Vaelora ordered the retraction of her Monolith, her words cold and final. Crewmen obeyed, putting the automated return sequence to fleet online.
Right afterwards a loud, deafening, blaring screech filled the air—so sharp it made the guards on the capital wall clutch their heads as blood dripped from their ears. Even from the Palace where the council members resided, the noise could be heard. The Zelith rushed to the open palace hangar ledge to see what it was.
The Monolith.
The vast black titan slowly rose off the ground, blotting out the sun. From her command throne within, Vaelora looked down on the capital city shrinking beneath her—her gaze the gaze of one who sees insects, not people. In her mind, the Thalor were not citizens of a proud empire, but vermin waiting for extermination.
From the streets below, millions of Thalor screamed and cheered as the Monolith retreated. Some were overjoyed, believing this was the gods answering their prayers. But the soldiers patrolling the walls, the ones still boarding ships, the ones herding civilians onto transports for Core-World Khos-VIII, and even the navy personnel eating chow in orbit, watching the broadcast, knew the truth. This was not deliverance. It was the omen of slaughter.
The Silent Council of Zelith too, though they watched in reverence, felt the weight of the coming doom.
Darkstar Aldre – Mahasimu Fleet
The Monolith docked into the colossal Darkstar Aldre. The Kirell slaves scurried in panic, whips cracking, blood splattering across the deck as tubes the size of towers were locked into its hull. Vents released white smoke, hissing as the Monolith was drained and fed.
The ramp lowered. Vaelora and Ruthen descended calmly, her attendants behind her. The slaves dared not look up, prostrating until their foreheads touched steel.
In the Command Chamber, Queen Suama, Dark Lord Malgus, and Dark Traya were already assembled. Malgus was already demanding reports, ready to unleash the invasion. Traya sneered when Vaelora finished briefing them, revolted by the Thalor's refusal to surrender.
Queen Suama walked to the viewport, eyes upon the massive Thalor fleet massed in the distance, waiting for the other side to start. She tapped the glass.
Her voice was quiet, decisive.
"Start it."
Then she turned and left.
Sirens wailed instantly. Transports and shadow craft lifted into the void. The gears of war were moving.
Vaelora and Selun Kharis
But Vaelora, rather than returning to her chamber, turned deeper into the Darkstar's spine—toward the stasis sanctum of Selun Kharis. The great Star Lord stood awake now, his presence bending the chamber itself.
Selun's voice was low, as though speaking from every wall:
"You seek me, Vaelora. Speak."
Vaelora bowed her head lightly, her crimson eyes narrowing.
"Yes. I bring a matter of species selection. When the invasion begins, I want certain bloodlines spared. I see potential within the Thalor. Their scientists, their pilots, even their children—they may yet serve the Mahasimu if broken properly. I will not waste all of them on the pyres."
Selun regarded her in silence, his shadow vast, his voice heavy as steel when he answered.
"You choose carefully, Vaelora. For every one you spare, you must justify. Do not ask me to carry dead weight."
Vaelora smiled faintly.
"I ask not for mercy. I ask for tools. Their empire may burn, but what survives can be reforged into something greater—something loyal. Their usefulness outweighs their existence."
Selun inclined his head, the chains of authority rattling faintly in the chamber.
"Then so be it. Choose your survivors. But remember—every species you select becomes your burden. Fail, and they die by your hand."
Vaelora bowed again.
"I would not have it any other way."
Elsewhere
On Myr'Vara, the council chambers boiled with activity as Zelith leaders argued. The streets bustled with soldiers moving families, evacuating, preparing.
Far across the stars, Drong of the Ralkesh and his kin descended deeper into the desert spire, speaking in old tongue about the weapon their king foresaw.
At the same time, a Krymaloth ripped through the void above a jungle planet, and the Brides of Death, the Archites of Helica, were hurled downward to hunt.
The strands of war twisted tighter. The pieces were falling into place. The battle for survival—no, the battle for existence—was about to begin.
The Abandoned City – Beneath the Desert
The vault shuddered.
Its runes pulsed a deep, malevolent crimson, as if feeling the presence of those who dared near it. The Children of Ralkesh stood before its titanic surface—Drong with his staff-axe buried in the sand, Frode at his side whispering old rites from their tongue that echoed softly through the hollow ruins. Their pale-gray bark skin shimmered faintly with runic light drawn from the old world. The other two, younger still, traced the glyphs along the ancient archway, trying to read the language that predated the dawn of their kin.
Then the air changed.
The sound of the Broken Seers' warchant crawled through the tunnels—discordant and heavy with psychic venom. Their masked silhouettes appeared at the edge of the broken city, each step pulsing with dull, rhythmic force. The shadows bent around them as though reality itself recoiled from their passage.
High above on the obsidian ceilings, the Arachne stirred.
Eight-legged horrors shifted from their silk-draped nests. Blue bioluminescent eyes blinked open in the black. Hundreds. Thousands. They whispered as one voice—a hissing choir.
"Mother… the trespassers have come. Shall we feed?"
In the blackest chasm of the city, where no light had touched for millennia, her voice answered. It was not a sound so much as a feeling—the vibration of hunger and eternal patience.
"Observe… then feed."
The Krymaloth's pods struck the surface like meteors, sending tremors through the cavern's ceiling. When they broke open, the Archites emerged—half ritual, half nightmare. Helica Venomkiss herself stepped from her pod, dark hair whipping in the hot wind, one arm coiled around her whiplash weapon, the other holding her curved darksaber humming faintly violet. Behind her, the Brides of Death crawled from their shells, shrieking with ecstasy at the scent of prey.
"Find the vault," Helica hissed. "Leave none breathing."
The Clash Beneath
Drong's eyes narrowed as the first wave of Archites leapt into the city.
"Steel thyselves, my kin. The dark ones approach."
He slammed his axe into the ground, runes flaring up through the earth, summoning a circle of emerald flame. Frode followed, invoking the old magic of Silverpick, her voice trembling with fury. The very sand around them hardened into living stone, rising as walls of defense.
The Broken Seers arrived first.
Pale figures cloaked in fractured light and shadow, masks glowing faintly. They raised their hands, threads of darkness erupting from their palms, hurling psychic storms into the Ralkesh wards. The air crackled with unnatural power—past and present twisting together. The Archites struck next, descending through the ruinous towers, their whips lashing out like lightning, their blades reflecting the gleam of the vault's light.
Three forces clashed—magic, void, and chaos.
The Ralkesh fought with ancient song and earth magic, the Broken Seers with psychic agony, the Archites with physical brutality and grace. Each movement was artful death; each breath was a hymn to extinction.
And in the black above… the Arachne moved.
Dozens crawled down the shattered spires, their limbs clicking softly, bodies shimmering with wet shadow. They surrounded the battlefield, unseen yet ever-present, their eyes reflecting the carnage below. Frode looked up mid-parry, her silver eyes wide.
"Drong—!"
But her warning was drowned out by a sudden scream as one of the younger Ralkesh was snatched upward into the dark, webbing wrapping around him, muffling his cries.
The Arachne fed.
The war below the sands had begun its descent into madness.
Orbit of Myr'Vara – The Void War
Above the skies of Myr'Vara, the void itself lit aflame.
Thousands of Thalor capital ships held formation around the world, their blue shields shimmering like a dome of glass. Allied fleets—Cruthan, Vel-Dras, and the remaining Zelith protectorate armadas—arrived in disciplined phalanxes, every ship bristling with cannons and ion torpedoes. The void was filled with anticipation, a silence before apocalypse.
Then the Mahasimu arrived.
The Monolith Fleet fell out of warp in perfect unison—black wedges of anti-light that absorbed the stars around them. Above them, the Darkstar Station Aldre pulsed with crimson radiance as its hangars opened, releasing thousands of shadow transports and star-lord cruisers. The first beams of annihilation tore across the void, cutting through Thalor defense lines like silk.
The war began.
Vrakhar's fleet answered with everything it had. Massive battleships turned their cannons toward the Darkstar's flank, unleashing firestorms that made the heavens tremble. Dozens of Mahasimu destroyers burned, their black hulls splitting open into molten shards—but for every one that fell, ten more took its place.
From her throne aboard the Darkstar, Queen Suama watched with an expression of divine detachment. The floor trembled as Vaelora's Monoliths shifted formation, aligning their orbital cannons.
"Begin planetary descent," Suama whispered.
"Let them know despair."
The Invasion of Myr'Vara
From the void, the Mahasimu descended.
Transports breached the atmosphere like flaming gods. The sky turned red. Myr'Vara's upper atmosphere crackled as plasma storms ignited. On the ground, Thalor anti-air defenses screamed to life, massive towers spitting brilliant beams into the heavens. Entire transports were vaporized before reaching the ground, but too many slipped through.
In the capital, billions of soldiers prepared for the end.
The streets were filled with troops in dark-blue armor, tanks roaring through the avenues, banners of the Zelith fluttering in the artificial winds. Overhead, the faceless warriors deployed in phalanxes, moving silently like ghosts, while the Thalor Shield Corps powered up the last layer of planetary defense grids.
Vrakhar stood on the command terrace overlooking the battlefield, his voice booming through the comm-channels.
"For Myr'Vara! For the blood of our ancestors! Stand firm!"
And from the palace spires to the outer walls, a billion voices answered.
The Mahasimu hit the surface like a falling storm. Their landing craft split open, releasing horrors—Thal'karn, Shadowscourge, and Luminary Troopers who advanced through plasma fire and smoke, cutting through defenses with brutal efficiency. The ground quaked under their march.
From the distance, the sky fractured into a wall of fire as orbital bombardment began. Cities vanished in light. Oceans boiled. Myr'Vara, jewel of the Zelith, had become a furnace of war.
Below the desert planet Sands – The Vault Unsealed
While the heavens burned, the underground war reached its crescendo.
The Broken Seers had formed a psychic barrier before the vault, the Ralkesh encircled by collapsing wards, and the Archites closing in with inhuman precision. Then the ground itself split apart—an ancient rune flared beneath their feet. The vault began to open.
A hum like the heartbeat of a god filled the chamber.
Drong stumbled, eyes wide.
"It awakens… the First Flame of Ralkesh…"
The Archites stopped mid-motion, their whips twitching. Even the Broken Seers hesitated as a blinding blue light poured from the cracks in the vault door.
And from the walls and ceilings, the Arachne began to scream—not in hunger, but in reverence.
"Mother rises! Mother rises!"
The air thickened. The vault groaned open. Inside, a presence moved—a shimmer of light and shadow beyond comprehension.
The Mother of Arachne whispered to her children:
"Feast upon those who dare awaken the sun beneath the sand."
The Arachne descended en masse.
The three factions, once enemies, turned their weapons upward as the walls of the cavern exploded in webs and limbs. The war on this unknown desert planet becaming a massacre.
And high above it all, in a distant galaxy onboard the Darkstar throne room, Queen Suama watched Myr'Vara planet ignite, whispering in silence—
"Let it begin. Let the age of Mahasimu supremacy dawn once more."