Chapter 101 Hundred and one
The sky didn't burn. It was simply erased.
The jagged, black rift tore across the atmosphere, bleeding absolute, light-absorbing darkness into the night. Pouring from the tear wasn't just a fleet; it was a cosmic swarm. The geometric monoliths of the Nullity dwarfed the Founders’ gleaming white-and-gold Sunburst Armada like leviathans swarming a school of minnows.
Hovering above Coldwater, the automated AI of the Sunburst Dreadnoughts realized its Omega-Cannons had been swallowed by the void. It immediately recalculated its threat assessment.
The two massive Solaris-Class Dreadnoughts pivoted their main batteries away from our city and aimed directly at the descending black monoliths.
"Get down!" Dax roared, throwing his weight against me as we pressed into the shadow of the fallen Avatar's golden chassis.
The Sunburst Armada unleashed hell. Thousands of superheated plasma bolts, kinetic railgun slugs, and thermal missiles launched upward, painting the sky in a blinding display of humanity's peak destructive power.
It did absolutely nothing.
The Nullity ships didn't have shields. They were composed of anti-matter geometry. The plasma and kinetic rounds struck the black monoliths and were instantly formatted, reverting to harmless sub-ether static before they could even detonate.
In response, the lead Nullity monolith pulsed. It didn't fire a beam. It simply expanded its localized gravitational shadow over the nearest Sunburst Dreadnought.
The gleaming, heavily armored flying fortress didn't explode. It glitched. The pristine white durasteel rippled, pixelated, and then silently dissolved into black ash, scattering into the stratosphere. Thousands of automated drones, Paladins, and Shock-Troopers were unwritten in a microsecond.
A collective gasp echoed through the Citadel courtyard.
The remaining Founder forces the hulking cybernetic Sun-Guards, the bleeding Paladins, and the Revers who had been trying to hack them to pieces all lowered their weapons, united by a sudden, paralyzing terror.
"Kinetics don't work," Captain Reyes whispered, stepping out from behind a concrete barricade. She stared at the dissolving dust of her former flagship. "The Founders spent a century building an army that can't even scratch them."
"But we can," Dax said, his voice cutting through the panic like a serrated blade.
He didn't look at the sky. He looked at the surviving Sunburst troops in the courtyard. There were about two hundred of them left, surrounded by the Iron Wolves and the Revers. They were cut off, their Founder was dead, and their fleet was currently being devoured.
Dax climbed onto the ruined knee joint of the fallen Avatar of Sol, making sure every soldier in the plaza could see him. He raised his phased combat knife, the iridescent blue Origin-Code blazing like a beacon in the creeping darkness.
"Listen to me!" Dax bellowed, his voice echoing off the black glass of the Citadel. "Your god is dead! Your ships are burning! If you keep fighting us, you die in the mud! If you run, the void deletes you!"
A high-ranking Paladin Commander, his golden helmet cracked, aimed his plasma rifle at Dax, his hands trembling. "We do not surrender to wasteland scavengers!"
"I'm not asking for your surrender!" Dax roared back, his amber eyes burning with absolute, feral authority. "I'm offering you a job! Your plasma is useless. Your armor is paper. The only thing that cuts the Nullity is the Origin-Code, and we are the only ones who have it!"
Dax pointed his glowing blade up at the descending black swarm.
"You want to live to see tomorrow? You point your guns at the sky! You ride with the pack, or you get formatted! Decide right now!"
The courtyard was dead silent, save for the hum of Dax’s Phase-Blade.
The Paladin Commander looked at the sky, where the second Sunburst Dreadnought was currently glitching into oblivion. He looked at Captain Reyes, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tank and Reaper. Then, he looked at his own plasma rifle.
Slowly, the Commander lowered his weapon. He hit the manual override on his comms.
"All Sunburst Vanguard units," the Commander broadcasted, his voice tight with the bitter pill of survival. "Cease fire on the locals. We have a new primary target."
Jax, the massive President of the Revers, let out a booming laugh, slapping the heavy flat of his phased gear-axe against his palm. "Never thought I'd die fighting side-by-side with a corporate lapdog!"
"You aren't going to die, Jax," Dax said, vaulting down from the Avatar. He looked at me, his tactical mind shifting gears at lightspeed. "Ghost. My Interceptor is bricked, and your deck is fried. I need you back online. If the Nullity drops Sentinels into this courtyard, the Sunburst troops have no phase-weapons to fight them."
"I need a hardline to the Red-Queen," I said, tapping the shattered glass of my data-deck. "I have to get inside the Citadel lobby to the main terminal."
"I'll carve the path," Dax promised.
He didn't have to wait long.
The Nullity didn't use drop-pods. The space above the courtyard suddenly warped, folding inward like a piece of origami.