Chapter 127 The Ground War

Chapter 127 The Ground War
The Silver Vanguard

I entered the battle by running toward it. My impact with the enemy forces came down upon them as if a thunderstorm had struck.

I transformed into a bright beam of concentrated starlight which shot through the ash-wastes that lay beyond the Citadel. The space between the Star-Metal walls and the Aethelgard dreadnought reached its maximum distance before collapsing into instant contact.

I came into existence at the intersection point of the alien forward base.

CRACKLE.

The moment I reformed, the astral energy created a violent stream of air which caused the nearest dark-matter warriors to lose their balance. My hands ignited before they had time to lift their magic-eating halberds.

I fought with all my strength. The endless fire of the universe flowed out of my body through my skin. I rotated my body at maximum speed while releasing a silver light that moved horizontally. The starlight burned through their slipspace shields since it did not push them away. Twelve alien soldiers fell into the ash as their dark-matter armor began to fail, producing sparks that danced from its remaining silver fire.

The unified packs let out their battle cry which shook the ground behind me.

Thousands of Ferals shifted their running direction while their enormous wolf bodies ripped through the enemy lines. Earth Mutants led by Bark did not engage in hand-to-hand combat instead they used their fists to strike the earth which created massive rock spikes that struck Aethelgard soldiers before they could activate their protective gear. Null-Wolves from Thorne followed the pack while they fired special rounds designed to penetrate armor which resulted in disorientation for their targets instead of death.

The ash-wastes erupted into total violent disorder.

I remained protected from all incoming threats. I moved across the battlefield while riding on the illumination of light.

An alien warrior swung his grey, glowing halberd at my back. I transformed into a silver flash before teleporting upward to a height of ten feet. I used my boots to strike his helmet as I emerged from the ground and then launched a focused starlight beam at the approaching enemy warrior.

"Thorne ordered his forces to push back the enemy forces toward their hideout. He used his combat sword to strike the alien knee joint at its weakest point.

We maintained our defensive position. Yet, we endured combat against the enemy infantry.

The General remained unengaged in combat.

The Spatial Tear

Through the smoke and the blinding flashes of my own silver magic, I saw him.

The High General towered over the battlefield, easily nine feet tall in his intricately carved, heavy dark-matter armor. He wasn't rushing into the fray. He walked through the bloodshed while carrying his double-edged scythe on his shoulder like an ordinary person.

He didn't use his weapon against the wolves. His presence emitted an overwhelming force which drained everything around him. Feral creatures that entered his ten-foot radius would transform back into human form while losing their ability to breathe due to his magic absorption.

"Target the leader!" I yelled while I fixed my feral gold eyes onto the High General.

I set my veins on fire to convert my body mass into light. I chose to teleport to his chest so I could materialize at point-blank range to stab my Star-Metal knife into his power core.

I traveled on a beam of light.

The General stayed defensive by refusing to raise a shield while he also did not attempt to evade the incoming attack.

The head which lacked a face turned toward the approaching silver beam. He swung his enormous scythe across a horizontal path with terrifying speed which allowed him to hit me at the exact point of my flight path.

The scythe didn't cut the light. It cut the space around the light.

The sickly grey blades of his weapon opened a rough void which created a localized rip through actual existence.

The dimensional friction created a wrecking disaster which caused me to be violently removed from the slipstream.

My body experienced the agonizing sensation of sudden materials appearing in every part of my body. I crashed into the compacted ash like a meteor, tumbling wildly and tearing the reinforced fabric of my tactical gear.

I attempted to stand while I gasped blood and ash out of my mouth. My vision was swimming.

The General's heavy metal boots made a loud noise when they came to a stop less than one foot away from my face.

"The High General spoke to me through his telepathy by saying that I could only move through light. "You ride the light, anomaly," the High General projected, his telepathic voice a cold, grinding weight in my skull. "But the light still must travel through space. And space belongs to the Aethelgard."

The Suffocating Heart

The main command bunker lies located inside Aurora Citadel's primary command center.

The medical cot creaked under the immense, dead weight of the Architect.

Kade lay flat on his back, his ocean-blue eyes cloudy and unfocused. The fifty-pound Star-Metal plate fused to his chest wasn't just heavy; it was actively suffocating him. The World Engine’s infinite energy was essential for him to survive because his body could not handle the extreme biological pressure that killed his human heart.

"His pulse is bottoming out!" Seraphina panicked, her hands glowing with green healing magic as she pressed them against Kade’s temples. "My magic can't reach his organs! The iron is blocking it!"

Leo stood beside the cot, tears streaming down his face as he clutched Kade’s heavy, lifeless Star-Metal gauntlet.

"Daddy, wake up," Leo sobbed. "You have to wake up!"

Kade’s chest barely rose. He forced his eyes to focus on his son.

Kade said Leo while blood foam bubbled from his pale lips. He used his final words to speak about his impending death. "The Engine... is empty. My heart... isn't strong enough... to turn the key."

Leo cried out in confusion.

Kade whispered about the purple spark while he reached out his shaky hand to hold Leo's small fingers. "I need you... to jump-start the Engine."

Seraphina gasped, pulling her hands back. "Prime, no! The boy's Source magic is raw, unrefined creation energy! If he pushes it directly into your core, it could violently overload the Star-Metal! It could vaporize you!"

Kade spoke through his teeth about his dying condition while his sight narrowed into darkness. He looked back at Leo. "You are the master of the cup, Leo. Just a spark. Right over my heart."

Leo wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve, his mismatched eyes wide with terror, but he didn't run away. He gazed at the dead grey plate of Star-Metal which crushed his father's chest.

Leo spoke the words "Just a spark" in a quiet voice.

The Attrition

The High General brought his heavy boot down to create ashes which instantly turned into glass when my head moved out of the danger zone.

I stood up while drawing my Star-Metal hunting knife from my waist. My veins contained astral lightning which began to sputter because the forced deceleration had made me lose my focus on teleporting.

I had to fight against a nine-foot cosmic predator in a close-quarters combat battle.

The General used his twin-bladed scythe to create a deadly sweeping motion which cut through everything present in his vicinity.

I stepped inside his guard after ducking under the dimensional tear which tore through space above me. I drove my Star-Metal blade directly into the glowing grey runes on his breastplate.

CLANG.

The Star-Metal had no power to shatter the dark-matter yet its extreme iron weight made the alien creature fall backward.

The moment my blade encountered his armor, I experienced a sickening wave of complete weakness. The sickly grey light flared, violently siphoning my physical werewolf stamina directly through the hilt of my knife.

My arms instantly became as heavy as lead. My enhanced Luna speed dragged to a halt.

"Your biological resilience is exceptional, so you will sustain my vanguard for hours," the General stated as he stepped forward to swat me away with his scythe. "You possess no planetary Source magic."

The impact made me hit the ground so hard that my ribs broke. My muscles refused to activate when I attempted to push myself up from the ground. My armor not only blocked my attacks but it also absorbed my fighting spirit.

The High General stood above me while he raised his twin-bladed scythe into the ash-choked air. The void-edge weapon began to hum, which created a sound that replaced my physical body with another universe location.

I looked up at the blade, my feral gold eyes defiant even as my body failed.

I thought of Kade when the silver sparks died on my fingertips.

The Spark of Source

The main control command room served as the foundation for the primary command center.

Leo climbed onto the edge of the medical cot. He didn't hesitate. He used both of his small hands to create a complete contact with the cold dead center area of Kade's Star-Metal chest plate.

Leo closed his eyes.

Leo spoke in a whisper that he would not break it while his face showed intense concentration. "I'm the master of the cup."

Leo’s palms began to glow when a deep, violent, pulsing violet light appeared in the center of his hands. The magic which he had accidentally vented months ago ended the world. It was controlled, terrifyingly pure Source energy.

Leo pushed the purple spark directly into the dead iron.

A terrifying second passed when nothing happened yet Kade's chest remained perfectly still.

The Star-Metal began to emit a loud noise.

The violet Source magic violently collided with the dormant World Engine. The grey, dead iron of Kade's chest plate instantly flushed with explosive purple and white-gold fire.

THUMP.

The sound registered as a biological heartbeat. The sound produced by a god's engine sounded like a violent concussive percussion which began to operate again. The shockwave of pure kinetic energy blew out the reinforced glass windows of the bunker and knocked Seraphina entirely off her feet.

Kade's neck veins began to glow while they created a terrifying light show which produced cosmic brightness.

Kade’s eyes snapped open. The ocean-blue was gone, replaced entirely by the infinite, swirling cosmic gold of the fully awakened Architect.

He didn't just sit up. The gravitational pressure of his core made him collapse the medical cot into a flat sheet of scrap metal.

Kade levitated off the floor, his Star-Metal gauntlet burning with the heat of a supernova.

The King of the Stars had awakened. He could sense my weakening heartbeat from a distance of one mile.