CHAPTER 56: The Vanishing Vanguard
(ARC 3: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN & DEEP-SPACE WAR PREPARATIONS)
The golden-and-azure spatial boundary sealed the fifty-mile perimeter of the Central Plains like an impenetrable dome of folded space. From the outside, the plains looked tranquil, bathed in soft afternoon light.
Inside the dome, it was a butcher's floor.
Vanguard Commander Zael’s four arms trembled violently as his glowing plasma-blade flickered and died. His communication console let out a dead, static whine—the orbital link to High Commander Vraxx’s flagship was completely severed.
"Re-establish the link! Get the orbital artillery online!" Zael shrieked, his yellow reptile eyes bulging with unadulterated panic. "What kind of primitive barrier is this?!"
Before his lieutenant could answer, Ethan moved.
He didn't execute a complex martial array. He simply stepped off the grassy knoll, taking a single, gold-tempered step using his Imperial Sovereign Dragon-Physique.
BOOOOOOM!
The ground beneath Ethan exploded, sending a localized shockwave ripping through two miles of terrain. Fifty alien drop-pods and five thousand cybernetic heavy brutes were launched into the air like weightless toys, their alloy armor collapsing under raw kinetic pressure before they even hit the peak of their arc!
Ethan blurred mid-air, his wooden spear shaft sweeping out in a horizontal arc.
CRACK-SHATTER!
A hundred-foot golden dragon projection erupted from the tip of his spear, sweeping through three Harvester Ships in a single strike! The massive, beetle-like vessels—designed to withstand orbital re-entry—were clean-severed in half, exploding into roaring balls of green plasma and metallic shrapnel!
"Monster... he's a physical monster!" Zael whimpered, stumbling backward onto the ramp of his lead ship.
Beside him, Elena materialized out of thin air, her azure blade drawn by a single inch.
SWISH—SWISH—SWISH!
Three razor-sharp arcs of spatial sword Qi crossed through the air with absolute, silent perfection. The remaining fifteen Harvester Ships and twenty thousand mutant beasts were sliced into fine dust in less than three seconds, their purple core engines detonating in harmless, localized spatial implosions.
Elena sheathed her blade smoothly, landing lightly on the grass beside her brother. Her hair was undisturbed, her white dress spotless.
"That's forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine," Elena noted calmly.
Ethan rested his spear shaft over his broad shoulder, walking slowly up the ramp of the last standing Harvester Ship. He looked down at Vanguard Commander Zael, who lay collapsed on the metal floor, paralyzed with fear.
"You came across light-years of space to harvest us?" Ethan grinned, his dark eyes glowing with a scorching golden heat. "Tell your commander when you meet him in the underworld... House Sterling doesn't harvest. We exterminate."
BANG!
Ethan tapped the butt of his spear onto the deck, and the final Vorathian ship dissolved into fine metallic powder.
Total time elapsed since landing: Four minutes and twelve seconds.
High above the planet’s atmosphere, inside the grand, dark bridge of the six-mile-wide alien flagship...
High Commander Vraxx sat comfortably upon his iron throne, swirling a glass of crimson nutrient fluid. He turned to his chief communications officer, a smug sneer on his lizard-like face.
"Has Commander Zael secured the central continent yet?" Vraxx asked casually. "Tell him to send up the first batch of human cattle cores for processing."
The chief communications officer tapped his crystal console, his four eyes suddenly narrowing in confusion.
"High Commander... Commander Zael's telemetry signal just flickered."
"Flickered?" Vraxx frowned slightly, setting his glass down. "A solar flare from the local star?"
"No, sir..." The officer’s fingers flew across the console, his voice dropping into a shaky, terrified whisper. "It didn't flicker... the signal vanished. All twenty Harvester Ships... all fifty thousand drop-pods... all fifty thousand bio-mutant signatures... gone."
Silence—cold, heavy, and suffocating—fell over the entire bridge.
"Gone?" Vraxx stood up slowly, his heavy iron armor clanking against the floor. "What do you mean gone?! A fifty-thousand-man vanguard doesn't just vanish in four minutes! Did they deploy a local EMP weapon?!"
"Sir! Atmospheric scanners show zero energy surges or orbital artillery strikes from the planet's surface!" the officer stammered, sweating blue slime. "One second they were descending onto an open plain... and the next second, their life signs were completely erased from the planetary matrix!"
Vraxx slammed his four clawed hands onto the command railing, his yellow eyes shrinking to the size of pinpricks as he stared at the peaceful, blue-and-green planet floating below.
For five hundred years, the Vorathian Empire had viewed this world as an uncultivated farm full of weak, defenseless cattle.
Yet now, looking down at that quiet atmosphere, an icy thread of genuine, primal terror slithered down Vraxx’s spine.
"This is impossible..." Vraxx hissed, his teeth grinding together. "Re-route all deep-space sensors! Bring the two hundred siege platforms forward! I want every millimeter of that central continent scanned right now!"
"Sir!" another officer shrieked from the navigation pit. "An orbital spatial distortion has just opened directly behind our starboard flank!"
Vraxx spun around toward the rear view-screen.
Out from the pitch-black void of space stepped a single, tall figure clad in a dark dragon-silk coat, floating effortlessly in the vacuum without an environmental suit or breathing array.
Beside him hovered Malakor in his Transcendent Void form, his icy violet eyes staring directly through the flagship's thick, armored viewing deck straight into Vraxx’s soul.
Gabriel looked through the reinforced glass at the panicked alien commander, a cold, world-ending smile playing on his lips as he slowly raised his right hand.
"They're not scanning us, Commander," Gabriel’s voice echoed directly inside Vraxx’s mind via cosmic spatial transmission, clear, calm, and terrifying.
"We are hunting you."