The ash-choked wind screamed across the battlefield.
Smoke and flame danced together in a chaotic waltz.
Leviathan's shadow loomed across the torn earth, and the sky above pulsed like a dying heart — a red, writhing wound in the heavens.
Commander Cooper stood before the army, his armor shattered, blood crusted in the corners of his eyes, his voice the only thing unbroken.
He stepped forward, boots cracking bones beneath the dirt, and raised his voice for the final time.
> Commander Cooper:
"There is a story about every hero that became great... Most have one thing in common..."
The soldiers and warriors — human and nonhuman, battered and bloodied — lifted their gazes to him.
> Commander Cooper:
"Their body moved before they had a chance to think — almost on its own."
His voice grew sharper, echoing across the blood-soaked valley.
> Commander Cooper:
"THE COURAGEOUS FALLEN... THE ANGUISHED FALLEN! THEIR LIVES HAVE MEANING BECAUSE WE, THE LIVING, REFUSE TO FORGET THEM!"
He drew his sword, the blade shaking in his trembling hand — not from fear, but fury.
> Commander Cooper:
"We do not buckle! We do not yield in the face of this world's cruelty!"
He turned toward the blackened skyline — the Tower of Sky looming like a scar across the universe, Leviathan's distant roar shattering clouds in the distance.
> Commander Cooper (screaming):
"THIS IS WHERE WE STAND!"
> "THIS IS WHERE WE FIGHT!"
> "AND THIS IS WHERE WE DIE!"
He slammed his blade down, driving it into the earth.
The army roared — not in hope, but in defiance.
Tears and screams merged into one unholy cry.
They all knew what this was: a suicide charge.
But it didn't matter.
They were soldiers of the Frontier.
And if the end had come — they would meet it on their feet.
The silence after Commander Cooper's final cry lasted only a heartbeat.
Then came the roar.
A million voices screaming ready to die.
The shattered earth trembled beneath a sea of charging feet — human, beastfolk, Celestials, and the knights of Xianzhou. The air exploded with gunfire, battle cries, and the unholy shrieks of things that should not exist.
And then… the Leviathan moved.
A tidal wave of flesh and teeth surged forward — taller than buildings, with eyes like suns bleeding black fire. Smaller horrors poured from its body: crawling nightmares with twisted faces and bone-blades for limbs, howling with a hunger deeper than death.
Guns rattled. Magic ignited the sky.
But it was not enough.
First Line – Impact
The frontline met the monsters like a wave meets a cliff.
A warrior from Xianzhou screamed as three beasts swarmed him, ripping through his armor and tearing his legs from his torso.
A beastfolk soldier fired until his gun clicked dry, then roared and charged with his fists — only to be crushed beneath a leviathan spawn's jaw.
A mage's last spell exploded, incinerating a dozen enemies… and himself.
Guts hit the snow.
Limbs flew like broken branches.
The ground ran black.
And still, they fought.
---
Commander Cooper led from the front.
His blade shone bright, stained red to the hilt.
He cut down a demon-thing that towered over him, then stabbed another through the eye, even as it gored his side.
He did not stop. He could not.
Elysia descended from above, wings aflame.
She cried for the fallen — then burned entire squads of horrors in holy light, eyes wide with panic, knowing this was a tide no angel could stop.
> "Too many!" she screamed over comms. "There are too many!"
Xiao Ling spun like a storm.
Blades whirled, and spirits of cloud and wind danced with her — but she wept as her knights died around her, one-by-one, buried under the endless swarm.
> Xiao Ling (voice breaking):
"I won't leave them! I won't—"
> Comms cut out.
Ty fought like a demon herself, claws soaked red, fangs bared.
She pulled Alexander from a pile of corpses, snarling, "We move! We move or we die here!"
But Alexander had already been hit.
His right arm was mangled.
He looked at her, nodding slowly.
Meanwhile…
Adam said nothing.
He stood in silence as a fallen knight begged him for help — then walked past as the man was devoured.
His blade sang a cruel tune as he sliced through the enemies, face dead, eyes hollow.
Back at the ridge…
Commander Cooper glanced back — what remained of the army was maybe one-tenth of what they began with. Screams echoed.
The sky cracked.
> Cooper:
"Hold the line. We're not done yet."
He lifted a flare.
Green.
It was the signal.
Team Break-In: Go.
Alexander. Ty. Xiao Ling. Eve. Adam.
The Tower was ahead.
Time was ending.
And the world screamed for heros.
The five broke through the slaughterfield, shadows trailing the blood mist as the red sky loomed over them like a curse.
The ground quaked with each step of the Leviathan behind them.
Their ears rang with screams from the dying below.
The Tower loomed ahead—a black steel monolith, growing like a scar from the earth, pulsating with unnatural light. At its heart: the Sky Blade, suspended and glowing like a sun birthed from apocalypse.
Entry Point Breached – Interior Lockdown Disabled
Eve's magic shattered the door with a blast of divine fury. The obsidian gates cracked open, revealing a twisted hallway lined with alien circuitry and flesh-bound metal, throbbing like a living organism.
Inside the Tower
Silence.
Just the buzz of energy and their echoing steps.
Adam walked ahead, silent, unblinking. His eyes traced the veins of energy converging toward the blade.
Xiao Ling's hand tightened on her weapon.
Alexander, wounded but moving.
Ty, fangs clenched, sniffing the air.
Eve, her wings twitching—uncertainty dancing behind her confident stare.
> Eve (low):
"This place feels wrong.
The walls shifted. Whispered voices spoke in dozens of tongues. Echoes of torment, of betrayals, of loved ones dying.
Suddenly, the walls peeled back and revealed the dead.
Xiao Ling saw her fallen knights lined up, staring at her, bleeding, silent.
Alexander saw the faces of every soldier he lost, mouths open but no sound.
Ty saw her own reflection—the version of herself who never became a vampire, who still smiled.
Eve saw her family—her mother, her father… standing beside Adam.
Adam saw nothing.
He walked straight through it all.
Metal arms burst from the walls. Tendrils of corrupted magic snatched at their limbs.
Xiao Ling activated a storm technique, shredding the traps to shrapnel.
Ty tore through the defenses like a beast unchained.
Alexander fired his sidearm with cold precision, covering their backs.
Eve ignited a holy ward, shielding them from psychic assault.
> Eve (panting):
"They're trying to buy time by breaking our Mind!"
The Core – Throne of Sky
They emerged into a vast chamber of shifting gears, glowing veins of power, and the Sky Blade, held above an altar by chains of light and shadow.
And standing before it…
A figure.
A dark robed priest, face masked in gold, hands bleeding as he chants in tongues no one should understand.
> Adam:
"Kill him."
Before anyone could react, Adam's sword pierced the priest's chest—
—but the priest laughed.
> Priest (gurgling):
"Too late. The beacon... is lit."
The Sky Blade screamed.
Energy pulsed—
And the world outside cracked.
Outside, Commander Cooper watches as the Tower surges with power.
The Leviathan lifts its head.
Something else... begins to awaken.
Back inside, the team is thrown back by the blast.
The Sky Blade's chains shatter.
It falls—
Right into the hands of a new figure stepping from shadow.
The chamber rumbled like a beast's hollow stomach, groaning with the weight of cataclysm. The Sky Blade hovered now, but it wasn't alone.
From behind the altar of chains stepped a figure: tall, regal, his presence a void.
Skin as pale as ash, cloaked in black threaded with shifting shadows. Eyes like burning eclipses, and a voice that sounded like an entire dying universe.
Erebus.
The room went still—no air, no sound, only fear.
> Erebus (smiling):
"Do you know what it means to kill a god?"
Adam's sword is already drawn. Ty bares her fangs. Xiao Ling channels her qi. Eve raises her staff. Alexander steadies his rifle.
But none of them move.
Because Erebus… is not afraid.
> Erebus:
"Before Zadkiel, my father ruled the Shadow Empire. Before him… I was to become emperor."
He walks toward the Sky Blade, which drifts into his hand like it remembers him.
> Erebus:
"Zadkiel stole my father throne. His army. Everything. But now… now the true work begins."
He points up. A holographic projection of the Tower's signal appears—beams piercing into every layer of the universe.
> Erebus:
"The Tower is a key. Not just a beacon, not just a blade. It forces the hidden hand of the One True God into the open. Once physical, once exposed… we kill Him."
Silence. Horrified silence.
> Xiao Ling (coldly):
"If that god dies… every world dies with Him."
> Erebus (grinning):
"Correct. The tether of all souls. The rhythm that binds heaven, hell, and earth—will snap. Everything you know, all of it, will crumble."
> Alexander:
"Then why do it? Why destroy everything!?"
Erebus steps forward.
> Erebus:
"Because my master—my glorious leader—will remake it all.
A perfect Paradise. No war, no death, no sin. No gods to judge. No mortals to fall.
Only order.
Peace through deletion."
He lowers his head, solemn.
> Erebus:
"You call it annihilation. We call it salvation."
> Eve (furious):
"You're insane."
> Erebus (quietly):
"You'll see. Soon."
The Sky Blade glows white-hot. The Tower's signal pierces the fabric of the dimensions—a scream that reaches even the edge of existence.
Commander Cooper watches the sky fracture.
The clouds split like torn cloth.
The Leviathan rises higher.
Reality bends.
And in the silence that follows—
a heartbeat.
A divine heartbeat.
The team braces as Erebus lifts the Sky Blade.
> Erebus:
"Now… the trap is set. The One Above All… will be reborn."
Suddenly—BOOM!
The floor explodes beneath them. Erebus vanishes into a vortex of shadows.
The Tower begins collapsing inward. The core destabilizes.
> Ty:
"MOVE!"
They escape through a side corridor as fire and void consume the room.
As they flee, Adam glances back.
The Sky Blade—still visible—hangs in the air above the burning core.
Above it: a tear in the sky…
And from that tear, something begins to descend.