A lance of starfire—pure, annihilating light—punched through the atmosphere like God's own wrath. The beam struck IN'THERAK dead center, its brilliance bleaching the world white. For a single, suspended mont, the Eldest Evil hung in the air, wreathed in solar fury, its obsidian flesh bubbling, cracking, unmaking.
Then—
BOOOOOOM.
The shockwave flattened everything for kiloters. Buildings pancaked. Trees vaporized. The very air ignited, a rolling tsunami of fire and thunder that turned the area into a molten crater.
On the Stormbreaker's bridge, alarms wailed. The deck plates groaned as stabilizers fought to keep the warship from tearing itself apart. Alberto braced against the command rail, his teeth rattling, his eyes locked on the viewscreen.
"Did we get it?" soone shouted over the din.
The tactical officer's voice was hoarse. "Direct hit. Target is—"
Then the smoke cleared.
And IN'THERAK was still there.
But not whole.
Not anymore.
Its body was a ruin—a grotesque, half-lted sculpture of charred bone and weeping shadow. One wing hung in tattered shreds. Its face was a smoldering skull, jaw unhinged, eyes reduced to flickering embers in hollow sockets. Yet it lived. It hovered above the devastation, trembling, its form flickering between existence and oblivion.
Alberto's gut twisted. "No. No fucking way."
Then IN'THERAK laughed.
A wet, guttural sound, like a corpse choking on its own rot.
"Clever."
Its voice was broken glass and grinding steel.
"You borrowed a star's fury. Stole its fire. Made it your weapon."
Black ichor dripped from its wounds, sizzling as it hit the scorched earth.
"But stars die, little being."
IN'THERAK's remaining eye locked onto the Stormbreaker.
"And yours just went out."
Alberto's blood turned to ice. "Evasive maneuvers—NOW!"
Too late.
IN'THERAK's shattered arm rose. The air around it warped, reality itself folding like wet parchnt. A singularity blood in its palm—a tiny, ravenous black hole.
"Sir!" the helmsman scread. "Gravity spike! We're—"
The ship lurched. The deck pitched violently. Crewn tumbled, consoles exploded in showers of sparks. The Stormbreaker groaned like a dying beast as the black hole's pull wrenched it forward.
Alberto slamd into the viewscreen, his nose breaking against the reinforced glass. Blood sheeted down his chin. "Full reverse thrust! NOW!"
Engines shrieked. The ship fought, tal screaming, but the pull was too strong. They were being dragged in—inch by inch.
Then—
CRACK.
IN'THERAK's body fractured.
The black hole flickered. Stuttered.
The Eldest Evil looked down at itself, as if surprised.
"Ah."
Its form was crumbling, dissolving into ash and shadow. The Oblivion Cannon hadn't just wounded it—it had broken sothing fundantal. The vassal body couldn't hold.
But IN'THERAK wasn't done.
It raised its head, its voice a dying whisper that carried across the battlefield like a curse.
"This flesh is dust. But I am eternal."
Its remaining eye burned into Alberto's soul.
"You bought ti, mortal. No more."
A skeletal finger pointed at the horizon—toward Rafa's palace.
"The seal—I will destroy it."
Then—
"And when the Chest opens, I will peel the at from your bones and wear your empire's screams as my crown."
The wind howled.
And IN'THERAK shattered.
Its body burst into a storm of ash and embers, scattering across the wasteland like dying fireflies.
Silence.
Then—
"Holy shit," breathed the tactical officer. "We… we did it?"
"But it's not over yet. It has unleashed its monsters. We must eradicate them—now."
"Go with full speed. We have to kill all remaining monsters."
Commander Vi hesitated. "Understood, Your Majesty."
---
The Stormbreaker tore through the sky like a vengeful god, engines howling as it carved a path over the burning ruins of Rafa. The city was a bleeding carcass—gutted skyscrapers, streets clogged with corpses, the once-proud tropolis now a feast for the eldritch nightmares that poured from the rift.
Alberto wiped the blood from his face, his broken nose already swelling, but his eyes were locked on the screens. The tactical map was a ss of hostile signatures, dozens of red dots crawling through the streets like cockroaches.
"Kill them all," he snarled. "No rcy."
The gunnery officer's hands danced across the control panel, voice a growl. "All batteries—target wide clusters. Let's fry these fuckers."
The Stormbreaker's forward cannons roared—THOOM-THOOM-THOOM—belching plasma and incendiary shells into the swarming monsters. Explosions blood like murderous flowers, flesh and bone vaporized in gory sprays. The secondary railguns snapped out precise bursts, punching clean through raptor-beasts, splitting them into twitching halves.
One of the bigger fuckers—a centipede monstrosity covered in skittering eyes—lurched out of the smoke, mandibles chittering. A burst from the point-defense turrets turned its skull into molten slag.
Alberto's lip curled. "Fucking pests."
---
"Incoming contact—Sector 7!" Commander Vi barked. "Multiple heavies! They're converging on the city square."
Alberto glanced at the feed—hulking brutes armored in chitin and iron, each one dragging a massive club festooned with screaming skulls. Hellclad Marauders. Ugly bastards.
"Fire the Skybreaker missiles," he ordered, voice like crushed gravel.
"Are you sure, Your Majesty? That's a lot of ordnance for just—"
"Did I stutter?"
"No, sir!"
The missile pods unfolded with a tallic shriek, each warhead thrumming with the hum of plasma cores. A heartbeat later, the Stormbreaker unleashed its payload. Six brilliant streaks arced through the air, trailing contrails of liquid fire, before slamming into the Marauders.
The shockwave flattened buildings and sent hunks of at spiraling through the sky. Even the biggest of them didn't stand a chance—just sars of ash and lted bone.
---
Down on the ground, Lyra crouched behind a mangled APC, her rifle still smoking from the last burst. Blood sared her cheek, and her hands trembled, knuckles white around the grip. The city burned around her, shadows of creatures stalking through the smoke.
A squad of Exo-Knights moved past, their armor glinting in the firelight. One of them—Knight-Captain rek—paused to glance at her.
"Officer Lyra!" he barked through his helt speakers. "You're still alive?"
She managed a bitter smile. "Barely. Got half my squad wiped out by those freaks. What the hell's going on?"
"Emperor Alberto's ship is purging the area. We're pushing the remaining bastards into the river," rek replied. "You're reassigned to Barricade West. Get your ass there—now!"
Lyra gave a sharp nod, wiping gri from her face. "Yes, sir."
As rek's squad moved on, Lyra glanced up just in ti to see the Stormbreaker unleash another salvo, the sky lighting up like the birth of a new sun.
"Crazy bastard," she muttered, a twisted grin pulling at her lips.
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