Chapter 196 The Approaching Storm (3) Augustus looked at the long lines of soldiers and Armaments moving below, as plentiful as ants. The Empire had Trillions of Troops at the First Great Circle, and they could easily replenish that number from the many worlds under the Empire. The Territory of Third Circle Dominators could sustain life, so it was unknown the true number of soldiers the Empire could field at a time. Seeing the lines of troops, Augustus went into the habit of counting them by the thousands to keep his mind busy as the flying carriage took him to his destination. He stopped counting when he reached a million. Yet the question still troubled Augustus, why this response? A single Third Great Circle Dominator should be enough to hunt down Rowan. Augustus sighed and chose to forget for the time, about the games of the strong, while he contemplated his escape, he had no doubt they would be able to track his departure, he had left too many details that a careful inspection would reveal, but if he could escape Trion, the universe was opened to him, and he knew of other powers he could sell his knowledge to that would bring him tangible benefits, after all, the Pathway of Dominion was not the only paths to power. There were many Major Worlds out there, and he could start anew, and make something of himself, to tell the truth, something about the method Rowan had effortlessly killed had haunted him all these while. For a Dominator of his age and power that should not be possible, as he had fought in so many battles to be discouraged by a single loss, but he suspected that his Spirit had also been subtly corrupted when he fought Rowan. What sort of bloodline does he have? It took an hour for the carriage to reach the docks for spaceships primarily responsible for hauling cargo. Merigold was one of the biggest ships of her Class, and was currently holding twenty-two thousand people apart from the various cargoes she shipped around the Empire. Augustus would not be making the trip with any of the passengers but with the Cargo. It would not be a pleasant experience squeezed in with crates of goods and carted around to the ends of the Empire, but he would survive, and he would thrive. With his time as one of the candidates for the position of Ancestor of the Tiberius family, he was able to gather an impressive amount of wealth, both legally and with less than legal methods. He had sequestered riches on many planets of the Empire, he would slowly regain what he had lost. After dropping from the carriage, he headed to the Spaceship that was already primed; it was shaped like an overturned bowl with five spots of thrusters blowing out blue flames. Augustus could not help himself, and he began feeling a brief burst of optimism. He always followed his instincts and he felt good about this trip. A weight he had been feeling drowning his Spirit was slowly being eased, and he had begun breathing easier, as the infectious good energy of the surrounding crowd that were waiting to board the ship infected him, and Augustus forgot for a while he was mingling with peasants and worthless scums, and he began laughing. He had all the necessary documents needed to board, and he was quickly sent aboard. He maneuvered to the area of the ship responsible for holding Cargo and the number of people around him slowly dropped to zero, and he walked in a dim passageway with bad lights. Augustus walked down the long hallway with hundreds of doors that led to various storage rooms. He proceeded to a seemingly random door and opened it with a key. The locks had been changed and except for him and his backups, no one else had the key. Inside the room was filled with clothes, carefully packaged and arranged according to their colors. After going past multiple rows of clothes, he reached the last row and pushed the clothes by the side to reveal a hidden door which he opened with another key he collected from the Spatial Ring. Inside the room was dark, it had been cloaked with Runes, so he expected the darkness. Augustus could hear breathing coming from the room. He entered and shut the door behind him, and he smiled when he felt the ship begin taking off. He sat down on the floor and sighed, before he suddenly paused. There was something very wrong here, his heartbeat began going crazy and his intuition for danger was going insane. Everything had been superb for a while, before suddenly changing, as if he was just allowed to begin noticing the wrongness. Almost like a cat who was now weary of toying with the mouse and was about to feed. The first indicator was the breathing. The sounds he was hearing seemed like it were coming from multiple people, but closer listening would reveal it was coming from only one person. There should be five people here with him! That person had stopped disguising himself. This should be the game of Absomet, she would love doing something like this, waiting for him to make all his plans, then dashing them to pieces while laughing in his face. He had the key to unlock the cloaking Rune, and with an uneasy heart, he activated it and light flooded back into the room, and he paused, he was mistaken. Augustus had seen a lot in his life, but something about this scene disturbed him in ways he had thought had forgotten. He rapidly took in the scene and began moving backward towards the door Everyone inside the Room was dead, they were killed by someone twisting their heads around. The bodies were lying face down, but their faces were looking at their backs, and a man with white hair that reached the ground was on one knee as he was eating the bodies. He did not acknowledge the now bright room, as he dragged a body of a female by the neck and began eating through her stomach, clothes and all, making sucking sounds as he swallowed the innards. His mouth was opened abnormally wide, not because it was made to work like that, but because this man had stretched his mouth opened so wide the side of his face was ripped apart, as yellow blood flowed down his face. He, however, did not seem to care. Augustus knew who this person was, and he was the last person he would want to meet in his current state. He reached the door, his hand questing for the lock as he refused to look away from the figure eating the bodies, when a guttural voice stopped him, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. The safest place on this ship is here with me." Augustus had no habit of listening to Abominations, even if this one was a Champion, he opened the door and rushed out, the ship should have not left the atmosphere. He may survive the jump, anyway death would be better than to be stuck in this ship. An hour later, a bleeding and battered Augustus with a missing right arm and part of his face chewed away returned to the room and shut the door, blocking out the hellish sounds coming behind him. Through the slight gap that was revealed before he shut the doors, yellow eyes in their hundreds filled the room The Abomination Champion had finished eating everyone inside the room; he was holding a leg, which he took small bites from as he chewed. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦 "I told you. The safest place is here with me." Augustus felt a flash of pain from his left hand, and turned to see his arm from the shoulder had disappeared in a spray of blood. The Abomination Champion had not moved, but now he was holding Augustus twitching left hand. "Pardon me." He said almost shyly, "I'm still starving." The armless Augustus collapsed on the floor and began to scream.