The multicolored sands of the rainbow desert vibrated violently as Valdor, now thoroughly panicked by Liora's unchained savagery, unleashed the absolute limits of his bone manipulation.
He didn't just grow weapons; he forced thousands of compressed bone pillars to erupt beneath their feet, locking them together in a massive, rapidly rising tower of bones that shot straight up into the sky.
Higher and higher the bone tower rocketed, tearing through the planet's stratosphere until the vibrant colors of the atmosphere faded into the pitch-black, freezing vacuum of space.
Valdor sneered, his broken nose dripping blood that immediately froze into tiny scarlet crystals. "Let's see you breathe out here, monster!" he hissed, using his bone armor to anchor himself to the platform. He expected Liora to gasp, to choke, to claw at her throat as the pressure dropped to absolute zero and the oxygen was violently ripped from her lungs.
Instead, Liora's mind shifted, tapping into the blueprint of the tardigrade—the microscopic water bear of Earth capable of surviving the harshest vacuums and extreme radiation of open space.
Her skin tightened, her cellular metabolism instantly dropping into a state of suspended animation that completely protected her internal organs from the vacuum.
Liora didn't need to breathe. She simply grinned, her single right arm flexing as she stepped forward on the frozen bone platform.
Valdor's red eyes widened in pure terror. "Impossible! What kind of creature are you?!"
Liora didn't answer. She lunged forward, her single right fist condensing the raw, power of an asteroid. She drove her fist straight into Valdor's chest , shattering his entire external skeletal armor into dust. The sheer force transfer didn't just break his bones; it generated an explosive downward force that shattered the entire space-bound tower.
With a deafening, silent shockwave, Liora hurled her body weight entirely onto him, pushing Valdor backward. The two of them plummeted out of orbit, burning through the atmosphere like a two-man meteor, rocketing straight back down toward the rainbow planet.
BOOM!
They hit the desert floor with a cataclysmic impact, creating a massive crater that sent a shockwave rolling across the dunes. When the dust settled, Valdor lay completely broken in the center of the crater, his skeletal structure shattered beyond repair. Liora stood over him, her single arm dripping with his blood, looking down at the defeated Elite with absolute dominance. The battle of the rainbow desert was officially over.
Meanwhile, in the moving planet itself, Malkor Elite, "Blossom," her fingers dancing gracefully as her parasitic flora roots writhed across the floor like hungry serpents.
Surrounding her were soilders, malkor's soilders
"Don't let the pollen touch your skin!" Renji shouted, his left hand dropping to his side weapon while his eyes flared with a brilliant, light. His specialized Star Eyes activated instantly.
With the First Edge, his vision pierced through the thick pollen fog, gaining absolute X-ray vision, With the Second Edge, his gaze narrowed onto Blossom, scanning her energy pathways until a faint, flickering red node materialized near her left collarbone—her absolute physical weakness. Simultaneously, his Third Edge flashed in his mind, granting him a flawless vision of the future, showing him exactly where her roots would strike.
"Tessa! Sloane! Keep those soldiers off us!" Renji commanded.
"On it!" Tessa Sol yelled. She thrust both hands forward, her Thread Manipulation activating instantly. Thousands of razor-sharp, micro-filament silver threads erupted from her fingertips, weaving into a massive, defensive web across the walkway. The approaching alien soldiers ran directly into the trap, their heavy armor slicing to pieces against the near-invisible strings.
Sloane stood right behind her, as she brought out a huge hammer, knocking down any soilders who came towards her.
Lady Ness stepped forward alongside Renji, her eyes turning a deep, venomous green as she activated her evoliths.
"Let's see how your plants like a taste of their own medicine," Lady Ness purred. She unleashed a swarm of microscopic, flesh-eating bio-parasites from her sleeves. The bugs swarmed forward, latching onto Blossom's writhing roots and actively secreting an acidic rot that began to wither the parasitic vines from the inside out.
Renji used his future sight to effortlessly slip past a swinging vine, appearing directly in Blossom's blind spot. He drew his blade, slicing cleanly through a cluster of her defensive bulbs.
" You're finished!" Renji called out, his Star Eyes locked onto her collarbone weakness. "You're completely surrounded. Tell us what we want to know, and we might just let you live"
Blossom didn't look panicked. Instead, she let out a melodious, teasing laugh, giggling as she lightly hopped backward onto a massive rose bud that lifted her into the air. She began to toy with them, swinging her legs casually over the edge of the petal. "Oh, you boys are so serious! You think you've won just because you're a guy,?"
"Answer the question," Lady Ness hissed, forcing a wave of parasites to climb up the stem of the rose bud, forcing Blossom to step down. "How does this moving planet function? Where is the central controller?"
Blossom flipped her vibrant hair, executing a quick, graceful spin that unleashed a barrage of explosive seed pods toward Renji. Renji, already seeing the trajectory via his future sight, tilted his upper body to the left, letting the pods detonate harmlessly behind him.
"You're really no fun," Blossom pouted, running a finger along the edge of a thorn. "But since you're so persistent... and since it won't matter anyway... I'll tell you. This entire moving planet doesn't run on a standard engine grid. It's an actual moving planet. The central controller isn't a machine."
She smiled cruelly, her eyes locked onto Renji.
"The controller is called king Malkor..., You can't just flip a switch to turn it off. To stop the planet, you have to kill the king himself. But none of you will ever make it to the throne room alive."