Inside the stasis chamber, the survivors sat still, packed tightly together. The air in the chamber was tense, even their breathing was barely audible as if any sound might alert the zerg soldiers.
Most of them huddled in small groups, clinging to each other as if physical contact could somehow shield them from what lurked above.
"Do you think they'll get suspicious…? About the boy? I mean—why would a child be alone, this deep underground?" A man in his thirties spoke, with a low and uneasy voice, his eyes on the old woman, who was sitting with her back against the wall, her eyes closed but her mind alert.
"They might," she replied calmly as she opened her eyes. "It's not the first time something like this happened." she continues with a low voice.
The tense air become tenser with her last words.
Seeing this she continued, "The weaker Zerg units, the soldiers, they only react to active life signs, and this stasis chamber isolates all forms of scans, so we are safe unless something unexpected happens."
At her words, the room seemed to exhale all at once. A few shoulders dropped. The panic softened into wary hope.
But what none of them knew, was that those mindless scouts weren't the only ones searching.
A different kind of Zerg floated calmly above the dead planet.
This was no ordinary Zerg; it was a Zerg general, unlike mindless soldier-class Zerg, who are driven only by the instinct to hunt for vitality, this general observed, questioned, and reasoned just like an intelligent creature.
And unfortunately for these survivors, this Zerg unit had such a general among them.
It resembled a massive spider with the upper body of a human female. It hovered above the planet, waiting for the scouting Zerg to return.
Seven minutes later, they finally returned with the Vitality of the young boy's.
They floated before her. One of them relayed the discovery telepathically and offered the vitality stored in his life sac.
Seeing the red liquid vitality that the Zerg soldier vomited out. She immediately pieced the clues together.
With a sharp shriek, she plunged downward, slicing through the atmosphere like a falling meteor.
She landed on the dead and cold crust of the planet with a crack that echoed for miles. Without pausing, she began digging.
Her spider-like legs moved with terrifying precision, tearing through layers of metal and stone and shredding centuries of abandoned infrastructure as if it were sand.
She tore through the ground for several minutes until she reached where the hollowed-out husk of the boy's body lay.
She looked around, taking in the now deserted bunkers. After not catching sight of life with her eyes, she extended her limited consciousness, searching again for any trace of life. In the end, she found nothing.
Meanwhile, deep inside the hidden chamber, the survivors trembled in terror.
Their eyes were wide open and unblinking, as if the slightest blink would alert the Zerg general lurking around the metallic houses to their presence.
Just as she began to turn, she heard a soft, muffled, involuntary sound.
It was the faint cry of an infant, barely audible. But for a Zerg general, it was enough.
She turned her head slowly. Her eyes lit with the quiet, cruel focus that only predators possess.
She had found them.
At that very moment, panic erupted inside the chamber. The infant's faint cry had pierced their fragile calm like a blade.
"Quiet him! NOW!"
Sharp, frantic, and desperate whispers hissed through the chamber. Some lunged toward the infant while others backed away in fear.
One man clenched his fists, his face twisted in fear. "If he keeps crying, we're all dead!" he said in a low voice.
The tension snapped. Some survivors openly debated permanently silencing the child.
The mother clutched her baby tightly and shook her head as tears ran down her cheeks.
"Please, he's just a baby, please..."
Before anyone could act, the old woman rose and moved swiftly through the chamber.
She grabbed a cloth from the corner and gently but firmly pressed it into the infant's mouth.
Although the crying stopped and silence returned no one relaxed. The chamber was still thick with dread, now turned inward.
The survivors didn't speak, but their eyes did. They stared at one another, some with fear and others with quiet fury.
Most stared at the old woman thinking, "Why hadn't she fixed the soundproofing?"
But worse still, many turned their hatred toward the parents. "Why the hell would anyone bring a kid into this kind of world?" someone whispered, voice laced with venom.
"What were they thinking?" another hissed. "Was death knocking on the door not enough? How horny do you have to be when the entire universe is falling apart?!"
A single cry, threatened to undo everything they had fought to preserve. If they were found now, their deaths would mark the end of the Greti Empire, the last surviving line of a once-great civilization.
Thud! The Zerg general's footsteps echoed.
These ominous footsteps echoed through the bunkers. The Zerg General moved slowly and deliberately toward the stasis chamber hidden deep at the back of the facility.
With each step, the survivors inside flinched. Their hearts skipped in sync. Some stood frozen in absolute terror, eyes wide and mouths dry. Others sat frozen.
Above the planet, in the void, Lex and Luna watched the scene unfold like a painting inside a crystal shard.
"When are you going to act?" Luna asked, her voice tight with tension.
"Not yet," Lex answered calmly. He stood with his arms folded, his gaze steady and cold.
"When a few of them die. When fear has eaten through their hope. When despair consumes them like an abyss," he said coldly.
"That is when I will appear. That is when the god of deliverance will descend."
He paused, then quietly corrected himself.
"No, not deliverance, but the god of the Endless End, a god who will end everything."
Luna turned to him, feeling unsettled. "Do you want more despair than this?" she asked, with a hint of disbelief in her voice.
Lex hesitated before responding. His gaze drifted toward the subterranean realm below, and in a voice that was not harsh but imbued with a deep solemnity reminiscent of ancient times and the human condition, he spoke.
"You're still young, Luna. You've seen pain. But you don't yet understand what true despair is."
Her voice dropped to a whisper as she asked, "Then what is true despair?"
Lex narrowed his eyes slightly and said, "True despair is when you scream and no one hears you."
"When you pray and no one listens. It's not dying. It's realizing you were never going to be saved. That no help is coming. Not because it's too late, but because it was never sent."
He looked down at the planet, his eyes harder now. "It's not the fall. It's hitting the ground and realizing no one noticed."
Luna stared in silence. Despite her extensive knowledge, she hadn't considered despair in that way. Not until now.
"Only when they taste that emptiness," Lex said, "will they be ready to accept me."
Far below, the Zerg general stopped just outside the chamber door.
A second passed, then—thud!
The Zerg General's leg struck the door of the chamber. A deep dent spread across the metal from a single hit