Crack… BOOM!!
As if some ancient seal had been undone, the void thundered with the sound of countless coffins opening and glaciers shattering.
"Those who trespass upon my dominion—shall be judged!"
"What a stench… more of those filthy insects?"
"Oh? Old Tomdehan, you're not dead yet?"
"By my star-god, you old fossil still reeks of the same foul mouth!"
"Enough, you two—save your bickering. Let's give our 'guests' a proper welcome…"
Hoarse, timeworn shouts—thick with battle lust—rolled across the stars.
One after another, mighty auras woke from long slumber, welling up from every quarter of the void—from shattered meteor hearts, from seams between time and space.
Some wore archaic plate; some had only spectral souls; some were the titanic remains of star-beasts animated once more…
But without exception, each presence was at least Astral Archmage in strength—and many, though aged, still burned with the power of Starfield Lords.
They were the Ancient Guardians, who across the epochs had chosen sleep to stand ready against the Calamity.
"Kill!!"
Without hesitation, these venerable heroes flung themselves at the Calamity legions, burning the last sparks of their life-fire in fearless charge.
Their strikes were savage and absolute; every blow might hasten their final end—and yet they did not waver.
At that same moment—a pillar of gold, majestic as heaven's own decree, burst without warning from the deep rear of the coalition lines.
Where it swept, Abyssal Demons shrieked and fled as if before their nemesis, their forms dissolving; even the Void Zerg's maddening psychic keening was crushed into silence.
From within that radiance, a figure stepped forth—the figure of a sovereign.
He wore platinum armor through which liquid holy flame seemed to flow.
The imperial eagle and star-totems engraved upon it stirred as if alive.
In his hand was a longsword of unadorned make.
The twilight weariness left by wounds and years vanished from him in an instant, replaced by boundless vitality and unimpeachable majesty.
Weather still marked his face, but in the eyes he opened anew blazed a golden fire brighter than a star's core.
Soladin, Emperor of the Luminous Empire, had returned to the field.
"Y—Your Majesty?!"
"It's His Imperial Majesty!"
"His Majesty is healed! Bless the Empire! Bless the cosmos!!"
Across the Empire's fleets and lines—within ships and amidst the melee alike—soldiers wept openly, shouting prayers that shook the heavens.
For the Empire, the Emperor was more than power—he was faith, the pillar of their spirit.
Soladin's gaze moved calmly over the carnage, settling at last upon an abyssal warlord radiating the peak of the Starfield Lord realm.
The demon wore burning bone-plate and hefted a saw-toothed greatsword wreathed in the wails of tormented souls.
It was the commander of this incursion—Boneburner Marduk.
Marduk felt that hated, heart-stirring holy light and halted mid-rampage, crimson pupils locking upon Soladin.
"Hmm?"
"So the dying old turtle of the Luminous Empire dares to crawl from his shell?"
"Good. I'll offer your soul to the great Abyssal Sovereign."
Soladin did not answer.
He simply raised his sword.
As his hand lifted, the holy light coursing over him drew inward, pouring entirely into the blade.
The plain steel turned translucent, as if condensed from the pure law of judgment itself.
At its tip, a point of gold kindled—small as a seed, bright as a miniature sun.
"Imperial Sword—Judgment."
He spoke softly, like an oath from the first dawn—and thrust.
No world-rending blast, no gaudy rift-torn spectacle—only a single hair-fine line of gold, honed to the utmost, whispering toward Marduk.
The demon's pupils pin-pricked.
It felt death descend.
With a roar, it swung the saw-blade crosswise, abyssal force surging into a wall of solid night.
Countless warped soul-phantoms shrieked upon the shield, striving to stop what seemed a modest strike.
But—
Shiiiik—
Like a hot knife through butter, the golden thread pierced the dark bastion, then Marduk's flaming bone armor, then the abyss-forged flesh beneath.
Marduk froze.
Disbelieving, it looked down at the hole blooming in its chest—its edges licking with holy flame.
That fire behaved like a living thing, feeding greedily on demonic flesh and soul, racing outward without end.
"N—No… impossible!"
Its howl broke into ragged despair.
The massive body began to collapse from within, unraveling into a storm of golden cinders—and then was gone, not a wisp of miasma left behind.
One strike.
With just one stroke, a peak Starfield Lord demon—one that would have cost the coalition dearly—was erased as if it had never been.
For a heartbeat, the battlefields nearby fell silent.
Demons, Zerg, and coalition alike stared, stunned by the impossible.
Soladin lowered his sword, expression tranquil—as if he'd done nothing of note.
Only he knew the truth.
After drinking the "Dew of Eternal Dawn" that Leo had provided, his old wounds had not merely healed—he had brushed the very barrier of the Starfield Lord realm.
That thrust had carried more than the power of judgment; within it ran a nascent thread of a higher law of order he had just begun to grasp.
Its might was far beyond what he once wielded.
His eyes lifted past the chaos toward darker, greater shadows.
"Silent too long… it seems certain beings have forgotten the Empire's edge."
His voice brooked no dissent.
"Then today—let your blood re-forge the Empire's glory."
At his word, holy light burst from him anew—a sunrise born upon the battlefield—and he hurled himself straight into the densest knot of Calamity lords.
His return was the strongest tonic the coalition could have dreamed of, a thunderbolt through their hearts.
The Empire's radiance would once more illumine this dark star-sea.
"Starsea Civilization—immortal evermore!"
"May the Mother of Stars shine eternal!"
"For Dalton!"
"For the future—charge!"
Carried by that solemn, heroic fervor, warriors of every civilization surged forward again.
Under the ferocious counterattack of the Ancient Guardians and the assembled champions, the coalition at last held beneath the pressure of the Calamity lords.
Across the allied front, morale soared.
…