Myriad Heavens: Rise of the Rune God

Chapter 264: Chapter 265: Unnoticed

Wukong kept moving through the narrow air vents, small rat body pressed low against the metal.

The catastrophic scene outside still occupied most of his mind. Even now, safe inside the ship, the image of the shredded void refused to leave him. Void Space torn into bleeding sheets. Principle storms colliding like enraged beasts. Dozens of Multiversal auras locked in a free-for-all so violent it felt like millions of sectors were being born and destroyed at the same time. He had seen large battles before. He had caused large battles before. But the sheer density of power and scale of destruction packed into that one region was something else entirely.

Nobody told me the multiverse got this loud, he thought, whiskers twitching as he navigated a tight bend. I leave home for a little while and suddenly everyone is trying to erase entire stretches of void over a doorway. Ridiculous. Back in the old days a good fight was two mountains and a few immortals. Now it’s half the local multiverse throwing principles at each other like confetti.

He rounded another corner in the vent system and slowed.

Voices and auras.

Clear voices and heavy auras carrying the unmistakable weight of Advanced and Expert-tier Multiversals. The kind of pressure that made even the recycled air in the vents feel denser. Wukong’s tiny rat heart gave a single hard thump.

He immediately dumped the majority of his processing power into the Rule of Boundless Metamorphosis, refining the transformation to its absolute limit. His presence became thinner than dust, more insignificant than a stray energy fluctuation left over from the ship’s last jump. Fur blended with shadow. Breathing - he no longer required it a long time ago. Even the faint heat of his body matched the surrounding metal.

He crept forward until he reached a grated section that overlooked the main command deck.

Below him, several figures stood around a wide holographic projection of the chaotic battlefield. The display flickered with real-time data — principle storms marked in angry reds and purples, spatial wounds glowing like open sores, clusters of Multiversal auras clashing and vanishing and reforming. The captain — the same Adept-tier Multiversal Wukong had fought and briefly embarrassed earlier — looked irritated and greedy at the same time. Two Experts flanked him. A handful of Advanced-tier officers stood further back, listening with the stiff posture of people who knew better than to interrupt.

”...the lower ranks are tearing each other apart out there,” one Expert was saying. His voice was calm, almost bored, as if watching temporary deaths was a mild inconvenience rather than a catastrophe. ”Every time a gap opens, five more of them jump in and start killing each other for position. Temporary deaths everywhere. It’s messy. Inefficient.”

”Messy works for us,” the captain replied, arms crossed. ”While they’re busy wiping each other out, we move clean. Let the weak ones clear the path with their own bodies.”

A second Expert, a tall woman with silver markings along her temples that glowed faintly when she focused, folded her arms. ”The problem isn’t the lower ranks. The problem is the void itself. That entire region is unstable. Principle storms strong enough to erase Advanced-tier beings if they take a wrong step. Spatial wounds that haven’t closed. Residual annihilation energy floating around like mines. Most of the weaker Multiversals die the moment they push too deep into the thick of it. Some of the Advanced ones are getting forced into temporary death loops just trying to cross.”

”Then how do we cross it?” the first Expert asked.

Before the conversation could continue, the silver-marked Expert suddenly paused. Her eyes narrowed and tilted upward toward the ceiling vents. The silver markings at her temples brightened slightly.

”Uhn... what was that?”

Wukong’s blood ran cold.

In the exact same instant he flattened his body and shifted. Fur, bone, and energy signature melted into the surrounding metal. He became indistinguishable from the vent wall itself — same texture, same faint residual energy of the ship’s systems, same temperature. His unique principle wrapped the transformation in a layer of near-perfect non-existence, bending detection around him like light around a black hole.

The Expert extended her spiritual sense in a precise, needle-like probe. It swept through the vents with surgical care, lingered for a long moment on the exact section where Wukong hid, then passed on without catching.

”Hmm... was it my imagination?” she muttered, frowning.

The captain glanced at her, irritation flickering across his face. ”Something wrong?”

”I thought I sensed a strange fluctuation up there. Very faint. Almost like something living, but not quite. It felt... off.”

The other Expert gave a short shake of his head. ”We’re sitting on the edge of a battlefield where half the void is screaming. Strange auras, power spikes, residual laws, temporary death signatures — the whole area is polluted with noise. Your senses are probably just picking up bleed-through from outside. Happens every time.”

”Yeah,” the silver-marked Expert said after a moment, the markings at her temples dimming. ”You’re right. The void out there is a complete mess. Easy to misread something when the background is this loud.”

She lowered her gaze again and returned her attention to the hologram.

Wukong remained perfectly still, merged with the wall, not even daring to twitch an atom. Only when the pressure of her sense fully withdrew did he allow himself the smallest thought of relief.

Too close. These Experts are no joke. One real mistake and I’m paste on the inside of a vent. And paste doesn’t get to eat peaches.

The conversation below resumed as if the interruption had never happened.

”We still have a problem,” the captain said, jabbing a finger at the holographic display where principle storms continued to tear the void apart in real time. ”How do we get past that? Majority of the weak Multiversals are dying the moment they take a single deep step into the worst zones. Even some of the Advanced ones are getting forced into temporary death loops. I don’t feel like rebuilding my body today. Regeneration always leaves a bad taste.”

”We use that,” the first Expert said simply.

There was a short silence on the command deck.

Then the silver-marked Expert’s expression shifted into something like recognition mixed with reluctance. ”Oh. Yes. How could I forget about that? It already saved us once when that Master nearly cornered the fleet near the Scarred Sectors. One charge left, right?”

The captain’s eyes lit with cold satisfaction. ”Exactly. We still have one charge left. Enough to punch a clean corridor through the chaos and drop us right at one of the larger barrier gaps. After that, everyone moves in at full speed before the lower ranks realize what happened and try to follow. We hit hard, claim what we can, and extract before the real heavyweights notice us.”

Wukong’s curiosity spiked so hard he almost broke the transformation.

That? What the hell is ’that’?

Something capable of letting a pirate fleet slip past this level of destruction and even escape a Master-tier pursuit before. Whatever it was, it was no ordinary treasure. Not a simple formation or a one-use talisman. Something with history. Something that left a mark. His golden eyes, currently nothing more than faint points of awareness inside the metal wall, gleamed with interest.

I need to know what they’re about to use. If it’s strong enough to carve a path through that mess outside, it’s strong enough to be worth stealing.

He stayed completely motionless, listening as the officers began discussing final preparations in more detail. Deployment timings — first wave of Advanced combat teams, followed by the Experts once the corridor stabilized. Which combat teams would go first and which would hold the rear. How long the corridor created by ”that” would last — estimates ranged from thirty seconds to two minutes depending on how hard the surrounding storms pushed back. Contingencies if a Master noticed them mid-insertion. Contingencies if the ruin itself reacted to their entry. Contingencies if Vark the Annihilator or someone equally unpleasant decided their fleet looked like an interesting target.

The atmosphere on the command deck was tense but professional — the attitude of people who had done dangerous insertions before and expected to do them again. No panic. Just cold calculation and the underlying greed that had kept this fleet alive through worse.

One of the Advanced officers finally spoke up, voice careful and slightly nervous. ”Sir... even with that method, if something stronger than a Master is already inside, or if the ruin itself reacts badly to more entrants...”

”Then we adapt,” the captain cut him off without looking at him. ”The potential gains are too high to turn around now. An ancient ruin that woke up with this much noise? The inheritance inside could jump every one of us up a full tier. Maybe more. I’m not missing it because of caution. Caution is what keeps people stuck at Adept forever.”

The discussion continued, voices overlapping as they refined the plan, assigned roles, and double-checked the remaining charge of whatever ”that” was. Wukong listened to every word, filing away details, mapping the ship’s hierarchy, and calculating angles.

Slowly, carefully, he began shifting his position inside the vent wall, moving millimeter by millimeter toward a better vantage point without disturbing the transformation. His mind raced through possibilities. Steal whatever ”that” was before they activated it? Risky — he still didn’t know what it looked like or where it was stored. Follow in their wake once the corridor opened and use their path as cover? Safer, but he’d be entering alongside a full pirate combat force. Or simply use the distraction of their dramatic entry to make his own quiet approach from a different angle while every eye was on the bright, obvious corridor?

All three options had risks. All three had potential. All three appealed to different parts of his nature.

Outside the ship, the void continued to scream with clashing principles and temporary deaths. Inside the vents, a single transformed monkey watched the commanders of a pirate fleet prepare their secret method, golden awareness sharp and calculating.

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was still unnoticed.

But the moment the pirates moved, the situation would change.

And Wukong intended to be ready.

He settled deeper into the metal, staff hidden within the transformation like a secret promise, and waited for the next piece of information to fall. His thoughts drifted briefly to peaches, to quiet mountains, to the simple pleasure of not being hunted or locked in cells. Then he pushed the longing aside.

Later. Peaches later. Right now there’s a party starting, and these pirates are about to open the door with something interesting.

The party was about to get more crowded.

And far more interesting.

AN: Kindly support me on my Ko-fi, so that i can keep pumping out amazing Chapters, money motivates me. Thank you all for all your support. https://ko-fi.com/sorion