deep within its memory banks.

His owner had promised to return for it once certain matters were settled.

And so HALL-E waited.

Day after day, it carried out the deepest command embedded within its program while patiently awaiting its owner’s return.

Within this endless sea of yellow sand and ruins, HALL-E appeared to be the only robot still functioning after countless millennia.

Although it had uncovered many robotic remains buried beneath the rubble—some even resembling itself—every one of them had long since fallen silent, reduced to lifeless metallic shells.

Their only remaining purpose was to provide replacement parts for it.

Why had HALL-E endured millions of years?

Why had it awakened to self-awareness?

And where had that image and voice, buried at the deepest part of its memory, truly come from?

No one knew.

Just as HALL-E had remained buried in this sea of sand for countless ages, working alone and unseen, these questions held no meaning—at least not until an outsider finally discovered it.

Rumble!

The sudden arrival of a fierce, all-too-familiar sandstorm made HALL-E, who was working among the ruins, quickly finish its trash disposal and retreat into a sheltered gap beneath the debris.

The storm swept across the ruins, causing metal fragments to creak and groan with sharp, grating sounds.

By then, HALL-E had fully retracted its head and limbs into its body, turning into a compact cube.

In truth, given the strength of HALL-E’s outer shell, a sandstorm like this posed little real threat.

But HALL-E had more than just a single sandstorm to face. It had to endure them again and again for maybe another million years.

Its decision to hide was, in fact, the wisest and most scientifically sound response calculated by its central system.

Perhaps it was precisely because it consistently avoided every storm and potential danger with such caution that it had survived so many ages.

The storm arrived swiftly and departed just as quickly.

When HALL-E emerged from beneath the rubble, it had reverted to its usual form.

A compressed cube of metallic debris sat quietly at its feet.

Repeating the same routine day after day, year after year, HALL-E gradually developed a sense of loneliness after awakening to self-awareness.

Even so, HALL-E’s nature was deeply optimistic. This brief feeling of loneliness never stopped it from diligently carrying out its trash-processing duties.

Deep within its heart, however, beyond its unwavering hope that its owner would one day return, there lingered a faint desire to explore the outside world and find others like itself.

In the end, HALL-E always suppressed that impulse.

It feared that if it left, its owner would never be able to find it again.

With that thought buried, hundreds of thousands of years passed—then millions.

Today, after the intermittent sandstorm finally subsided, HALL-E did not immediately resume its cleanup work. Instead, it turned its curious gaze toward the east.

Its extendable electronic eyes stretched forward, yet all they saw was an endless sea of yellow sand.

Still, a faint and peculiar sensation stirred within it, urging it to look eastward again and again.

It was not its owner returning... but something else had caught its attention.

A fellow robot?

After standing motionless for a long while and casting one final glance toward the east, HALL-E finally turned its tracks and began moving toward the source of that pull.

It was the first time in millions of years that HALL-E had failed to complete its routine garbage disposal task.

The last time it had done this was millions of years ago, when it discovered its electronic pet cockroach, PAL.