Lin Ye, Sagitta, Seraphina, Pisces, Astria, Ram, Capricon, and Leo himself-the nine Guardians-formed a perfect circle inside the Resonance Chamber.
Only Scopio remained seated in a corner of the room, his Scorpio Mark emitting an unstable, dark purple glow.
"Begin activating the Resonance Network," Leo announced.
In an instant, nine Constellation Marks lit up simultaneously. Their different-colored lights began weaving together into a complex energy network.
Taurus took a deep breath, and the green light of his Taurus Mark suddenly surged. His power of perseverance began extending toward the edge of the Milky Way, searching for the legendary Starlight Empire.
Gemini closed her eyes, and her Gemini Mark split into two distinct silver lights. One represented known patterns of thought, while the other tried to adapt to the conceptual structure of an unknown civilization.
"Establishing connection..." Taurus sounded tense. "It's farther away than we expected. We need more energy."
Lin Ye immediately increased the output of his Sagittarius Mark, adding the golden light of freedom to the energy network. The other Guardians also increased their Marks' power output.
Just then, the entire Heart of Freedom began shaking violently.
"Warning! The Void Ark has detected our conceptual signal!" Sagitta saw a terrifying scene on the monitoring screen.
In deep space, the tentacles covering the enormous, spherical death star began writhing wildly. Countless black conceptual distortion fields poured out of the ark, attempting to disrupt the ongoing communication.
"Our energy fluctuations are being disrupted!" Gemini reported in pain. "The enemy's conceptual noise is too strong. I can't maintain the adaptive adjustments."
Worse still, Scopio suddenly let out an agonized scream from his seat in the corner.
His Scorpio Mark began flashing wildly. The remnants of the parasite inside him had become active again under the intense Concept Resonance.
"It's calling me..." Scopio