Day One of the Final War.
They stood at the foot of the Black Cradle.
It loomed like a mountain of madness, its surface alive — shifting, groaning, leaking vapors that burned the sky.
Kaela could hardly breathe.
The Genesis Core strapped to her back screamed inside her mind, vibrating with terror.
The armies she had gathered — the broken, the desperate, the damned — tightened formation.
Across the cracked field, the Cradle began to move.
And hell spilled out.
---
The First Assault — Nightmare Unleashed
Thousands of Hollowborn poured from the fissures — twisted beyond imagination:
Giants stitched from the carcasses of extinct beasts.
Armored titans dragging spiked siege engines.
Floating sirens, weeping blood as they sang death-songs.
Worms of glass and teeth, burrowing through earth and flesh alike.
The first wave hit like a hammer.
Kaela's forces broke.
Screams filled the blackened air.
The monks ignited themselves in divine suicide charges, taking dozens of Hollowborn down in blinding blasts.
The war machines locked into firing lines, railguns spewing molten metal.
Gravik roared over the slaughter, smashing aside monsters twice his size.
Arin and Kaela fought side-by-side — pure fluid violence — a dance honed by countless battles.
But it wasn't enough.
Not nearly enough.
Every foot they gained cost rivers of blood.
The Black Cradle howled, sending psychic shockwaves that cracked skulls and liquefied lesser minds.
Already, bodies piled higher than barricades.
Already, hope was bleeding out.
---
The Betrayal Within
As Kaela drove her blade into a Hollowborn berserker's chest, a new alarm sounded.
From within the army itself — gunfire.
Treachery.
The surviving mercenaries, seduced by promises whispered from the Cradle, turned on the main forces.
A bloody civil war erupted mid-battle.
Kaela could only scream orders, rally what loyalists remained.
Ashen Var led a brutal counterattack, slaughtering traitors by the dozens.
Dante detonated charges pre-planted inside their own tanks to deny them to the enemy.
Chaos within.
Monsters without.
The Cradle laughed.
And still, Kaela pushed forward.
---
The Siege Becomes Desperation
By the third hour, they reached the Cradle's outer flesh-walls.
The true nightmare awaited.
Organic tendrils thicker than buildings smashed down, splattering entire battalions.
Flying Hollowborn rained acidic bile from above, melting armor, flesh, and soul.
Veyra's remaining Hollowborn elites joined the fray, carving paths of annihilation through both human armies and other Hollowborn alike.
Every commander Kaela trusted fell — one by one:
Gravik, torn in half fighting a juggernaut.
Nyla, incinerated by psychic backlash.
Ashen Var, gutted by a traitor's blade.
The world became a slaughterhouse.
Kaela stood blood-soaked, panting, surrounded by a shrinking circle of survivors.
And still, they fought.
Because there was no way back.
---
The Awakening Beneath
Then—
The ground split.
A new horror rose.
Not Hollowborn.
Not even part of the Cradle.
Something else.
The true source of the nightmare.
The Sleeper.
The being buried beneath reality itself.
It stirred.
The sky tore open.
Lightning of impossible colors shredded mountains in the distance.
Reality bent.
People dropped to their knees, vomiting blood, their eyes melting.
Kaela screamed in defiance, dragging herself upright.
The Genesis Core responded — flaring, stabilizing a bubble of realness around her.
The others clustered close — those still able to move.
The Sleeper opened an eye — a single, endless abyss.
And Kaela knew:
If they didn't end this now, there would be no world left to save.
---
The Last Push
Kaela rallied what remained:
Arin, bleeding but defiant.
Dante, half his face burned away.
Seraph, sniping with her last bullets.
The monks, their banners aflame but still held high.
They charged.
Into the flesh-walls.
Into the waiting abyss.
Into the heart of the Black Cradle.
The Genesis Core pulsed harder, matching Kaela's heartbeat.
This was it.
The final charge.