Chapter 399: Decontamination first.

A crisp, polite mechanical voice rang directly inside Zyra’s head:

[Host, I can lock the spatial frequency. Would you like me to proceed with frequency locking?]

"Yes please Beauty, thank you." Zyra answered.

[Understood. Please insert the key into the ship’s core, activate the mechanism, and leave the rest to your lovely and capable System. Before we go any further, I would like to know how this will benefit the beasts.]

"Well Beauty we need to get inside and see." Zyra answered, "This is a space ship from a beast world remember? Maybe, there are poor beast eggs inside in need of rescuing. Or, a beast training manual that can help humans deal with ferocious beasts and corrupt ones." She knocked on the ship with her knuckles. "Now, Beauty."

She stepped closer to the metal hull of the ship, found the glowing keyhole slot, and slammed the star device inside, twisting it with all her strength until she heard a click.

For a second, absolute silence hung in the air.

Then, the bright glow on the key’s surface suddenly snapped off, fading into dull, lifeless resonance stone.

Hunter gasped. "Did it work?"

Before Zyra could answer him, the giant spaceship violently shuddered. A loud hiss of escaping pressurized air echoed through the room, and with a heavy metallic groan, the ship doors slowly began to move upwards!

Before either of them could take a single step inside, the white lights overhead instantly flushed a violent, blinding red.

"Warning! Warning!" a mechanical voice blared from the ceiling, sounding like a very angry, computerized auntie. "Dark energy detected."

A thick grid of red laser light swept down from the ceiling, scanning Hunter from his head to his boots.

"Subject Identified: Contaminated Orakun," the ship’s system announced loudly. "Emergency protocol activated. Subject must proceed to the prison medical center immediately for automatic decontamination before permanent vein rot occurs."

Hunter froze, blinking at the ceiling. He slowly turned to Zyra, looking completely lost. "What is this machine talking about?"

Zyra nodded, looking totally unbothered. "Beauty told me the exact same thing earlier. She said your body is swimming in dark energy, it is not severe but I guess the situation has progressed since then."

"What?!" Hunter stared off into space, scratching his back nervously. He hitched up his left pant leg and looked down. There, right above his ankle, was a tiny, razor-thin white scar_ the souvenir left behind by that nasty beast back at the ghost mines. It hadn’t swelled up, it hadn’t turned green, and it didn’t even hurt. He hadn’t given it a second thought. But clearly, that little scratch was the front door for all his body aches.

He looked at Zyra, thoroughly confused. "I didn’t even know humans could get infected with dark energy."

Zyra shook her head. "They can’t."

Hunter’s brow furrowed so deep it looked like a plowed field. He didn’t even need to speak; the huge "What do you mean" was written all over his face.

Reading his mind, Zyra smirked. "You’re not all human, Hunter."

Hunter gasped so hard he nearly choked on his own spit. "Of course I’m human! What are you talking about?! If anyone in this group is an alien, it’s you! You’re the one walking around with a cheat-code alien buddy in your head!"

Zyra chuckled and held up her hands playfully. "Hey, I’m totally fine with being the cool cheat-code girl. But facts are facts. You’re a Beast Man_ an Orakun. Just like that big guy we killed outside Beast Valley."

"Attention contaminated Orakun," the ship system blared again, interrupting them. "Stop standing there like a stick in the mud. Move your butt to the medical center before the dark energy makes you lose your mind."

For a moment, they paused the back and forth and turned to the ship with surprise on their faces.

"Did I mishear it?" Hunter asked.

Zyra shook her head as she motioned toward the open doorway. "You heard the loud lady. Get inside. I guess your people have a great sense of humor."

"They are not my people." Hunter snapped. None the less, he stepped over the threshold. Then he stopped and turned back to her with narrowed eyes. "I need to know everything that you know about me. How am I even Orakun?"

"I did not give birth to you Hunter," Zyra said, rolling her eyes. "I don’t know the full story, but from what Trinity said...obviously there are people out there that have the answers that you seek."

"Trinity mentioned something about my father," Hunter muttered, rubbing his chin. "It has to be connected to him..."

Zyra sighed, her playful tone dropping for just a second. "We can just force Trinity to reveal everything that she knows by using the oath sap."

"I will give my father the chance to come clean first." Hunter said

Zyra nodded in understanding. "Just to put all our facts on the table... Orakuns are basically the same thing as Somnivores."

Hunter laughed for a few seconds, until he realized she was serious. "Somnivores!? No shit. Great. Awesome. So I’m basically an evil monster. That makes me feel so much better about myself. I do not even get it...I have never seen one physically but I have seen pictures of them in books and I do not look like them."

[Hmmm... The resemblance is there. Maybe he didn’t get their perfect eyesight.] Beauty said sarcastically.

Zyra shrugged casually. "I only know this much. And FYI, this will not change anything between us. You don’t need to draft the imaginary divorce papers just yet. My contract is still valid. Human Hunter and Orakuns Hunter are both mine."

Hunter let out a long, dramatic breath that sounded like a deflating tire. "I would feel more confident if we were legally married." He looked at the bright lights inside the ship.

"Where is the medical center...Ma’am." Zyra asked.

"The name is warden Trixy, follow the arrows on the wall alien female species." came the mechanic voice.

Hunter choked back a laugh, while Zyra huffed. Outside the ship, Hunter was the alien. Inside, she was the alien! How quickly the tables turned.

As they stepped deeper into the vessel, the scale of the prison spaceship finally hit them. It was unlike anything they had ever seen, yet structured like a high rising pagoda built with glowing metals, levitating platforms.

The ship wasn’t just a big metal tube. It was built in big, circular vertical rings, floating endlessly upward and downward into the shadows. Each ring represented a different "Prison Level," sealed by force fields.

Level 1, where they walked, looked like a futuristic high-security lobby. Hover-drones shaped like floating metallic eyeballs drifted past them, ignoring the visitors. Above them, suspended in mid-air without any ropes or pillars, were transparent empty cells.

Look at the armory no wonder the Somnivore want this thing back," Hunter grumbled, ducking his head as a small cleaning bot swooped past his nose, spraying a sweet-smelling mint mist over him as if he could contaminate the place. "Even the cleaning devices are aggressive."

The floor beneath them was obsidian-like glass that hummed under their boots. Every time Hunter took a step, tiny pulse waves of white light rippled outward from his feet, as if the ship itself was constantly testing his body weight.

"It looks like we are here." Hunter said, pointing at the door labeled Decontamination & Beast dissection. "I don’t like the dissection part, considering that Beauty has called me a beast on more than one occasion. What do you think it means?"