The cancers of the universe part 2

As the Golden Hind sailed through the void of space, the crew kept a watchful eye out for any signs of danger. They were on high alert, still reeling from their recent encounter with the Araknes corsairs. But despite their caution, they were caught off guard when two more Araknes pirate ships emerged from behind a nearby asteroid, launching a surprise attack.

The captain of the group, Gishk, stood tall on the deck of the lead ship. He commanded the other ship to cut the Golden Hind off from escaping. The other ship, out of fear, quickly followed orders and moved to intercept.

"You feel that?" Satifa asked Rufus.

"Yeah. There is a powerful being aboard one of those ships," Rufus answered, feeling a strong divine aura.

Gishk leaped off the vessel, creating wings from wax that allowed him to fly through space. He gestured to his crew, and they began to launch a barrage of harpoons at the Golden Hind.

Rufus leaped off the ship to defend it. He spread his own wings and flew into the fray, ready to take on Gishk. The two clashed in a fierce battle, their divine powers clashing in a dazzling display of energy. Gishk unleashed his powers, creating weapons made from wax, like spears and swords, while Rufus countered with his divine spheres and powerful blasts of energy.

The battle was intense, with Rufus dodging and weaving through the projectiles launched by Gishk and his crew, while simultaneously unleashing his powers to defend the Golden Hind and its crew.

Rufus summoned ten divine spheres and let them loose, forcing Gishk to flee for a moment. But Gishk, fueled by anger, showed Rufus a new trick using his divine power. Wax flowed from his hands and as it dripped, it expanded and formed into clones of himself.

"This ain't good," Rufus pondered.

The clones of the Araknes captain flew to attack Rufus, who was too slow to summon more divine spheres. He was forced to battle the clones head-on, using his winds to destroy them. As Rufus was getting surrounded, he was saved when locusts flew at the wax clones.

"Rufus, get back now. We need you to defend our ship from the other vessel. It is trying to cut us off," Queen Satifa yelled, using her locusts to give Rufus time to escape.

Rufus then flew back, but the locusts couldn't hold the clones for long. The wax simply melted onto the locusts, peeling them off.

As the Golden Hind raced towards Isra, the crew could feel their hearts pounding with fear and adrenaline. The Araknes pirate ships were hot on their tail, launching a relentless barrage of harpoons and projectiles at the Golden Hind. Rufus, with his divine powers, fought bravely as a rear guard, deflecting the attacks with powerful blasts of energy and summoning divine spheres to protect the ship.

But just as the crew thought all hope was lost, a massive flying structure appeared on the horizon, creating a shadow that enveloped both the Golden Hind and the two Araknes ships. The crew stared in awe at the towering structure, equipped with heavy artillery and towers similar to that of a castle or a fortress.

"What is that?!" they exclaimed as they all looked in awe.

"It's a flying fortress!" Doreen exclaimed, having never seen one before.

A flying fortress was an entire castle or even a city built to fly across the universe. Using large gravity stones and a powerful machine, similar to what a normal gravity ship had, but bigger, it was able to stay in the sky indefinitely. On the walls stood tens to even hundreds of Sassan warriors. Owl-looking beings that stood as tall as a human, had feathers instead of regular skin, and had an armored plate on the chest and leather underneath it. They readied composite bows and aimed at the Araknes.

The Araknes iron widow ships stopped chasing as a row of war machines took aim at their ship. From a tower, they saw a Sassanid with a divine aura as strong as the emperor Ala's.

The fortress swooped down and engaged the Araknes pirate ships, unleashing a barrage of firepower that decimated one of the ships. It shot bolts of ballista fire that had been enhanced with divinity to fly faster and create a burst of lightning on impact. Gihsk was able to deflect a few of these shots using his wax clones as shields, but he knew he was outmatched and outgunned. He soon fled with his one remaining vessel.

From the flying fortress, the sound echoed. No one knew what it meant as they didn't speak Sassanid. Suomi then answered back in the same language.

"You speak Sassan?" Rufus asked in disbelief.

"No. I used a simple spell on my tongue. Look," she said and showed her tongue where appeared divine text, "This spell is called the tongue of understanding. With it, I can communicate with all beings despite me not having to study the actual language."

"What do they want?" Amala said, readying herself to battle.

"They want us to dock at the flying fortresses harbor," Suomi explained.

"Should we," Joan said, who also was ready to fight.

"I recommend calm. They saved us so I believe we should trust them," Gadaric voiced his opinion.

The golden hind was moved to the flying fortress's harbor. There they docked and as soon as the boarding bridge was set, tens of sassanid soldiers rushed in and pointed their spears and swords at them.

"So much for trusting them," Joan said to Gadaric.

They started to examine them, going through their ship. They went underneath the hull, like none of them could be trusted.

A powerful sassan came and halted the soldiers. He was the same one Rufus and the others had felt when they spotted the flying fortress at first.

This sassanid had a black curly beard that was combed to be symmetrical. He wore an expensive-looking tunic and coat. He held in his hand a staff, which was more of a fashion statement of his status than a weapon.

The powerful sassanid leader uttered something to Rufus, who had no idea what he was saying.

"Mind translating for me?" Rufus turned to Suomi.

"I have a better solution," Suomi said and walked to Rufus and asked him to open his mouth. She took out his tongue and stretched it out.

"This might sting," Suomi said and uttered a short spell.

Rufus's tongue felt like it had touched a hot iron bar and was marked. Divine text appeared on his tongue as he yelled in agony.

"You are a sorcerer?" the Sassanid leader asked Suomi.

"I just know that spell. Nothing more," Suomi said trying to deflect the attention away from her.

"Wait, I can understand you. I can understand you all," Rufus talked in sassan tongue.

The sassan leader then looked at Rufus. He inspected his clothes and asked, "What is a powerful being such as yourself doing here?"

Rufus was a bit taken aback by the sudden questioning. He then realized he had nothing to hide and explained," I am king Rufus from the Aesis world and I am on a journey to help save my sister."

The sassan smiled," Good. I can tell when one is lying and I would have known if you were. Men, stand down. They are not a threat to us. My name is Burzin, the king of the Qajar shahdom on the world of Isra. I welcome you all to the Sassan heaven."