As Adam emerged from the cocoon, his senses captured everything around him.
The deafening silence and the desolation of the ruined battlefield, everything felt so clear to him. In the distance, he could see Helmin's surface cracked and coming apart slowly. Perhaps countless years later, chunks of its broken surface would become asteroids and meteors.
Some might even crash on another planet which he hoped would not be infested by the Corpuscladis. Of course, the concern was unnecessary since every ounce of organic matter in the dead world had somehow withered away already.
In any case, that was no longer his problem. Even if the Corpuscladis resurfaced, the Corpus-Anima Mundi would be completely immune to them and would just devour them for further evolution.
Adam then began his next endeavour, the reason he was still in this region of space after devouring Helmin's core—the gigantic Corpus mothership. There was only one of its kind in this entire region, and honestly, that was all that the Corpus needed.
This thing was the size of Jupiter and had literal cities built within it. The Corpus had created a veritable mobile planet to house their population. And although this would certainly have been a great place to evacuate to during the Corpuscladis crisis, Adam knew that it was built for an entirely different purpose. This mothership was created for conquest.
The system had enlightened him a bit about the circumstances revolving around Helmin and the utter devastation that surrounded it.
The Corpus were a powerful race who were very advanced in both bioengineering and other fields of science and technology. Besides creating the Corpuscladis, they had also built a terrifying army that would have allowed them to conquer entire galaxies.
Now that he thought of it, Adam realised that had the Corpus been successful or if the Corpuscladis survived the war and managed to escape their imprisonment, then Earth would have been doomed. The Solar System was just about two months away from this place. How could no one have known that a possible apocalypse was literally so near?
Adam's expression turned absolutely grim as he realised that despite all the power and potential that he now had, he had still been getting blindsided at every turn. He needed to be more careful, but also not to be overcautious to the point of missing out on opportunities for growth.
He certainly needed to think more, especially like the case of devouring Helmin's core which, in retrospect, was a pretty stupid idea. He was just grateful that the Universe had practically saved him from such a sorry predicament.
"I should've known that thing was still alive. The Universe had already told me so when it gave me immunity against it. How foolish of me."
Resolving to do better, Adam entered the Corpus mothership through the artificial atmosphere that covered its surface. He landed in a seemingly empty city. This was only natural. No one would stand on the streets when a war was happening right outside.
He walked through the city, exploring the buildings all around. He found signs of life and habitation in most of them, but there were no bodies. It was as though everyone just left everything behind and disappeared.
After a few hours of checking most parts of the huge city, Adam decided to head to the tower at the centre whose design made it stick out among these buildings. It seemed like a beacon that still glowed with a faint blue light.
There was only one entrance into the tower, but surprisingly, it did not go up. Instead, it went deep down toward the main bulk of the mothership. Adam continued exploring the rooms he passed by, taking note of the facilities.
Most of them were lacking in power and were not functional, but the basic things were still in operation just like the lights. Although not all the lights were active either. With the dim lighting in these quiet halls, it was starting to feel like he was exploring an abandoned research facility that was only barely lit by emergency power.
There were still no bodies to be found. It was incredibly strange to the point that Adam was beginning to doubt that what happened here was just the war between the Corpus and Corpuscladis.
There was definitely something more to it than just that. The Universe likely knew that as well since its observation of the events that unfolded here had been blocked off entirely until Adam found it.
The invisible semipermeable barrier outside was likely just one of the strange things about this whole situation, and it definitely was not created by the Corpus. Someone else was involved in this grand mess, a third party whose involvement might have reached a little too deep into Corpus civilisation and perhaps even triggered the Corpuscladis crisis.
These were all just speculations by Adam as he spent more and more time exploring this giant mothership, but this speculation was soon given some veracity.
Adam arrived at a rather large facility. Well, at least it was a facility before it had been ran over by a storm. The entire place looked as though it belonged outside where the actual war had been fought rather than inside a mothership. It was like a battlefield riddled with long gashes and damages all around, from walls to ceiling and floor. But what was truly concerning was what the system told Adam next.
[Breach detected.]
[Plausible cause for obstruction has been found.]
[The Universe acknowledges your contribution and urges you to leave the area as soon as possible.]
[Breaches are rifts in the Universe's fabric of reality. They may lead to anywhere outside the scope of the Universe. Most breaches are anomalous instances that pose low to medium threat levels to the endemic population of the Universe.]
[However, there are some breaches that are deliberately created by beings from outside the Universe who wish to invade or cause chaos within the Universe. These are the most dangerous breaches with threat levels varying greatly depending on the invading force.]
[The breach you have found is of the latter category. It is an Invasive Breach that now lies dormant and is slowly mending. Threat level cannot be assessed at the moment.]
[The Universe urges you to leave the area as soon as possible.]