"You want me to look for this place for you?" Islinda asked, before sighing, "that's ok dear, come, I was about to go down and meet the officials and merchants. Let's first go to the archives and look for any monsatery here for you."

Islinda then led the way and Eli followed, silently from the back, trying her best to control her emotions well and behave well.

The archive was in the basement, beside the main vault of the palace. Islinda had once come here to check things out, and so she knew the way and perfectly led Eli there.

The man responsible for the archives was a mix of human and elf, with long ears and human head, with a long and good body that was a mark for elves. "What can I help you today, my esteemed ladies?" he asked the moment he saw them coming in the archives, politely saluting them with a short bow.

"We want to know if there is a monastery here, secluded and away of noise," Islinda said, as she glanced at Eli to confirm she was asking the right thing.

Eli was nervous, quite nervous actually, so she neglected a small detail, a detail that would define her entire future later on. she nodded, affirming the words of Islinda.

"Oh, there is such a monastery here, on the long west desert, the white sand desert. It's called the shrine of the sun, it's a good place, nice fellows living there. you can go easily to it by any cruiser my ladies."

"Do you have a map?" Islinda asked instantly as she was quite busy to follow this mad girl beside her on this adventure.

"Sure, one moment please," the man disappeared for quite some time before returning with a map, a very detailed one actually, with a mark over a place there. "Here, this mark is the place of the shrine," he said as he gave the map to Islinda.

"thanks," she replied, politely, before turning and gave the map to Eli. As the two went outside, Islinda stressed over the point of telling James again as she said:

"You shouldn't leave before telling James, alright?"

"S- Sure, I won't leave before telling him," Eli lied, as she had the strength to face anyone, but not James.

James had a very special place in her heart, making her unable to stand in front of him and hid her true feelings and emotions. For her she wanted just to throw herself in his embrace and cry, cry until her soul wither from pain and guilt.

But this way wasn't the right way to redeem herself; she had to dedicate herself to the light again. this was the way she only knew about.

"Good, I will leave you now as I have many things in waiting," Islinda said before finally turning away, making Eli sigh a long and deep sigh of relief.

As the two girls went different ways, the man inside the archive noticed everything that happened, hurriedly returned inside the archive, grabbed a communicating screen stored carefully under many records before pressing on a button and sending one short message.

"I have sent you a pure white lamp, belonging to the shrine of light. Make sure to twist her well, and make her turn into a black wolf worthy of the shrine of darkness."

Then he sent the message away, before smiling in content. This day was deemed to be a turning point in the lives of everyone, without them noticing that what simply happened here had such a devastating effect on all of their future.

Eli didn't inform James by her decision or even left a farewell note to him; she simply vanished and when James asked about her a couple of days later, he was shocked to learn about her bold decision.

He didn't comment despite ordering Rigo to dispatch secret agents to monitor that shrine. Everyone felt nothing wrong here, except James who had this strange worrying hunch about this incident.

Despite that he was totally immersed in his own affairs, and this incident was doomed to be forgotten for such a long time, before it would return to the surface at a very decisive moment later one.

The next day, James went on a wide check tour on all the planets. He made sure everything went according to plan. He was also quite pleased by the deals Rigo had made, as the numbers of soldiers under his command started to well up, counting tens of thousands now, enough to arm a thousand ships fleet.

"Give the green light to Islinda, let's amass enough ships for these boys," James didn't delay to support them, as he wanted these soldiers to be combat ready at any time.

"We have enough fighters for them," Rigo suggested, instead of buying ships, they use these soldiers for the large, unused fleet of fighters they had.

"Then what about tomorrow's batch? Next week's batch?" James asked, "we need to be ready. Just start forming a second fleet, each one must have from five hundred to one thousand ships, led by a large cruiser," he added, drawing the general and latest warfare tactics to his own fleet.

"Affirmative," Rigo just replied, as he had to comply with his leader's wishes.

The next few days proved James' vision to be true. The number of their soldiers just kept escalating day by day, and eventually their fighters and cruisers were completely filled with soldiers, and even the newly bought one thousand cruisers were also filled partly with them.

It was a race against time, with the trade going smoothly as they expected, with much more trade happening here than ever, benefitting from the offer James had offered to merchants here.

That increased the total revenue of James, and also the variety of goods had increased exponentially, giving them the opportunity to choose between many races, even between some famous cruisers' models.

The more merchants came here, the more lively the place had become, and that made the planets look more crowded than before, and also more dangerous.

James asked the newly recruited soldiers to be led by his droids, and start to patrol the area, inside and outside these planets. He also made many disguises as normal clients, walked into the streets, used the previous experience of Islinda to gather intel.

Things were going smoothly, especially when he hadn't found any source of unrest or troubles for the past two weeks.

But after two week of reigning control over this place, and his fleet had grown to two sub fleets, each were led by a large cruiser, and a fleet of one thousand cruisers, the first major problem happened.

James was inside the main throne hall, enjoying reading the latest reports sent from Islinda and Rigo while bathing in sunlight. A servant moved with haste, and some nervousness on his face, as he hurriedly to say:

"My lord, there is an emergency in the back garden of the palace."

James looked at him in a strange way, as this palace was highly secured by Rigo's droids, and the latest spying detection tech they ever found here in black market.

"Just tell me what's there," he said, with no much care for the matter.

"A strange hole appeared there, my lord, people said it was like a black hole, which would absorb everything here," he said, with a sharp trembling move of fear that didn't escape James' vision.

"Oh, then led the way," James said, as he pressed some buttons on the screen he was holding in hand, as he sent a message for Rigo to come here. he exited the throne hall, passed through some long and complex corridor of the palace, ending up in the large back garden of this palace.

Once there, James could hear the ruckus from far, as many servants were running, with pale faces and panicked looks. He walked in faster steps, running towards the direction everyone came from.

As he reached there, he was met by a large ball of deep blue, with arcs of lightning dancing around its edges. James noticed that some servants tried to touch it, but apparently that didn't end up well for them.

Behind James came his personal bodyguards, ten very experienced droids, and once they reached him, they shielded him with their weapons, which was now pointed towards this strange ball.

"Orders, my leader," one of them said, as he waited for James' commands.

"Hey," James didn't reply to this droid, as he yelled at one of the freaked out servants, "did anyone try to attack it before?" he asked.

"Yes, these servants did," the servant boy replied, as he suddenly identified James' face, but the fear he felt was overwhelming more than his fear from James.

"Then we have to wait," he said, ordering his men to stand back a little, as attacking this ball seemed not to be the right decision to make.

A brief message suddenly kicked in from Islinda, as she notified him with the appearance of strange risky balls all over the planets.

"Don't attack the balls, just surround them and send for Rigo to deploy reinforcements," he hurriedly sent to her, as he knew she might order her own patrolling guards to attack the balls.

He then looked at the ball in front of him, and muttered:

"What are you exactly? And who sent you?"

These phenomenon kept occurring at many places around the planets under James' control. Per his orders, Rigo dispatched a good part of the fleet soldiers to surround and be ready for anything that might pop out of these balls.

Rigo then came to James, with a serious look on his face.