Chapter 20 – The Storm of Vengeance
The forest outside the sanctuary was too quiet. The usual sounds of wildlife were gone, replaced by the low hum of repulsor engines and the clank of armored footsteps. The Yunvarn forces had formed a perimeter, their skiffs hovering like predatory insects, weapons trained on the mountain face.
At their center, hovering a foot above the ground, was the Nexus Archon. His form of smoke and solidified light seemed to drain the color from the surrounding trees. Four elite War Masters flanked him: the crystalline being, the feline predator, a hulking brute made of magma-rock, and a slender, insectoid manipulator of magnetic fields.
The Archon's voice boomed, amplified and emotionless. "Surrender the thief and the relics. The Vakhas vermin may yet die quickly. Resist, and this mountain will be scoured from the planet's memory."
The mountain did not answer.
Then,the hidden entrance shimmered and opened.
Skodar walked out alone.
He wore no armor, only simple clothes. But in his hand was the Living Stone staff, and his eyes glowed with the steady, deep blue of a contained star. The air around him vibrated with power.
"You called me a thief," Skodar said, his voice carrying without shouting, amplified by his will. "I took only what was always mine. My family. My legacy. You are the thieves. You stole a planet. You enslaved its children."
The Archon's form flickered with annoyance. "Sentimental garbage. Power is the only legacy. And you have a crumb, thinking it a feast. Destroy him."
The four War Masters moved as one.
The crystalline being fired a barrage of razor-sharp,mind-guided crystal shards.
The feline predator vanished,reappearing in a blur of claws behind Skodar.
The magma brute unleashed a torrent of molten rock.
The insectoid manipulator warped gravity,trying to crush Skodar into the ground.
Skodar didn't dodge. He expanded.
He slammed the base of his staff into the ground.A dome of pure, blue Prima energy erupted from him and the Living Stone. The crystal shards vaporized. The feline's claws screeched against the shield, unable to penetrate. The molten rock flowed around the dome. The gravity wave shattered against it.
The attack had not even made him take a step.
The War Masters recoiled,stunned.
"My turn," Skodar said.
He focused on the crystalline being.He didn't fire a bolt. He sent a pulse of resonant frequency through the staff, tuned to the being's unique molecular structure. The crystalline War Master screamed as cracks spiderwebbed across its body from the inside, and it exploded into a cloud of glittering dust.
The feline predator lunged again. Skodar's staff became a blur. He parried a dozen strikes in a second, then thrust the staff. A lance of condensed energy shot out, not to pierce, but to unravel. It struck the feline, and her enhanced genetic structure, a cheap imitation of true power, began to de-cohere. She fell, writhing as her body lost its form.
The magma brute roared and charged. Skodar pointed the staff, not at the brute, but at the ground in front of him. He drew on the planet's own latent energy through the Stone. The earth erupted, not with fire, but with massive, hardened roots of pure stone that ensnared the brute, cooling and trapping him in a rocky tomb.
The insectoid manipulator tried to flee, rising into the air. Skodar raised his hand. He manipulated the magnetic fields himself, with infinitely finer control. He crumpled the War Master's own armor into a prison, then gently lowered the mangled ball of metal to the ground.
Four elite War Masters, defeated in under a minute.
The Yunvarn troops stood frozen in terror.
The Nexus Archon's form boiled with dark energy. "PRIMA GENE SCUM! YOU DARE?!" He unleashed his full power—a wave of nullifying energy designed to erase matter and extinguish life-force. It was the power that had cowed planets.
Skodar met it head-on. He channeled the Living Stone, not as a shield, but as a lens. He focused all his will, all his pain, all the hope for his people, into a single, coherent beam of blue-white energy—the concentrated light of rebirth.
The two forces collided in the center of the clearing.
The null-wave and the life-beam.
Erasure against creation.
Darkness against dawn.
For a moment, they held, a silent struggle of titanic forces. Trees within a hundred yards were stripped to ash. The ground turned to glass.
The Archon screamed, pouring more power. "YOU ARE ONE! I AM THE NEXUS OF AN EMPIRE!"
Skodar thought of his brother's smile. His grandmother's stories. The empty cages of Taksipa. The fallen in the gorge. He was not one. He was the vessel for all of them.
"I," Skodar roared, the sound shaking the mountain, "AM THE SPARK THAT LIGHTS THE FIRE!"
He pushed.
The Living Stone blazed like a newborn sun.
The blue-white beamate the null-wave, reversed it, and struck the Nexus Archon.
The being of smoke and light had no form to destroy, only consciousness to unravel. The Prima energy did not obliterate him; it purified him. It scoured away the millennia of cruelty, the engineered hunger for power, leaving behind only a core of terrified, ancient awareness. With a final, silent flash, the Nexus Archon was gone, not dead, but unmade.
The remaining Yunvarn forces dropped their weapons, some fleeing in their skiffs, others kneeling in surrender, utterly broken.
Silence returned to the forest, now scarred and smoking.
Skodar lowered his staff.The glow in his eyes and the Stone faded to a gentle pulse. He felt exhausted, but clean. Purged.
From the sanctuary entrance, Makosra, Sukodar, and Vaktari emerged. They looked at the field of victory, at the kneeling soldiers, at Skodar standing amidst the aftermath.
Sukodar ran to him, hugging him tightly. "You did it, brother!"
Makosra placed a hand on his shoulder,her eyes full of tears and pride.
Vaktari floated to him,her expression one of profound completion. "The king has returned. Not to a throne, but to his people."
Skodar looked at the surrendered troops, at the forest, at the horizon where other cities of oppression lay. This was not the end. It was the first true dawn. The Nexus Archon was gone, but the empire remained. The slave pens were still full. The Vakhas were still scattered and broken.
But now, they had a sanctuary.
They had a leader.
They had a Living Stone.
And they had a story that would spread like wildfire—the story of the slave who became a storm,who shattered masters and awakened the ancient heart of a world.
He put an arm around his brother and looked at his grandmother and his ancestral guide.
"This," Skodar Vakhas said, his voice firm with the weight of the future, "is just the beginning."