Prologue (1): The Final Banter
The star fragment lamp hanging from the heavy wood beam flickered. Its internal crystal pulsed with frantic flickering of a dying soul trapped within it as it threw long and broken shadows across the high stone walls of the chamber.
Beyond the heavy doors, the world had fallen entirely silent. We had smashed their vanguard hours ago, leaving the planetary surface painted in a thick and steaming crimson.
There had been no grand battle cries at the end. Only the wet and sudden tearing of flesh being torn apart by space. I could feel the tiny vibrations from our spatial rifts traveling through the castle foundations, shaking the table we sat at.
Now, only two of us remained on this planet.
Julian and I sat across from each other at a plain and heavy granite table. The room was dead silent, only the hum radiating from the dying soul above.
My forearms felt heavy. The Nebula Anchors, my dark gauntlets that extended all the way up to my elbows. The deeply engraved sealing runes on my gauntlets hummed with a quiet and dormant power.
I didn’t move a single finger and kept my gaze fixed on the man sitting across from me. My old friend, Julian.
"No," Julian muttered, his breathing ragged and with a hint of a stubborn pride. "I didn’t become strong just to turn into a coward at the end. I am not leaving you here to face a two way massacre alone."
Two, because that was who had reason to come. Scylla, we both knew why and Vaelen, because centuries of hatred didn’t need an invitation.
Julian couldn’t feel them coming himself. His senses didn’t reach that far but he trusted my read on it.
He slammed his hands against the table as he leaned forward. He breathed in slow and painful gasps. Even without his armor, his large shoulders and strong posture made him look like a solid figure.
Looking at him, it was obvious how exhausted he really was.
Deep down, I felt a sudden urge to reveal my plans and tell him the truth but I forced myself to stay silent. I had to be extremely careful.
"Let me tell you something people mostly get wrong about me, Julian," I said, my voice dropping into a low, intense whisper that caused his rising fury to come to a sudden halt.
"They look at me and see a failed, broken man. They assume my spirit has broken with it. But they forget a simple truth, I have not abandoned my will and certainly have not abandoned my path."
Julian stared at me, the anger in his eyes slowly cooling as he saw the seriousness in my gaze. The silence stretched between us, it felt heavy with things left unsaid.
I let the quiet settle completely before speaking again. "When the others arrive, you will flee this planet, Julian. It will become a battlefield sooner or later. Promise me you will go."
His jaw tightened as he listened to me. We had spent our entire life fighting our way up from the bottom and the idea of leaving a brother in arms behind tasted like poison to him.
"Do not throw your life away," I muttered, cutting off his stubbornness before he could voice it.
"You have a family and a lineage to protect and cherish. Go to them. My own essence will thoroughly smother your signature, making you completely invisible to their senses."
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I reached into the pocket of my cloak and pulled out a small crystalline relic.
I placed it on the table between us.
"Here," I said simply. "Take this."
Julian’s hand trembled slightly as his fingers closed around the cold crystal. He lifted it up, examining the crystalline relic with curiosity. "What is this? I’ve never felt an essence signature like this before. What does it do?" he asked, while slipping the artifact into the pocket of his stained long coat.
I ignored the question entirely, keeping my eyes locked on the doors at the end of the room.
"Do you remember the trial at the Sunken Abyss?" I asked softly, my voice changing back to a simpler tone. "Back when we fought over a handful of low level artifacts just to pay for our dinner?"
A weak and tired smirk broke through Julian’s sweat stained features. He likely thought I was reminiscing because there was no time left for anything else.
"You know, if the rest of the world could see us right now they would think we have completely lost our minds," Julian said as he shook his head slowly.
"We are sitting in a small room that smells like burnt flesh and blood and talking like nothing happened. And this is right after we slaughtered a whole planet."
I let out a low and dry laugh. "Let them think what they want. Since when do we care about opinions of others?"
"That is true enough," Julian sighed as he leaned his head back but still kept his grip tight on the table.
"But look at us. One broken and the other injured and barely standing. We really made a mess of Scylla’s branch planets, didn’t we? It takes me back to the days we went around rampaging like this, letting ourselves loose. Today feels like history repeating itself."
"We did," I laughed softly.
We talked of old wars, broken vows and the names we had left behind in our era. We were simply waiting for the last hour to fall and Julian clearly wished this peace could last a little longer.
He wanted to stretch the seconds, to pretend that nothing would happen to me.
I had called him here just to see him one last time. I don’t even know my plan will surely work or not.
"Leon." Julian’s voice dropped, the small trace of humor vanishing instantly. The essence beneath his skin began to surge with a restless weight.
"They are closing the gap. I can feel the conceptual threads fluctuate around nearby planetary fields. The spatial pathways are locking up."
"I know," I said slowly. I watched the air around us begin to stiffen. The small dust particles in the room had stopped floating as if they were frozen in mid air. They were trapped by the massive gravitational drag of the approaching entities.
"Look at you," I chuckled softly while trying to ease the sudden tension. "Not far off from your next breakthrough yourself, feeling the conceptual threads, even if it’s taxing to your body. Stick around, brother and you might actually start enjoying the perks of a real one like me."
Julian didn’t laugh. He shot me a sharp glare, demanding absolute focus.
It was a one of the best long lasting joke among us, taunting him since I was stronger than him by a major rank.
"Easy, brother. Calm down," I said softly, my demeanor turning serious once more. "It was a poor joke. Forgive me."
I looked down, slowly adjusting the gauntlets on my forearms. It was a deliberate and familiar motion, anticipating the final stand that could happen at any moment.
I checked the alignment of the seals and ensured that the hidden runes inside the metal was timed to implode exactly when I needed it to.
Suddenly, a massive pressure blanketed the entire planet. The star fragment lamp above shattered into tiny specs also erasing the soul within it.
The room dissolved into a chaotic, violent light. The temperature fluctuated back and forth violently, shifting from one extreme to another. It was uncomfortable enough that Julian’s body began to tremble despite his regenerative abilities.
The table between us groaned and eventually cracked under the weight of the pressure pressing down from the sky.
Julian gritted his teeth as he struggled to even maintain his balance. He spat thick and dark blood on the floor as he forced himself up. His essence flared violently as he fought against the oppressive aura crushing the surroundings.
"They’re locking down the planet," Julian muttered, his voice became strained and cracking. "We are running out of time, Leon. Quickly, give me a weapon."
I didn’t panic as I stood up slowly. I checked the runes on my gauntlets glow with a quiet, deadly spark. "You won’t need a weapon where you’re going."
Julian let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "They have sealed the entire planetary sector! Even your space-time concepts can’t bypass a two way lock down. We have to fight together."
I stood perfectly still amidst the shaking castle. My lips curved into a slight smirk. "For a normal one, maybe. But not for me."
The laughter died instantly in his throat as absolute horror washed over his exhausted face. He finally realized what the crystalline relic in his pocket was for.
"Don’t you dare, Leon! If you teleport me, I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you down!"
I didn’t give myself a chance to hesitate even slightly.
Gathering my internal essence, I completely cut his presence off from our surroundings. I snapped my fingers and the crystalline relic inside his cloak began to pulsate with a blinding light.
Julian opened his mouth to curse me but the words died in his throat. The space around him folded inwards as he was sucked inside the cracks of the space.
In a fraction of a second, he was gone, thrown half a galaxy away from the battlefield, his very existence thoroughly erased from their sight.
CRACK.
The moment Julian vanished, the planetary surface ruptured, collapsing the castle along with it into cosmic rubble.
Three deafening cracks of thunder shook the atmosphere as three figures stepped into the void. Their simultaneous, suffocating presence brought absolute ruin upon the nearby planetary bodies.
I stood completely alone before them.
The audience for my Last Spectacle had finally arrived.