Arthur's mind reeled. This star shouldn't exist—not by any physical laws he knew.
Yet, the universe had a way of bending its own rules, supplemented by magic and forces making up the fabric of existence.
So despite every instinct screaming that this was impossible, there it was before him, as real as any other celestial body he had encountered.
The Star of Lightning pulsed again, arcs of electricity surging across its surface in violent, chaotic bursts, casting shadows into space.
Arthur could only assume this was something entirely unique to this universe. It had to be.
A quiet sense of awe settled over him as he finally found his words.
"I'll admit… I wasn't expecting this."
"I told you we were going for a ride," Jamie responded with a wide grin.
Beside them, Evan shook his head in silence. This wasn't his first time seeing the Star of Lightning, but it was no less staggering, especially now that he was when being yeeted across spacetime.
Even from this distance, the star's full grandeur dominated their field of vision.
"I don't understand…" Arthur murmured.
"How something so ridiculously big could exist? Don't worry, you're not alone."
Evan's response brought a wry smile to Arthur's lips, but the sentiment rang true.
Everything Arthur knew—the laws of physics, the mechanics of gravity, the natural limits of celestial bodies—told him this should be impossible.
And yet, here it was.
Radiating lightning instead of plasma, its size dwarfing even the largest supergiant stars he had ever seen.
Jamie turned to him, a knowing smile spreading across his face as he laughed, the sound familiar, yet strangely disarming.
"Even I was surprised when I first arrived in this universe, hundreds of millions of years ago. I saw this, and trust me—it left me speechless.
It defies logic, doesn't it? I spent ages trying to understand it, and the more I learned, the more I marvelled at its existence."
Arthur's thoughts churned as Jamie's continued.
"Take a closer look around its edges. Focus. You'll see a few of 'them'."
'Them?'
What could Jamie possibly be talking about? —Arthur thought. At Jamie's prompting, Arthur focused his gaze on the periphery of the crackling, electric star.
The blinding radiance drowned out almost everything else, making it difficult to discern anything beyond its overwhelming glow. But as he sharpened his senses and adjusted to the dazzling light, something else came into view.
At first, it was hard to make out. But as Arthur adjusted his vision to the blinding electric radiance of the Star of Lightning, he began to discern the silhouettes—entire stars, smaller than the supergiant yet immense by any normal measure, locked in orbit around it.
They moved, massive and luminous in their own right, yet utterly insignificant in comparison to the behemoth at the centre of it all.
"How? How could stars—stars with their own gravity wells, their own star systems—possibly be held in orbit around something like this?"
Jamie met his gaze and answered without hesitation.
"It's not just gravity, Arthur. The laws here are... supplemented.
Cosmic energy and magic twist the fabric of space around the Star of Lightning. Its gravity alone isn't strong enough to hold entire stars like that—not without pulling on something more.
This star taps into mass and energy from other dimensions, pulling at forces that don't abide by your conventional understanding of physics. It draws on that mass, reinforcing its gravitational pull with power far beyond what we'd normally expect.
That's how those other stars—entire systems, in fact—stay in stable orbits around it."
Arthur's expression remained incredulous, but he knew Jamie's words held truth. He could see the way cosmic energy twisted and flowed unnaturally around the star.
The Star of Lightning wasn't just a supergiant by size. It was a supergiant by virtue of its ability to manipulate cosmic energy.
Cosmic energy intertwined with the fundamental universal laws, and this star had become a nexus where two of those laws merged, shaping the fabric of spacetime.
'Reaching into unseen dimensions, anchoring itself by pulling on mass from realities beyond this one...'
That's what allowed it to accomplish the impossible—to hold other stars, entire star systems, in a stable orbit.
These smaller stars weren't just drawn to its overwhelming mass; they were tethered by the vast cosmic energy radiating from it, bound in a delicate yet immensely powerful equilibrium.
It was a perfect harmony. A fusion of cosmic energy with the universal laws of space, time, and gravity, creating a cosmic dance where stars themselves moved as though they were no more than planets orbiting the sun.
Jamie's explanation made far less sense to Evan than it did to Arthur. But that wasn't surprising—Evan had no comprehension of Universal Laws, the same laws that allowed Arthur to understand Jamie's words.
He was also incapable of perceiving cosmic energy.
'Cosmic energy, huh? I certainly want to have it...'
He clenched his empty fist as the thought crossed his mind, while Jamie continued speaking.
"You see it now, don't you?"
Jamie's voice carried a note of satisfaction as he observed Arthur's dawning realization.
"The Star of Lightning isn't just the centre of this part of the galaxy because of its size. It's a gravitational well fed by magic and cosmic energy from across dimensions.
This is one of the great wonders of the Valmone universe."
Arthur nodded slowly, still processing the sheer scale of what he was witnessing.
For a moment, silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant, crackling roar of the lightning-infused supergiant. Then Jamie spoke again.
"The best part?"
His tone was far too casual for what followed.
"This star hasn't even gone 'supergiant' yet."
"…" "…"
Arthur and Evan stared at Jamie in stunned silence. Then, in perfect sync, they blinked, their brows furrowing as their minds scrambled to process what they had just heard.
"Wait, what?"
Arthur finally spoke, his voice catching slightly. At the sight of his dumbfounded expression, Jamie just burst into laughter, offering no immediate explanation.
They both understood what Jamie had said, but truly processing it was another matter entirely.
This star was larger than anything they had ever seen, a celestial behemoth that defied universal laws as they understood them. Entire stars orbited it, trapped within its immense gravitational pull.
And yet, somehow, it hadn't even entered the supergiant phase?
Arthur shook his head, struggling to impose logic onto the absurdity.
"By normal standards, that thing shouldn't even be able to hold its own weight. It should collapse.
It should be collapsing right now, turning into a black hole."
His voice carried pure disbelief, and Jamie finally managed to stifle his laughter, responding with a grin.
"But it's not collapsing, it's holding its own weight.
Size-wise, it is bigger than supergiants, but it hasn't yet reached the supergiant phase of its life cycle."
Arthur fell silent, while Evan—who had long given up on fully grasping the explanation—half-tuned out.
Then again, he already knew what the Star of Lightning was, as well as the final missing piece needed for it to fulfil its purpose. And if there was anything about the Star he wanted to know, he had someone he could ask.
'I wonder where Kayla is now. Would Danger Sense act up if I got close to her like it did with Dad?
Come to think of it, there was that benefactor she mentioned. With the way she acted, and what I know now… their identity is pretty obvious.
I'm just curious about their first meeting…'
While Evan was lost in thought, Arthur finally spoke again, his voice quieter this time, as if the words had been drawn from some hidden realization.
"Jamie, if that thing were to go supergiant and collapse... the kind of black hole it would form—"
"It would form a black hole with a mass equal to that of the one exactly 136,000 light-years behind us. Right there, behind that band of stars."
Jamie cut in, finishing Arthur's thought. At his words, the two boys turned in the direction Jamie indicated.
Their eyes settled on the massive band of light stretching across space—a dense cluster of stars so tightly packed that it carved through the darkness like a blade.
The sheer concentration of light made it nearly impossible to distinguish one star from another, forming a luminous ribbon of galactic brilliance.
By all known logic, the only force capable of keeping something like that in place, creating such a dense region of stars, was the galaxy's core itself.
Evan lazily glanced between the Star of Lightning and the core region of stars, his nonchalant demeanour not escaping Jamie's watch.
'I guess he already knows about it.'
With that thought, Jamie shifted his attention to Arthur, the boy from another universe who was only just beginning to grasp the truth.
Jamie voiced it before Arthur could even put it into words.
"If the Star of Lightning were to collapse, it would form a black hole as big as the core of this galaxy."
"No..."
Arthur shook his head, disbelief flashing across his face.
"That shouldn't be possible. You can't have two supermassive black holes of that size in the same galaxy."
He wasn't wrong, and Jamie nodded in agreement. Under normal stellar mechanics, it shouldn't be possible.
But this star had already proven it didn't operate under normal mechanics.
The fact that it was pulling mass from other dimensions was already a violation of universal logic.
Arthur's mind raced.
"Wait up…it pulling stellar mass from elsewhere…is that to prepare itself for when it eventually goes supergiant?"
"Exactly.
When the time comes and it finally reaches the point where it can no longer hold itself together, it'll collapse.
But the collapse won't just create a normal black hole. It will pull in all of the mass from these surrounding stars, drawing on their material to fuel the formation of a supermassive black hole."
Jamie's response to Arthur's question made the boy's mind spin as the pieces began to fall in place.
He began to understand that the Star of Lightning was a machine—a self-sustaining engine pulling in stellar material over time, preparing for an inevitable collapse that would birth something as powerful and destructive as the very core of the galaxy.
And when it did collapse, it would become the new Core.
Realizing this, Arthur exhaled a quiet curse.
"…fucking ridiculous."
"Indeed, it is!"
Jamie laughed, his tone brimming with satisfaction at Arthur's expression. The man acted like a kid who'd just pulled off a successful prank.
Taking a deep breath, he launched into a detailed explanation.
"If, for some reason, the current galactic core of this galaxy, Orithya, were to falter or die out, the Star of Lightning's black hole would take its place.
It's like a contingency—a second core to keep the galaxy stable for unthinkable stretches of time.
This star is supposed to go sup ergiant and collapse into a black hole only if the black hole in the core of the Orithya galaxy starts losing mass.
You know that galaxies aren't immortal, not by a long shot. Over time, the black hole in the centre begins losing mass and, when it can no longer hold all the stars around the over 500,000 light-years around it together, that's when the plan kicks in.
The Star of Lightning will start drawing in the surrounding stellar mass to reach the critical point."
'Eh?'
Evan had barely been paying attention to their discussion, his mind preoccupied with why he had even agreed to follow them into space in the first place. However, as the final parts of Jamie's explanation reached his ears, something caught his attention.
His brows furrowed while Arthur, eyes fixed on the crackling star in the distance, repeated a portion of Jamie's words.
"This entire process is being set up, not for now, but for an inevitable future event. A backup plan if the galaxy's black hole gives out…this is the first of its kind I've seen."
"Exactly. The Star of Lightning is going to collect more mass and more energy, and once it's gathered enough, it'll go supergiant.
And when it finally collapses? That collapse will form a black hole large enough to replace the current galactic core.
It's designed to become the new core of the galaxy. That's why it's so close."
They were over 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's centre, but on a Universal scale, that was incredibly close.
But besides that, Evan focused on Jamie's words, hearing the same phrase again—confirming that he hadn't misheard the first time.
'It's entirely possible for planets to orbit black holes. Stars can do the same.
I had assumed that once the SoL became the galaxy's new core, those stars would simply continue their orbits like normal.'
However, Jamie's explanation revealed something Evan hadn't known—the fact that the SoL would draw in surrounding stellar mass to increase its own.
'For the surrounding stars to remain in stable orbit even after it becomes a black hole, it would need to retain the exact same mass. That much is obvious, even without comprehending any laws.
But if its mass increases… things won't stay the same.'
Turning toward Jamie, Evan spoke in a measured tone.
"Jamie."
The man glanced at him, a brow raised in curiosity. He had already concluded that Evan understood the true purpose of the SoL, so he wondered what kind of question the boy could have for him.
"You said it's going to 'start drawing in the surrounding stellar mass to reach the critical point', right?"
"Yeah."
"The 'Surrounding Stellar Mass' means the stars around it, right?"
"Definitely."
Evan's brows furrowed deeply, and his tone darkened.
"As far as I know, there are planets around those stars orbiting the SoL. Entire Interstellar Empires with trillions of people. Higher type civilizations and all."
Kayla mentioned this when she explained how she had freed herself from the SoL. And those empires were now the centre of Evan's questions.
"What's gonna happen to them?"
"…"
Jamie didn't answer.