In a remote, uncharted region of the Koprulu Sector, a Protoss-colonized planet known as "Kares" floated silently amid the stars.
Viewed from orbit, the planet displayed a unique indigo hue, its surface covered in vast "crystal forests." These naturally formed psionic conduits refracted hallucinogenic halos under the starlight.
Three Protoss motherships held a triangular formation around the planet's orbit. Their golden hulls were inscribed with ancient purification runes, and soft blue light pulsed from their psionic engines.
Descending through Kares's atmosphere, the outline of a Protoss outpost—perhaps more accurately, a city—gradually came into view.
The entire city stood on hovering crystal platforms, kept aloft by psionically powered anti-gravity engines. These platforms floated like islands a thousand meters above the ground.
The architecture blended elegant curves with an older, forgotten design language. The runes flowing along the walls weren't the typical blue but an exceedingly rare silver-white.
At the center of the city's governance nexus, High Templar Kores-Tar presided over the daily psionic coordination ceremony.
His silver-white armor bore the unique geometric patterns of the Kares faction, and the terminals of his neural tendrils were inlaid with minute Khaydarin crystals.
As the Supreme Governor of Kares, he was responsible for all outposts, colonies, and research facilities on the planet.
"Hierarch."
Kores-Tar bowed toward a holographic projection of Artanis, his neural tendrils pulsating in steady rhythm as he reported, "The psionic suppressors of Kares are operating normally, but the crystals in Sector Seven have begun exhibiting abnormal resonance…"
The image of Artanis flickered with distortion.
The once-proud leader now had an unnatural glint in his eyes, and the frequency of his neural tendril pulses was unnaturally fast.
"Do not concern yourself, Kores," Artanis said, his voice bearing a strange resonance. "That is merely a natural response from the Khaydarin crystals. You must continue your research."
Kores-Tar's tendrils tightened slightly.
He noticed the anomaly in the Hierarch's behavior—worse yet, the background architecture behind the projection clearly did not match Aiur or any known Protoss colony.
"Understood, Hierarch," Kores-Tar replied cautiously. "However, we've recently detected Tal'darim scout vessels in—"
"The Tal'darim are irrelevant!" Artanis's image suddenly warped, his voice overlaid with metallic static. "Focus on your mission! Protect the crystals!"
The outburst instinctively triggered Kores-Tar's psionic shield.
In that moment of emotional volatility, he also detected an anomalous harmonic frequency buried in the transmission—something definitively not part of the Khala network.
The communication abruptly cut off, and an eerie silence fell over the governance hub.
A young phase technician—his adjutant—nervously stepped forward. "Executor, the Hierarch's neural resonance patterns were irregular. This isn't the first time either."
"Initiate Silent Protocol," Kores-Tar said, his voice like cold crystal. "Send encrypted pulses to all forces. Also activate contingency plans for a potential Tal'darim raid."
"Yes, Executor."
Kores-Tar then walked to the observation platform, overlooking the floating city below.
The grand Protoss scholars worked in the crystal laboratories, blissfully unaware of the looming crisis.
His neural tendrils trembled uncontrollably. Something far more insidious than Amon was corroding their most sacred connection.
But soon—
The tranquility of Kares was shattered.
In the indigo orbit, space twisted violently, torn open like a wound by an invisible hand.
From the crimson rift emerged a vast fleet—none other than the Tal'darim Death Fleet, though their forms had become grotesquely unrecognizable.
Once-sleek Protoss vessels were now covered in grotesque mutations.
Their bows had sprouted jagged bone spurs, like the fangs of some predatory beast.
Deep crimson veins pulsed along the armor, throbbing like blood vessels. Most disturbing were the blasphemous octagram sigils smeared across the hulls in unholy pigments, shimmering with ominous light upon cold metal.
One carrier's side hull was even studded with corpses—skeletal remains warped into ritualistic decorations, their hollow sockets seeming to scream silently into the void.
The Protoss fleet stationed over Kares immediately assumed battle formations.
The motherships' psionic shields flared to life, rune matrices flowing over their hulls to form dazzling blue-gold barriers.
Interceptor swarms burst from their hangars, swarming like bees around the motherships. The whine of charging weapons buzzed through the comms channels.
?!
Kores-Tar's neural tendrils jolted violently. Without hesitation, he initiated a holographic transmission, attempting to open dialogue with the Tal'darim fleet.
But when the image stabilized, even this veteran warrior—tempered by two centuries of war—felt a chill pierce his very soul.
The Tal'darim bridge was no longer a holy sanctum of Protoss design, but a slaughterhouse forged from flesh and bone.
Dried blood stained the walls. Shattered bones and entrails littered the floor. Several skinned corpses were nailed to the wall behind the command throne, their twisted poses forming a grotesque totem.
And standing at the center of it all—
Was Alarak, Highlord of the Tal'darim.
But this was no longer the proud, if brutal, leader who once retained some semblance of reason.
Alarak's body was now more massive and grotesquely muscled, as if forcibly bloated by some unnatural force.
"His" neural tendrils no longer glowed clean blue—they now pulsed black and red, writhing like corrupted veins.
More horrifying was "his" armor, now embedded with shards of bone—Protoss, human, even Zerg carapaces.
A hollow skull dangled from his shoulder pad, dark red psionic flame flickering within its empty sockets.
When Alarak spoke, his voice lacked all Protoss harmony and resonance—instead replaced by a guttural, shredded roar, as if his vocal cords had been torn and stitched back together:
"Kores-Tar… still clinging to that pathetic 'purification'?"
As he spoke, the lower part of his helmet twisted into a beastly grimace, revealing sharp, animal-like fangs.
Protoss should not have such teeth—or even mouths.
Kores-Tar's psionic shield flickered, but he remained composed, replying in a deep voice:
"Alarak, your fleet and your actions have crossed the line. You're desecrating the honor of the Protoss."
"Honor?" Alarak laughed maniacally, his cackling mingled with a metallic screech. "That's just a shackle for the weak! True power is consumption! Destruction! SLAUGHTER!!"
As he roared, Tal'darim warriors slithered forth from the bridge's shadows, their forms equally warped—
Some had arms mutated into bone blades. Others had swollen backs bristling with tumors. One had a head engulfed in pulsating flesh, exposing only a single bloodshot eye.
Kores-Tar's adjutant gasped over the comms. "Executor—their psionic signatures… completely erratic! That's not normal psionic resonance—it's not even Khala!"
Alarak seemed to hear this, his eyes dimming for a moment before erupting into frenzied howls:
"Khala? That's just the Old Gods' lie! Now… we hear the true 'guidance'!"
His neural tendrils flared. Black-red psionic energy coiled around his body like serpents. Simultaneously, the Tal'darim fleet's cannons lit up—
Not with the usual blue-white Protoss glow, but with some foul, corrupted crimson light.
"The crystals of Kares… will be ours! Your flesh shall be sacrificed to my master!"
The next second, scarlet beams of destruction tore through the void toward the Kares fleet.
The near-orbit of Kares became a living hell.
Scarlet beams poured down like rain, shredding the hastily-raised psionic barriers.
Tal'darim cannon fire was no longer pure psionic bursts—it was a corrupted energy that clung to shields like living creatures, hungrily devouring energy matrices.
One Kares mothership was struck by three beams simultaneously. Its blue-gold shield corroded like acid-eaten metal, disintegrating into fragmented psionic debris.
"Shield overload! Interceptor platforms Seven through Nine destroyed!"
The adjutant's warning rang through Kores-Tar's neural tendrils.
But the Kares fleet did not wait for death.
All three motherships deployed their massive Khaydarin crystal arrays. Blinding blue-white beams lanced forth like spears of judgment, striking the Tal'darim vanguard.
One Tal'darim carrier exploded in space—but its fragments writhed unnaturally, reassembling into a grotesque mass of metal and flesh that continued drifting across the battlefield.
In orbit, the battle quickly turned one-sided.
The Tal'darim outnumbered the Kares fleet by several dozen to one—and worse, their tactics were brutal.
Some mutated ships rammed the Kares interceptors, impaling fighters on their bone spines like grisly ornaments. Others released corrupted drone swarms—flesh-and-metal monstrosities that burrowed into Protoss ships, detonating them from within.
"Executor! Eighty percent of orbital defense nodes lost!" the adjutant's psionic wave trembled. "We must evacuate the survivors to the surface!"
"Approved! All remaining ships—retreat into the atmosphere!"
As the last Kares mothership, aflame and trailing wreckage, plummeted into the planet's atmosphere, the Tal'darim initiated a more horrifying assault—
Hundreds of crimson phase-beams pierced the clouds, like rivers of blood descending from the sky.
The ground battle was even more brutal than in orbit.
In the floating city's central plaza, thirty Kares warriors formed a circular defense.
Their psionic blades drew azure arcs through the air, slicing the first wave of teleporting Tal'darim berserkers in half—yet the bisected enemies still crawled forward with their arms, flesh regenerating visibly.
"For the honor of Kares!"
A Templar shouted, leaping into the fray. His psionic storm electrocuted five mutants into charred husks.
But a moment later, three bone spikes impaled his chest—arm mutations from a Tal'darim Ascendant, their tips dripping corrosive pus.
Kores-Tar stood atop the crystal spire at the front line.
His silver-white armor was splattered with black-red blood. Each swing of his governor's staff released a shockwave that shattered mutated foes into pulp.
But there were simply too many enemies.
He saw a Tal'darim slaughterer impale his adjutant through the skull with a jawbone spike. He saw a Kares interceptor crash into an anti-grav platform, causing a chain explosion.
Farther away, the edge of the floating city collapsed. Thousands of crystal shards, carrying the corpses of warriors from both sides, plummeted into the abyss.
"Executor! Western defenses have collapsed!"
A bloodied Templar fell to his knees. "They're… corrupting the Khaydarin crystals with some profane psionics!"
As if to prove it, the entire city suddenly trembled.
Anti-grav generators exploded one after another. The crystals embedded in them rapidly turned cloudy and shattered with screeching wails into black fragments.
Kores-Tar felt an unprecedented psionic backlash. This wasn't just defeat—it was desecration of something fundamental.
By the seventh wave of teleporters, fewer than a thousand Kares warriors remained.
They stood back to back on the last teetering platform. Below them yawned an abyss. Around them surged waves of twisted figures.
Tal'darim warriors howled in inhuman tones. Some had tendrils for neural cords, others were covered in bleeding bone spurs.
These abominations stepped over their comrades' remains, rotten psionics oozing like miasma from cracked armor.
Kores-Tar's armor was dented all over. The crystal atop his staff now bore blood-colored cracks from energy overload.
He looked around. The few surviving warriors were all wounded. Their psionic blades flickered weakly—but they still held the line.
"Let the indigo crystals of Kares bear witness," Kores-Tar declared, his psionic broadcast trembling across the open channel, "We shall not yield a single sacred inch to the defilers."
The staff shrieked. Its internal circuits were unraveling—a clear sign the Executor was preparing to self-destruct.
The warriors instinctively contracted their formation. Neural cords intertwined into a resonance web, preparing to pour their life essence into one final cleansing fire.
But just before the energy reached critical—
The battlefield's edge began to boil like liquid shadow.
Hundreds of emerald psionic blades pierced the darkness, followed by the hiss of void energy, skewering the spines of the nearest Tal'darim mutants.
Their twisted bodies froze instantly. Black blood sprayed from their orifices.
"Old friend…"
Zeratul stepped from the shadows, his emerald eyes still as sharp as ever. "Death may be glorious—but only the living may witness true redemption."
With his arrival, more Dark Templar emerged, silent as death itself. Every flash of their blades brought a mutant's head rolling.
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