The skies above Varnokhul — a world of obsidian storms and screaming winds — did not thunder.
They did not burn.
They simply… stopped.
Time, sound, and breath paused as if the universe itself dared not move.
A pressure unlike gravity coiled through the atmosphere — dense, sharp, ancient. It wasn't power; it was dominion. It wasn't heat; it was cold inevitability.
The clouds tore open in silence, unveiling a rift — not a tear in space, but a calculated incision. Clean. Intentional.
Like the stroke of a perfect blade.
And then came the presence.
Not one.
But many.
---
The Oblivion Strides arrived.
Seven figures. Each one born of extinction.
They didn't fall. They struck.
Mauldrak, the Tectonic Beast.
Skin like cracked stone, muscles pulsing with gravity fields. A creature meant to level continents.
Mauldrak's very presence bent the air, as if the laws of physics themselves were bending to accommodate his arrival. The ground quivered beneath his massive form, cracks snaking through the earth like it was merely sand beneath his feet. His roar — a deep, bone-shaking thing — carried the weight of mountains, sending ripples of seismic waves across the land.
Venya of the Crimson Choir.
She floated, veils of living flame cascading around her, her voice like a symphony of death that could rupture organs, twist bone, and shatter a soul with a single word.
Her eyes were hymns of death, an endless, swirling inferno that could burn entire cities.
Venya raised her arms, unleashing a blast of flame that surged through the air, seeking to incinerate Kuro where he stood.
Drask the Severed King.
A towering amalgamation of machine and flesh, his mechanical arm grasping a blade too large to be logical. The ground trembled beneath his footfalls as he dragged his weapon behind him, black and rusted from too many years of bloodshed.
Drask roared, his voice laced with fury, dragging his blade through the air, attempting to cleave Kuro in a single, vicious arc.
Sulven, The Pale Architect.
Sulven floated, his form a distortion of reality itself. Clad in shifting geometries and black math, each movement of his was like an equation unraveling, an impossible shape twisting into existence.
Yorrick Chainspire.
Flesh forged of barbed metal, poisonous ichor dripping from his joints. Yorrick was a walking death engine, his body a twisted mesh of lethal constructs. Chains extended from his body, rattling and hissing as they snaked toward Kuro, each link capable of slicing through bone and iron.
Nirash, The Howler Between Moons.
Cloaked in torn silence, Nirash was a creature of sound — or rather, the absence of it. It moved like a shadow, a formless presence, its breath a scream that could tear a person apart from the inside out.
And the seventh, their leader: General Vaexis, the Void Marshal.
Clad in armor forged from collapsed stars, Vaexis was the embodiment of annihilation. His blade shimmered with the entropy of galaxies, the weapon capable of erasing anything it touched from existence. He was a marshal of the end, an embodiment of void.
They formed a half-circle, each of them surveying Kuro with silent, calculating eyes.
Vaexis spoke first, his voice a deep, resonating echo. "This world is sanctioned. By imperial decree, you are to be erased."
Kuro didn't respond. His posture remained relaxed, like he was bored. His gaze, however, cut through Vaexis like a blade — cold, calculating, and utterly disinterested.
He simply waited.
Drask snarled, his mechanical fingers tightening around the hilt of his weapon. "Is he deaf? Or just suicidal?"
Venya floated closer, her voice lilting but filled with a sinister edge. "Perhaps he wants mercy."
Mauldrak let out a thunderous laugh, his voice like a mountain rumbling. "He'll get none."
Kuro's eyes flicked to each of them in turn, unmoving, unreadable.
Then, with a single, deliberate movement, his hand went to the hilt of his katana. The tension in the air seemed to compress as time itself hesitated for just a heartbeat. And then—
They struck.
---
Mauldrak charged first, his massive form throwing itself at Kuro, gravity crushing everything beneath his feet in a forward shockwave. The earth cracked open, and the very air seemed to collapse under the weight of his approach.
But Kuro had already vanished.
A single step.
Before Mauldrak even had time to react, his head fell from his shoulders with a clean, swift stroke, the roar of his death caught in the void, his body crumpling into the earth.
Venya, seeing her comrade fall, raised her arms. Her voice rang out — a shrill, vibrating melody that could liquefy flesh and melt bone. Flames spiraled from her hands, rushing toward Kuro with a speed that would incinerate any lesser being.
But Kuro was already beside her, so fast she could barely comprehend the movement.
A single arc of his katana.
Venya's lungs exploded, her flames snuffed out as her body collapsed. The fire goddess crumpled, her once-terrifying aura extinguished before she could reach her crescendo.
Yorrick, his chains now alive with deadly intent, lunged forward with a snarl. His barbed limbs shot out like whips, aiming to entangle Kuro, to rip him to pieces.
Kuro stood unmoved.
One chain slashed toward him, only for Kuro to catch it with two fingers, his grip so precise that it didn't even strain him. Yorrick lunged forward, the momentum of his chains dragging him straight into Kuro's reach.
With a single movement, Kuro yanked on the chain, pulling Yorrick forward. As the creature flew at him, Kuro's katana flashed. Yorrick was split in half, his twisted body crumbling in two, falling to the earth like discarded metal.
Drask came next, roaring. His mechanical limbs ground against the earth as he dragged his absurdly large blade through the air. The weight of his weapon seemed to bend the space around him as he swung it down with all his might, aiming to cleave Kuro in half.
Kuro didn't flinch.
He simply sheathed his blade.
Time slowed. The ground trembled.
Drask stopped mid-swing. His chest split open, followed by his torso, and then his skull. Three clean, precise cuts. A fatal execution in the span of a single breath.
Drask collapsed, his weapon falling to the ground with a final clang.
Sulven, who had been warping reality around him, now tried to collapse Kuro within an impossible geometric shape, folding space in on itself. The laws of physics seemed to break under the onslaught of his mind-bending powers.
But Kuro stepped forward.
Reality itself couldn't touch him. Kuro's katana flashed.
Sulven's form fell apart, pieces of his twisted geometry scattered like debris. The Pale Architect was no more.
Nirash was next. The being of silent void lunged forward, its formless presence creating a screeching silence that tore at the fabric of space itself. Its movements were erratic, every step a scream in the absence of sound.
Kuro didn't move.
Nirash's presence shattered, its scream no longer heard.
Nirash's body crumbled into nothingness, its form wiped from existence with a single cut.
Finally, Vaexis stood alone. He was clad in the armor of collapsed stars, his blade burning with the entropy of collapsing galaxies. His eyes blazed with cosmic fury, and he raised his weapon in defiance.
Kuro simply looked at him, unmoved.
"Is that all?" Kuro's voice was low, composed, and barely audible. It seemed to pierce Vaexis'
The battlefield was dead.
The bodies of the Oblivion Strides were still warm—twisted, torn, and discarded like broken war puppets.
Vaexis stood alone now, his once-imposing posture fraying under the sheer unnatural calm of the one who stood across from him.
Kuro.
His blade sheathed. His gaze unfazed.
Still. Cold. Silent.
A ghost with a pulse.
Vaexis's breath came shallow at first, then grew deeper as he tried to understand the impossible. He stepped forward, entropy humming from his void-thread armor
"You slaughtered them like flies. Do you even comprehend that? Each one of them could annihilate a planet. They were monsters, and you…"
Kuro stood unmoving. His eyes—void of warmth—held no reaction. No flicker of empathy. No recognition. Only an unblinking, frigid silence that made even the shadows seem to recoil.
Vaexis narrowed his gaze. His voice sharpened then barked,
"Why are you here?"
"Is this your idea of conquest? Is that it? You're here to rule?"
He scoffed.
"Or is it eradication?"
A beat passed, then a snarl:
"What are you?"
Still, nothing.
Kuro's stare alone was worse than any word he could've spoken—flat, merciless, and absolute. It was not the gaze of a man. It was a verdict.
"Fine..."Vaexis growled.
Then Vaexis slowly removed the binding collar from his throat — a chunk of black geometry that pulsed with sealed energy. He let it fall, and the moment it hit the ground—
Reality screamed.
---
Vaexis Transformed
The ground split in concentric rings around Vaexis.
The air inverted. A thousand voices cried in reverse.
A black sun ignited above him, casting light that bled upward into the stars. His armor peeled back like burning pages, revealing the true form beneath.
No longer a commander. Not a soldier. But a nightmare.
His body became a silhouette of writhing mass and logic-defying anatomy
Tendrils forged of collapsed time
Wings that blotted stars behind them
A mouthless face carved with spiraling runes
Eyes? No. Just holes, from which galaxies wept.
Above him, gravity bent in tribute.
The battlefield became a living canvas of impossible architecture. Shapes and angles that could not exist in three dimensions. Structures that existed only when you weren't looking.
---
Citadel Depths – Throne Observation Core
The chamber hummed with tension.
Nine generals stood like statues—immortal strategists, warlords who shaped galactic campaigns with a glance. At their center, watching the live battlefield feed through a reality-bent projection field, was High General Xurnak.
On the screen: Kuro.
The lone figure had eviscerated half the Oblivion Strides in mere seconds. The display glitched trying to process his movements. The satellites above struggled to track him.
Mauldrak's headless corpse still twitched. Venya was a crumpled husk, her voice melted in her throat.
They watched as Yorrick was ripped in half mid-charge.
Then Drask, carved before he even raised his blade.
"This… this is insanity," hissed Sylaine the Iron Veil.
"And he hasn't even drawn breath," said Vorr Malgros, voice cracking.
"Do we even know who he is?" demanded Threx Varn.
Then—
The doors thundered open.
A figure marched in. Cloaked in obsidian-gray with a silver badge of the Inquisition. His eyes were sharp, glowing slightly with neural integration. In his hands, a case sealed with shifting glyphs and locked through dimensional encryption.
He stopped two steps into the room.
He bowed his head first to General Xurnak, then to the others.
"High General. Warlords. Forgive the intrusion. I bring immediate delivery, as requested by General Xurnak."
The room tensed.
"Finally," Xurnak said calmly.
The agent stepped forward, silent and composed, and placed the sealed case at the center of the chamber. He pressed his palm to its surface.
The box responded with a low hum. Its exterior unfolded like liquid metal, reshaping into a compact pedestal. Ancient circuitry shimmered to life—etched with runes older than anything the Empire had ever claimed to possess.
Gasps rippled through the chamber as the symbols pulsed, casting eerie reflections across the war table.
"What's in the rune?" Threx muttered, voice low, eyes locked on the glowing glyphs.
From the pedestal, a holographic projection surged upward—a silhouette coalescing in flickers of blood-red light and static-black lines.
Kuro.
Floating above the table, face veiled in shadow, an eye dim with absolute calm.
And for a moment—
The room fell into a stillness so thick, it felt like time itself had paused.
Every general's gaze snapped toward the hologram, but it wasn't just the sight that paralyzed them. A weight, heavier than any battlefield, pressed down on their minds. Their thoughts blurred into static. It was as though they were staring into the abyss of something ancient—something so powerful, so unearthly, that the very essence of their existence trembled.
Some generals clenched their fists, but their knuckles whitened in vain.
Some gasped, their faces twisting in agony, as if the pressure was squeezing the very life out of them.
Others staggered back, clutching their heads, fighting to breathe against the force crushing their thoughts.
Kaelthuun collapsed to his knees, choking on his own breath.
"What… What is this?" he rasped, his eyes wide, horror settling in.
Jorak's hand slammed down onto the table, his knuckles white, his voice raw with panic.
The questions flew fast, sharp, and wild.
"You knew, Xurnak!" Threx shouted, his face pale with disbelief. "What is he?!"
"Why didn't we get clearance?!" another barked.
"You knew this wasn't natural—why didn't you say anything?!"
The air buzzed with urgency, the tension thick enough to suffocate.
Xurnak remained silent, his eyes locked on the figure above the table, unwavering, as if he were staring at something far beyond the scope of their comprehension. His gaze was calm, almost detached, as if the chaos around him was nothing more than a distant memory.The very presence of it a silent testament to his authority.
At last, after a long, heavy pause, Xurnak's voice sliced through the air, cool and deliberate.
"The Xarz'Velmoria " Xurnak began, his voice like a distant thunderclap rolling across a dead battlefield. "A dominion forged not by conquest—but by extinction. Where weakness is culled at birth, and only power determines your right to exist."
The air in the chamber felt colder now, as if even the room recoiled from the weight of that name.
A world chiseled in blood and fire, where every being is bred for supremacy. No diplomacy. No mercy. Just survival, sharpened to a blade."
One of the generals took an instinctive step back.
"It exists beyond charted galaxies. Beyond the veil of our understanding. Its rulers do not wage war for resources or territory…" he paused, locking eyes with them, "…they wage war because they can."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Then he turned, motioning toward the holographic silhouette still flickering on the table—the figure of Kuro, head slightly tilted downward, unmoving… unreadable.
His voice dropped into a cold, razor-sharp whisper.
"That… thing you're watching?"
He narrowed his eyes.
"He is no mere Being."