[The Veridian Sector - 24 Hours from Sanctum]
The flagship of the Crimson Syndicate, a mercenary dreadnought known as the Star-Eater, was currently trying very hard to surrender.
"We yield!" Captain Vrax screamed into the comms, watching his escort fleet burn around him. "We surrender! Please! Just stop!"
On the hull of the Stiletto, tiny compared to the dreadnought, Mali Alkahest didn't seem to hear him. Or rather, he was distracted.
He was currently holding Anya by the waist, dipping her low, his lips locked onto hers in a passionate, lingering kiss.
Around them, the battle raged—or what was left of it. A Syndicate fighter strafed the Stiletto, firing a barrage of plasma torpedoes.
Mali didn't break the kiss. He simply raised his left hand, wiggling his fingers.
[SKILL: ALKAHEST DOMINION]
[TARGET: INCOMING ORDNANCE]
[ACTION: CONVERT TO... CONFETTI]
The torpedoes didn't explode. They dissolved into a cloud of harmless, shimmering pink sparkles that rained down over the kissing couple like a celebration.
Anya pulled back, breathless, her silver eyes dancing with amusement. "Pink? Really, Sovereign?"
"I thought it set the mood," Mali grinned.
" PLEASE! " Captain Vrax sobbed over the open channel. " We accept your terms! Whatever they are! "
Anya sighed, straightening her combat suit. She looked at the massive dreadnought looming above them. "They're so loud. Should I mute them?"
"Let's leave one," Mali said, turning to face the terrified ship. "Someone has to update the wiki page."
He snapped his fingers.
A wave of golden force erupted from the Stiletto. It bypassed the Star-Eater, but it hit the three cruisers behind it. They didn't explode. They simply... ceased to be. One moment they were ships; the next, they were mathematical errors that the universe corrected by deleting.
"Go," Mali's voice boomed through the vacuum, projected by his Cosmic Axiom. "Tell the Syndicate. The lanes are closed. The King is home."
The Star-Eater turned and fled, burning its engines so hard they nearly melted.
Mali and Anya watched it go, standing hand-in-hand on the hull of their ship. They were laughing. They were invincible. The journey home had become a game, a series of dates punctuated by god-like violence.
"One day left," Anya said, squeezing his hand. "I'm almost going to miss this. Just us against the galaxy."
Mali smiled, pulling her close again. "We can always take a vacation. I hear the Andromeda galaxy is nice this time of—"
He stopped.
His smile vanished. His pupils dilated, the golden light in his irises flaring violently.
Anya felt it too. Through the ghost of the Binary Star, she felt a sudden, crushing weight slam into his soul.
"Mali?" she whispered. "What is it?"
Mali looked into the dark. He wasn't looking at the fleeing mercenaries. He was looking seventy thousand light-years away.
His Cosmic Axiom was screaming. The connection to the Thronecycle—the golden thread that tethered him to his kingdom—was vibrating.
It wasn't a distress signal. It was a death rattle.
"Sanctum," Mali breathed, his face turning pale. "The rings... they're breaking."
"Breaking?" Anya's Omniscient Eye snapped open, scanning the probabilities. "The Void? Is it another Lord?"
"No," Mali said, his voice trembling with a rage that shook the Stiletto. "It's not a Lord. It's an Armada. They're everywhere. Anya... the sky over Sanctum is black."
He turned to the airlock, dragging her with him.
"Engage the warp drive," he ordered, his voice cold as absolute zero. "Safety limits off. Burn the engine core if you have to."
"We'll arrive in 20 hours," Anya calculated, running. "If we override the safety, maybe 16."
"Make it 12," Mali growled. "Or there won't be a home to go back to."
[SANCTUM - THE THRONE-WORLD]
General Kaelen was dying.
He wasn't dead yet, but his mech—a towering, golden Scion-Class Titan named Integrity—was missing its left arm. The cockpit was full of smoke. His HUD was a sea of red warnings.
[ARMOR INTEGRITY: 14%]
[AMMUNITION: DEPLETED]
[ENEMY DENSITY: INFINITE]
He stood on the surface of the Fourth Ring. Behind him was the Imperial Spire, the heart of the capital. In front of him was the end of the world.
The sky was gone.
It was choked with ships. Not the jagged, scrap-ships of the Junk Barons, nor the organic horrors of Malakor. These were sleek, obsidian monoliths, silent and geometrical. They were the Eclipsed Armada.
And descending from the clouds were the Harvesters.
They were tripod walkers, three kilometers tall, firing beams of anti-matter that carved canyons into the sacred cities of the Thronecycle.
"Hold the line!" Kaelen roared into the comms, his voice ragged. "For the Emperor! For the Unmaker!"
"General!" Vorlag's voice crackled in his ear. "The Aegis Line is gone! The 5th and 9th Fleets are dust! They are bypassing the orbital defenses! They are landing troops on the Spire!"
Kaelen swung his Titan's remaining arm—a massive thermal blade—and cleaved a Harvester's leg in two. The giant machine toppled, crushing a city block.
But three more took its place.
"We do not retreat!" Kaelen screamed, pushing his Titan forward. He stepped on a tank, crushing it, ignoring the pain in his own body. He was a LEVEL 80 warrior. A legend.
And he was an insect against this storm.
A shadow fell over him.
Kaelen looked up. Descending from the obsidian mothership was a figure. He wasn't in a ship. He was floating.
He was clad in armor made of trapped light. He held a spear that seemed to be cut from the event horizon of a black hole.
[SYSTEM ALERT: BOSS DETECTED]
[NAME: VOROS THE ECLIPSE]
[LEVEL: 95]
[TITLE: THE STAR-EATER'S HERALD]
Voros landed on the Fourth Ring, a hundred meters from Kaelen. The impact shattered the ground, sending shockwaves that toppled skyscrapers.
Kaelen's Titan groaned, its servos whining as it tried to stand against the pressure of the Herald's aura.
" You fight well, little soldier, " Voros spoke. His voice wasn't a sound; it was a vibration in the bones. " But your Emperor has abandoned you. The Unmaker is gone. There is only the Eclipse. "
Voros raised his spear.
" Kneel, and I will make your death quick. "
Kaelen coughed blood onto his control panel. He looked at the STATUS of his Titan. [ENERGY: 2%].
He looked behind him, at the Spire. The citizens were evacuating. The shields were failing.
He thought of the boy who had stood on the bridge, the boy who had unmade a Void-Lord. He thought of the promise he had made.
"My Emperor..." Kaelen gritted out, overriding the safety protocols on his Titan's reactor. "Is not gone."
[WARNING: REACTOR OVERLOAD INITIATED] [SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE: ARMED]
Kaelen forced his broken machine to stand up. He raised his thermal blade, pointing it at the level 95 demigod.
"He is coming," Kaelen roared, his voice amplified by the dying mech. "And when he gets here... he is going to eat you alive!"
Kaelen charged.
It was suicide. A broken Titan against a Herald of the Eclipse.
Voros sighed, a sound of genuine boredom. He flicked his spear.
A wave of black force hit Kaelen.
The Titan's remaining arm was sheared off. The legs were crushed. The massive golden machine crumpled, sliding across the pavement, sparking and burning.
Kaelen lay in the crushed cockpit, pinned by twisted metal. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.
Voros floated over to the wreckage. He looked down at the broken General.
" He is not coming, " Voros whispered. He raised the spear for the killing blow. " And if he does... I will mount his head next to yours. "
The spear descended.
Kaelen closed his eyes. I'm sorry, Mali. I couldn't hold the door.
CRACK.
The sound was not metal piercing flesh.
It was the sound of the sky breaking.
High above, in the atmosphere, space didn't just warp. It shattered.
A ship—small, sleek, and burning with white-hot reentry fire—tore out of slipstream. It wasn't slowing down. It was accelerating.
It was aiming directly for the ground.
[SYSTEM ALERT: ALLIED SIGNAL DETECTED]
[ID: THE STILETTO]
[SPEED: MACH 50]
Voros paused, looking up.
The Stiletto slammed into the Harvester walker standing directly behind Voros. The impact was nuclear. The massive walker vaporized instantly.
From the fireball, two figures emerged. They didn't fall. They didn't fly.
They descended.
Hand in hand. Surrounded by a halo of gold and silver light that pushed the smoke and ash away.
Mali Alkahest landed on the wreckage of Kaelen's Titan. He stepped gently onto the cockpit glass, looking down at his broken General.
He placed a hand on the glass.
[GENESIS TOUCH]
Golden light flooded the cockpit. The twisted metal groaned and bent back. The pain in Kaelen's body vanished.
Mali looked up. His eyes were not human. They were burning pools of liquid gold.
He looked at Voros.
"You broke my door," Mali said softly.
Anya landed beside him. She looked at the destroyed city. She looked at the dead soldiers. She looked at Voros. Her eyes were spinning galaxies of furious calculation.
"And you hurt my General," she added.
Mali released Anya's hand. He cracked his neck. The air around him began to distort, the sheer weight of his POW crushing the pavement.
"General Kaelen," Mali said, not looking back. "Take a break. We'll handle the trash."
He turned to the Herald.
"You wanted the Unmaker?" Mali asked, summoning a sword of pure, golden Void-light.
"Here I am."