Inertia: Beneath The Starlit Veil Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Read chapter 12 of Inertia: Beneath The Starlit Veil by Ken Kaizen on NovelPedia.

Chapter 12 Cyrus's POV Looking at the starbound and the driver lying lifeless, impaled by the horns of the beetle, I felt a wave of devastation that I didn't fully understand. I had never met these people before, yet I felt this pain in my chest. I couldn't fathom how my father did this on a consistent basis when I was younger. He has this innate drive to help and save people, no matter the situation, and somehow he carries the burden of it so effortlessly. I had only helped these people because my father insisted. At this stage in my life, I don't have the capacity to care for many people. Yet, seeing these individuals fighting for their lives reminded me of my clan. The pain I felt watching those people get impaled was the same pain I felt back then—the pain of not being strong enough to protect what I held dear. Several astral behemoths crashed to the ground around me, their impact reverberating as they exploded into pieces. The shock snapped me out of my daze, and I saw my father moving at speeds I couldn't fathom, cutting through wave after wave of the flying beetles with brutal efficiency. Then my attention was drawn back to what lay in front of me. The two beetles that had escaped earlier had started to bite and consume the cube filled with cosmic energy. I knew astral behemoths were attracted to strong cosmic energy signatures, but I had never understood why—until now. As they consumed the cube, their bodies began to transform. Both beetles grew another meter in height, going from two meters tall to three. Their horns elongated and sprouted spikes, resembling barbed wire. I focused what little energy I had left to examine their cores and saw they had evolved. They had advanced from the starspawn stage to the second stage: voidborn. I had no idea how I was going to handle this situation, especially as the rest of the horde recovered from the effects of my gravity field. Desperately scanning the area for a way out, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. The starbound caught in my gravity field were beginning to get up, but they were unaware of the danger behind them. "MOVE NOW!" I yelled, hoping they would understand the urgency. Three of them reacted instantly, not hesitating to obey the warning. The starbound who had been transporting civilians, however, was not fast enough. One of the transformed beetles impaled him from behind, tearing his torso from his legs. "JOHN, NO!" a female starbound screamed, collapsing to her knees in despair. "Get up, Mira. We can't stay here," the tank from their group said, his voice firm. "We're low on cosmic energy, and the enemy is too strong for us to handle in our current state." "What about the bunker door? Will it hold? Especially now that two of those beetles consumed the battery," one of the others asked. "It should hold for a couple of days—enough for us to regroup and come up with a plan," the tank replied. "Besides, whoever's up there in the sky seems to have their hands full with the rest of the horde." With that, the starbound began retreating. "Where are you going? Don't tell me you're just going to leave!" I shouted. "There are still people who need help!" They stopped and turned to face me. "You'd better find shelter, boy," the tank said coldly. "Otherwise, you'll get yourself killed out here. This is no place for a child. Now, hurry along." "If it weren't for me, you'd all be dead! I'm not just some kid!" I retorted. The tank ignored me, motioning to the others to follow. "Let's go. We don't get paid enough for this." Without another word, they disappeared into the distance, leaving me alone with the remaining horde. In my current state, I knew there was little I could do. I had barely enough cosmic energy to escape, let alone finish off the horde, now led by voidborn beetles. Glancing up at my father as he tore through another wave of astral behemoths, I made the difficult decision to retreat to the outskirts to replenish my energy. Sitting on the edge of town,