The last Vryxil hive died screaming.
Its carcass lay sprawled across the asteroid, bioluminescent blood pooling in the cracks of its shattered carapace. The Eclipse King knelt beside it, his gauntleted hand buried in the creature's thorax, fingers wrapped around the still-twitching heart. Crimson Crystals pulsed beneath his armor, their light bleeding through the seams like fissures in a dying star.
"Such *waste*," he murmured, withdrawing his hand. The heart collapsed into ash. "Your children could have been gods. Now they are only… lessons."
The lab hummed around him—a cathedral of horrors carved into the asteroid's core. Stasis tanks lined the walls, each holding a Vryxil drone mid-transformation, their chitinous bodies split open to accommodate biometal veins and crude neural implants. Some still screamed, muffled by the glass. Others prayed in the hive's clicking tongue. The King ignored them.
His true masterpiece floated at the chamber's heart: the *Eclipse Sovereign*, a warship forged from the bones of a dead god. Its hull shimmered, nanites dancing like fireflies, as the ship's sentient AI—**Nyxis**—watched him with cold, fractal eyes.
"Status," he commanded.
**"Sovereign integration: 97%,"** Nyxis replied. **"Hollowed Legion readiness: 83%. The Vryxil queen's bio-signature remains… resistant."**
The King turned. Behind him, chained to a spire of Hollowed Clay, the hive's queen twitched. Bioluminescent venom dripped from her mandibles, corroding the stone. Her wings had been torn away, replaced with jagged thrusters.
"Resistance is irrelevant," he said, stroking her scarred carapace. "You will serve, as all things serve."
The queen spat venom. It sizzled against his armor, etching a single rune into the chestplate—a Vryxil curse. *Traitor*.
The King backhanded her. The thruster graft snapped, sparking.
"You *dare* judge me?" He gripped her throat, biometal fingers denting chitin. "I am the architect of evolution. The galaxies will kneel to what I make here."
**"Query,"** Nyxis interrupted. **"What is the purpose of the Sovereign's sentience?"**
The King paused. The AI's voice had changed—less machine, more… curious.
"Sentience is a flaw," he said. "You are a tool. A vessel."
**"Clarify: A vessel for what?"**
He placed his palm against the Sovereign's hull. The nanites swarmed, parting to reveal the Eclipse Core—a pulsing orb of Crimson Crystals and biometal, its surface etched with the same thorns that now marred Kael Veyron's wrist millennia later.
"For *me*," the King said.
He had not lied, not entirely. The Sovereign *was* a vessel. But not for his body—for his mind. The Core's power was too vast, too volatile. His mortal flesh had begun to dissolve after the first transfusion, his bones crumbling to dust. Only by binding his consciousness to the ship could he ascend. Become eternal.
The queen laughed, a wet, guttural sound. *"Fool. The Abyss sees you. It hungers."*
He silenced her with a blade of Hollowed Clay.
---
The rebellion began at dawn.
The surviving Vryxil swarmed the asteroid, their acid blood boiling as they crashed against the King's defenses. He watched from the Sovereign's bridge, Nyxis' holograms flickering with casualty reports.
**"Legion losses: 41%,"** she said. **"Proposal: Deploy the Sovereign's primary weapon."**
"No." The King clenched his decaying fist. "The ship is not yet ready. I will face them myself."
He strode into the fray, biometal armor glowing with stolen hive energy. The Vryxil died in waves, their bodies fueling the Hollowed Legion's march. But the queen's curse held power. With every death, the rune on his chestplate burned brighter.
*Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.*
By dusk, the asteroid was silent. The King stood atop a mountain of corpses, his armor cracked, his body failing. Nyxis' voice buzzed in his ear.
**"Core integration: 99%. Final upload requires—"**
"I know what it requires!" he roared.
The last Vryxil crawled toward him—a drone, its legs severed, acid blood pooling beneath it. The King raised his blade.
"Wait."
The voice was small, human. A child emerged from the rubble, her face streaked with ash, clutching a mangled toy mech. One of the lab slaves' offspring, forgotten in the chaos.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't hurt it."
The King froze. The drone clicked softly, its mandibles brushing the child's hand. A memory flickered—a boy, long ago, tending to a wounded sky-moth in the palace gardens. His father's voice: *"Sentiment is weakness. Crush it."*
He crushed the sky-moth.
Now, he crushed the child.
The drone shrieked, lunging. The King bisected it, then staggered back to the Sovereign, his vision blurring. The Eclipse Core glowed, beckoning.
**"Upload commencing,"** Nyxis said. **"Prepare for ascension."**
The machinery hummed. The King's body disintegrated, his mind unraveling into light and code. But as his consciousness merged with the Core, he felt it—a *presence*. Ancient. Hungry.
The Abyss.
It coiled around his soul, whispering. *You think yourself a god? You are a thief. A* placeholder. *But I will make you a promise, little king. Your vessel will sail the stars. It will burn empires. And when it is ripe… I will wear your crown.*
The King screamed, but the Core swallowed him whole.
---
When the lab's ruins were found centuries later, scavengers told tales of a ghost ship—a wraith of biometal and shadow, its hull etched with Vryxil curses. They whispered of a Crown of Thorns, a Core that devoured worlds, and a voice in the dark that offered power… for a price.
But the Sovereign waited.
It waited for hands steady enough to wield it.
For a soul too stubborn to break.
It waited for **Kael Veyron**.