Beyond Earth, the void stretches eternal—cold, beautiful, and cruel. Among the infinite stars, not all planets are equal. Power in this galaxy is tiered. Defined not by size, but by devastation.
At the absolute Pinnacle stood The Apex Worlds—dominant planets that commanded dread even from the stars themselves:
Zy'Rhael —a molten, shifting inferno where beings of living fire, called the Emberborn, harness nuclear cores as lifeblood.
Nythros —a world of silence and shadows, where the Eclipsed Order dwells—beings born of black gravity and thoughtless hunger.
Orytheon —a planet entirely submerged beneath sapphire oceans, governed by warlike aquatic leviathans with psionic control.
Velgradis —an eternal storm planet inhabited by tempestborn Warlords whose voices shape weather and raze fleets with a word.
And below them—The Subjugators. These were worlds not as feared as the Apex, but capable of extinguishing civilizations. Brutal, vast, and unrelenting.
One such world…
…was Gorr'Rath.
A crimson wasteland orbiting twin black stars. Its atmosphere was a mix of radiation and razor wind. It had no oceans, no flora, only bone and ruin. A world built by war. Ruled by a race not spoken of with reverence, but with fear and revulsion:
The Karnathi.
They were once mistaken for Titans—massive, humanoid figures with carbon-hardened skin, tusks of serrated obsidian, and eyes that glowed with contempt for anything weak. Their hierarchy was absolute. Strength ruled. Weakness bled.
And buried beneath the molten surface of Gorr'Rath…
…was The Hollow Maw—a dungeon that served as both prison and performance. Chains sang like screaming metal. Heat oozed from stone like venom.
In the deepest pit, bound in xeno-steel, Kaen Virelos—one of Kuro's most loyal comrades—hung by his wrists, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. Bruised. Burned. Tortured.
His breathing was slow. Defiant.
The Karnathi interrogators snarled in frustration. "Who do you serve, softskin?Who do you work for?...
Kaen said nothing.
A torch-brand was pressed to his chest. He flinched but didn't scream.
Then—
Silence.
Heavy. Crippling.
The chamber darkened unnaturally. The guards backed away instinctively. Something approached.
Footsteps echoed. Slow. Weighted with authority.
From the stone stairwell emerged a figure twice the size of the Karnathi torturers—skin darker than obsidian, etched with molten sigils. His eyes burned like dying suns. His armor bore the mark of High General Xurnak the Blightbound a legend of over a thousand battlefronts.
Even the guards bowed.
He stepped into the cell. The heat intensified. The oxygen thinned. The pressure dropped like a planetary descent.
Living things were not meant to exist in his presence.
Xurnak crouched. His claws tapped against the stone. He stared directly into Kaen's eye.
Voice deep. Unholy.
"…Who leads you, scum?"
Kaen didn't answer.
A pause.
Then, a grin.
He leaned forward, split lip curled in defiance, and—
Spat.
Right into Xurnak's face.
The Karnathi froze.
Kaen's voice was hoarse, but sure.
"…Too late, Romeo. He's coming," Kaen said, half-jokingly, a crooked grin tugging at his bruised lips—as if even in chains, he found joy in their incoming doom.
He chuckled through blood.
"You might wanna pack up before he rearranges your goddamn planet."
The torchmaster snarled, wiping Kaen's blood from his cheek. "Arrogant little—"
CRACK!
A vicious strike to Kaen's jaw snapped his head sideways. The chain groaned under the weight of his limp body as blood spilled from his mouth onto the floor. Still, Kaen's smile didn't fade.
"You'll be laughing less when your bones are scattered across the wastes," the torturer hissed.
But then—everything stopped when the High General's deep voice rumbled again.
"Let him laugh." Xurnak rose, his shadow stretching across the walls like a storm-devil. "This insect dies screaming tomorrow at dawn. We'll execute him before the entire outer garrison. Let the filth know what happens when they defy Karnathi law."
He leaned in, voice like a dying god.
"If this... phantom of yours comes, we'll paint this sky with his corpse."
With that, Xurnak turned, his armored boots shaking the stone floor as he departed—each step like the countdown of a planetary weapon.
---
The skies of Gorr'Rath bled crimson and smoke, always choked with volcanic clouds and lightning that snapped between mountain-sized bones littering the world's surface. Its cities were built into spires of iron and blackstone, twisted by aeons of conquest. Karnathi roamed in droves—towering, horned, fanged warriors, all bred for slaughter. No music played here. No culture flourished. Only rituals of war, the gnashing of teeth, and fires of industry.
High towers loomed with arc-cannons aimed at orbit, and aerial beasts shrieked above molten gulfs where lesser races toiled in chains.
Then...
The air stilled.
The lightning paused mid-flash.
Soldiers looked up.Civilians looked up.
Something ancient stirred. Something wrong.
A vibration. Subtle.
The clouds rippled as if a titan exhaled.
And then—
Space itself tore.
SHRRRRRRRRKTT—!!!
A rift like a divine wound opened mid-air, splitting heaven from hell. A line of pure void carved through the red sky like the stroke of a god's blade. Wind roared outward. Metal sang. Gravity warped.
The Karnathi didn't have time to sound alarms.
Because from that impossible fracture—
He stepped out.
---
Kurozane Arashi
The first thing they saw were his eyes.
One open—cold, sharp, silver-blue like a frozen moon. The other shut, crossed by a deep scar that ran from brow to cheek.
Hair silver white as starlight, flowing and untamed like a phantom flame. His long black coat fluttered as if the wind bowed to it. He moved without sound, boots gliding onto solid air. Sheathed across his back—Shikairos, a katana so elegant, reality twitched around it.
He did not land. He arrived.
Stillness wrapped around him. Even the fire seemed to flicker slower.
No emotion. No haste. Just absolute presence.
Kuro turned his head slightly—half-shadowed by the rift behind him.
"You touched what's mine. Now bleed for it."
The silence shattered.
A low-frequency vibration rolled through the dungeon walls like a beast exhaling behind them. Dust trickled from the ceiling. Chains rattled. Torches flickered blue.
The torturers looked at one another. One dropped his searing brand.
"…What the hell was that?"
Another stepped back from Kaen, his voice tight. "That wasn't an orbital quake…"
The third guard turned to the exit, reaching for the wall-comm. "I-I'll go check—"
"Stay put."
The voice came from General Xurnak, still in the center of the room, standing firm as the stone cracked beneath his boots. He didn't move. Didn't flinch. Only narrowed his glowing gold eyes toward the faint tremor now spreading like a ripple through the structure.
"Whatever it is… it'll pass," he said coldly. "Maintain alertness. Nothing more."
But Kaen smiled.
No longer just a defiant grin. Now it was genuine. A laugh bubbled in his throat, broken by the bruises.
"Heh… He actually came."
One of the torturers spun on him, rage flaring. "Shut your damn—!"
THWACK!
A brutal punch to Kaen's stomach silenced the laugh for a moment. Blood spilled from his lip. But the glint in his eye stayed.
"You're already dead, you just don't know it yet…"
---
High Command Hall — Fortress Gorr'Rath.
Sirens echoed. The crimson alert flares cast the chamber in blood-red hue. Massive Karnathi warlords surrounded the central table, arguing, growling, smashing gauntlets against the iron pillars.
"What was that surge?!"
"Are we under orbital attack?!"
"Is it Vurn-Delta?! We've had diplomatic tension with them for months!"
A heavy warlord slammed his clawed hand on the table, cracking its reinforced alloy. "That forsaken ice-world's been itching to test us. If it's the Cryo-Drakes, I say we launch a solar sweep now!"
"Shut it!" another snarled. "They wouldn't be this quiet. They scream before they strike."
The room descended into chaos—commanders and sector lords shouting over one another, some reaching for weapons as arguments escalated—
"Silence."
It wasn't loud.
But the moment General Xurnak entered, everything stopped.
His mere presence shifted the gravity. Black steam hissed from the cracks in his armor. His horned silhouette loomed like a demon risen from tectonic fire. The floor burned where he stepped—his aura was molten hatred, pressure that made lesser generals buckle slightly at the knees.
Eyes turned. No one dared speak.
Xurnak stepped forward, voice like a slow avalanche.
"This is no planetary faction. This isn't Vurn-Delta, nor the Cryo-Drakes. This… is something else."
He paused.
Then gave the command.
"Send in the Oblivion Stride."
A heavy silence followed General Xurnak's decree
The chamber went still—stone-silent—yet something invisible clawed through the air: dread. The name itself was enough to drain the color from battle-hardened faces. These were not soldiers. Not elite units. The Oblivion Stride were butcher gods dressed in flesh and steel. Their wake was ash and null.
One of the younger strategists swallowed hard. His voice trembled as he dared to speak—barely above a whisper:
"G-General… are you sure we must go that far? Unleashing them could... backfire. Shouldn't we first confirm—"
He stopped.
Xurnak had turned.
No expression. No movement. Just those golden eyes. They locked onto the speaker like a predator scenting weakness.
The weight hit instantly.
BOOM.
Killing intent slammed into the chamber like gravity gone mad. The young strategist clawed at his throat, gasping—no air—eyes bulging as veins in his face turned black and pulsed like roots under his skin. He collapsed onto the obsidian floor, foaming at the mouth, twitching before going utterly still.
Unconscious. Maybe dead.
"Any… objections?" Xurnak asked, voice colder than void.
"NO, GENERAL!!" the chamber barked in unison.
None hesitated. No one breathed.
Xurnak let his gaze sweep across them like a judgment passed.
"Good."
His black cloak flared behind him as he turned, footsteps melting the floor tiles with each step. The chamber door hissed open, and he vanished into darkness.
The command room stayed silent long after.
Even the alarms dared not resume.
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.
Kuro.
No rage. No drama. Just eyes like judgment and a silence that suffocated hope.
His aura was a void made conscious. It pressed against reality, demanding submission. Not fiery or explosive — but perfectly controlled, like a sword always half-drawn.
His expression was unreadable — not cold, but something worse: unmoved.
He didn't care what this world was.
He was simply here to end it.
And still, he descended.
"I've looked down on many worlds," he said softly, voice barely carried by the whisper of gravity. "Most… were unworthy of salvation."