Chapter 121 The Sky-Tear

Chapter 121 The Sky-Tear
The City of Beasts

Six months of peace can make you forget the taste of ash.

I stood in the center of the grand training courtyard, the mid-morning sun warming the pristine white-gold walls of Aurora Citadel. The crater had transformed from its former state as a destroyed area into a complete functional city built with Star-Metal and stone materials. The global Syndicates had kept their word. The streets were shared by Null-Wolves and Earth Mutants while the markets thrived with their energetic atmosphere.

Our world underwent its most spectacular transformation through its architectural changes. The sky was the element that created this impact on our existence.

The Citadel was under the path of gigantic shadows that moved slowly through the sky. Kade had awakened two ancient guardians from the earth’s mantle, when he brought Orion back to life. The city now hosted dozens of gigantic Star-Beasts, who made their homes on the city’s tallest towers.

Kade remained on the main balcony of the Prime Spire, watching the armored winged serpent while he stood there. The beast answered him with a deep vibrating trill after he raised his Star-Metal gauntlet, which caused the creature to begin its Pacific coastline patrol.

Kade had perfectly combined divine elements from ancient sky deities to create an effective defense system for Aurora. He held two titles, which included Alpha of the wolves and King of the Stars.

Valda shouted, "Eyes on me, Luna!" which disturbed my focus on the sparring match.

The Guardian with scarred skin performed a lunge at the moment I returned to the sparring ring. She swung her heavy Star-Metal broadsword in a brutal, horizontal arc aimed directly at my ribs.

I didn't draw my knife. I chose not to use any wind shield or dark static barrier.

I released all my body weight to the ground.

Riding the Light

The infinite vacuum of the cosmos became accessible to me, which I accessed by closing my eyes.

The silver, liquid starlight ignited in my veins. I summoned celestial lightning to my hands while I drew it into my entire being. My body transformed into pure silver photons that generated a blinding light, which occurred in a time span of one millisecond.

Valda’s sword sliced through empty air, the momentum spinning her around.

CRACKLE.

A concentrated beam of starlight reached the courtyard pavement, landing ten feet away from her. My combat boots made contact with the stone surface at the moment I materialized from the flash, which caused my body to appear perfectly whole.

I tapped Valda on the shoulder. "You're getting slow, Guardian."

Valda spun around, lowering her sword with a breathless, awe-struck laugh.

Valda panted as she wiped her forehead sweat, saying "I'm not getting slow, Elara. I can't track you, because you are moving at the speed of light.

I looked at my hands, watching the last faint wisps of silver starlight fade into my skin.

For six months, I had trained in absolute secret, pushing the limits of my new cosmic magic. The weapon served two purposes. The weapon functioned as a means of transportation. I transformed my body weight into astral lightning to achieve instant teleportation, which I performed by riding light beams. My body faced extreme physical demands, which caused me to burn calories at an accelerated rate but enabled me to become invulnerable during combat.

I said "Let's go one more round," as I prepared my body for combat. "If I can teleport fast enough to disarm you before—"

The entire basin area echoed with a deafening sound that resembled a catastrophic explosion.

The sound did not resemble a bomb explosion. It did not resemble the sound of a roaring monster.

The sound matched exactly that of a giant sheet of glass shattering into pieces.

The Fracture

The ground suddenly moved violently under our feet.

Valda lost her balance, using her sword to maintain her standing position. The atmosphere emitted a piercing sound that struck my werewolf hearing as I held onto the sparring ring's edge.

Kade at the Prime Spire directed his gaze upward. He fell to one knee, clutching the Star-Metal plate fused to his chest. His body produced a white-gold light, which became too bright for him to see because of the planet's tectonic activity increasing beyond normal levels.

I didn't wait for the lifts. I began to activate the silver lightning that flowed through my veins.

Zap.

I materialized on the balcony directly beside Kade, grabbing his broad shoulders. "Kade! What is it? Did the black box fail? Are the Void King's whispers—"

Kade gasped "No" while his silver-blue eyes showed extreme terror that I last witnessed when the Earth-Eater emerged. His voice sounded like artificial World Engine resonance, which emitted static vibrations. "According to Elara, the Vault remains safe, but this area lacks the characteristics of the Void. The Rift isn't opening."

Kade pushed himself to his feet, pointing a trembling iron gauntlet toward the western horizon.

The sky is breaking.

I looked out over the Pacific Ocean.

The beautiful, clear blue afternoon sky was gone. The atmosphere above the water was physically broken into separate sections that extended high into the sky. The sky had developed massive jagged black cracks, which spread out across the entire sky for distances of multiple hundred miles. The cracks obstructed my view of the swirling purple and grey mist that belonged to the Void.

I saw the cold, dead, absolute blackness of deep space.

Kade whispered to himself "Brute force," because he struggled to understand the data from the dimensional barrier. Something enormous moved toward the dimensional barrier from the outside.

The sky shattered into pieces after it produced its final world-shattering CRASH.

The crystalline atmosphere broke apart into millions of tiny shards, which fell into the ocean that boiled.

The Cosmic Dreadnought

Through the jagged, bleeding hole in reality, a shadow descended.

The entity appeared as a ship instead of a creature that possessed a physical body.

A colossal, terrifying dreadnought pushed its way through the dimensional fracture. It was easily the size of a mountain range, built of jagged, brutalist dark metal that absorbed the sunlight rather than reflecting it. It had no wings, no visible engines, just a terrifying, geometric perfection that screamed of an ancient, predatory intelligence.

As it breached the atmosphere, it completely blocked out the sun, casting Aurora Citadel and the entire Pacific coastline into an unnatural, freezing eclipse.

Kade shouted "Sound the alarms!" His Alpha voice made Valda and the courtyard guards wake up from their stupor. He ordered "Scramble the Syndicate fleets! Wake the Star-Beasts! Get Leo into the Vault!"

The city erupted in emergency alarms. The Citadel's giant Star-Metal gates forcefully closed. The ancient Star-Beasts screamed above us while Orion and the other creatures dove down to fight the enemies on the coastline.

The dreadnought kept its weapons silent while it refused to activate laser cannons or release bombs.

The massive ship opened its underbelly which launched thousands of drop pods into the sky as if they were a meteor shower. The aircraft bypassed the Citadel and crashed down onto the Pacific coast at two points which created massive earth-shattering impacts.

The Magic Eaters

I have to get down there I said because silver starlight already lit up my knuckles.

Kade grabbed my wrist to stop me from leaving the balcony when he shouted Elara wait. The magic spectrum which my sensors could detect showed no biological signatures of the people in range.

I will read them in person which I promised to do.

I transformed into a light form which let me travel through the silver beam that transported me to the balcony from which I teleported across the city to the sea-wall that protected the beach areas.

The wall already had Alpha Thorne and his squad of Syndicate Null-Wolves who aimed their artillery rifles at the burning craters located in the sand.

The drop pods released their metal doors which produced a hissing sound as the doors opened.

Figures emerged from the ash.

They appeared human but they reached a height of over seven feet and wore dark-matter armor which created a seamless design that matched their dreadnought's hull. They held large halberd weapons which emitted a sickly grey light that drained energy from the surrounding area.

Thorne shouted "Open fire!" to his troops.

The Null-Wolves launched an overwhelming storm of armor-piercing ammunition.

The alien vanguard maintained its forward position without seeking protection from their surroundings. The soldiers kept moving forward while maintaining their synchronized movements which created a scary effect.

The bullets hit their dark-matter armor but the armor absorbed all of the kinetic force which the bullets contained. The bullets stopped when they hit the ground as flattened lead.

Thorne explained "They are kinetic absorbers" as he switched from his rifle to his Star-Metal combat knife. The men should fight at close range with swords and claws now.

A Null-Wolf leapt over the sea-wall, shifting into a massive grey wolf in mid-air, his jaws aimed at the lead warrior’s throat.

The alien warrior displayed no sign of fear. He raised his halberd which emitted a glowing grey light and he used it to strike down at the wolf's head.

The wolf fell down after the weapon struck him. The wolf shifted back into his human form while he gasped for air and his eyes opened wide with terror.

The soldier panicked when he crawled backward in the sand while declaring "My wolf has disappeared!" The soldier believed his wolf had been eaten by the entity.

My blood turned ice cold.

Cosmic predators came to this location because they sought to absorb the raw magic energy which they encountered during their contact.

The lead alien warrior slowly tilted his helmeted head, looking up at me on the sea-wall. The dark visor released a cold hunger which consumed my soul.

The cosmos felt the ripple which brought true apex predators to Earth so they could hunt their prey.