Vyzen glanced down from the cliffside.
A boy—golden-brown hair catching the muted light of the moorlands. A human boy.
For a heartbeat, he froze. He couldn't even remember the last time he had seen one of his kind. Humans were relics now, scattered, enslaved, or extinct. And yet here one was, dragged across the marshy flats by a soldier clad in bone-white armor, the insignia of the Galactic Peace Force engraved across its chestplate.
That armor told Vyzen enough. Arbiterium-trained. Ruthless.
Beneath the armor, though, was something worse—its insectoid mandibles clicking, its gray chitin plates glistening in the damp breeze. A Mantos, one of the Federation's favored enforcers. Cold-blooded, hive-raised, conditioned for war.
Vyzen had gone great lengths to reach this isolated world on the edge of the Outer Aqski Rim, bypassing patrols and slipping through dead warp lanes. And now, by sheer accident or providence, opportunity stood in front of him in the shape of a frightened boy.
He wasn't going to let it slip away.
Without hesitation, he jumped from the cliff. His body cratered the ground upon impact, a thunderous crack splitting the rocky soil. Dust rolled around him in waves. He brushed the dirt from his jacket and rose slowly, almost casually, as though the fall had been nothing.
The moorlands' breeze tugged at his coat, carrying the smell of saltwater bogs and the faint ozone hum of Tetrapod engines.
He began walking toward them.
The Mantos stiffened, its head jerking unnaturally. Its antennae twitched in agitation, mandibles scraping together with a metallic rasp. "Who?" it demanded, voice like knives grating across stone. "Who allowed you entry to this planet?"
"That doesn't matter," Vyzen replied coolly, his voice steady. "Hand over the boy. We both walk away alive. You won't like what happens if we fight here."
The Mantos clicked, its eyes narrowing into jagged slits. "You dare threaten me, soft-skin?" Its pincers snapped together, spitting flecks of saliva. "From which filthy kind are you?."
Vyzen's gaze flicked to the soldier's belt. No visible rifle. Dangerous. If the insect had a Yatra-series weapon—even the older Dornoyatra-R models—it could complicate things. Those guns melt of city-sized ships, and his augment skin wasn't invincible. He needed to close the distance, fast.
The Enforcer reached for his belt.
Vyzen moved. His legs coiled like compressed steel, muscles tightening until they screamed. He lunged. His arm cocked back, tendons like cables straining, before snapping forward with the weight of a hammer blow.
The Mantos intercepted the strike mid-swing, claws clamping against Vyzen's knuckles with surprising strength.
Of course, Vyzen thought grimly. A trained enforcer.
The fight collapsed into chaos. Vyzen pressed forward with savage hooks, each one sharp enough to dent steel. The Mantos countered with brutal precision, mandibles shrieking as its elbows and knees snapped out in rigid arcs.
The insectoid seized Vyzen by the collar and yanked him forward. Its elbow slammed into his throat, nearly collapsing his airway, followed by a hard kick to his midsection. Vyzen staggered back, boots scraping mud, lungs burning.
He twisted on his heel, pivoting with surgical precision, and drove his shin into the side of the Mantos' head. The enforcer crashed to the ground, dark ichor streaking down its cracked mandibles.
Vyzen's chest heaved.
How long had it been since he had fought one properly trained? Months? Years?
The Mantos dragged itself up, swaying, blood dripping freely now. Vyzen didn't rush. He wasn't here for a kill. If he had been, the moment his leg had landed that strike, the insect's skull would already be pulp.
But he knew the truth—first strike decided most battles. Break your enemy's rhythm, and you broke their mind.
The Mantos had two options: surrender, or call for backup. Either would have been predictable.
It did neither.
Instead, it shrieked, a guttural war cry, and drew a baton from its belt. The weapon pulsed with a sickly yellow glow—the infamous Paralysis Venom Rod, coated in synthesized mantid toxins.
Vyzen's augmented skin could withstand toxins, he knew that. But the force? The neurological interference? Dangerous.
He raised his left hand to block.
The impact numbed him instantly. A static shiver crawled through his arm, his reflexes dragging behind thought like a body underwater. His visor blurred.
The Mantos seized the opening. A punch rattled across Vyzen's helmet, jarring his vision. The venom rod jabbed into his gut. A sharp kick cracked against his knee. Vyzen collapsed, falling to one leg.
The Mantos' mandibles spread wide in what passed for a smile.
It swung down for the finishing blow.
Vyzen tilted sideways. His arm shot up, seizing the insect's elbow joint. He twisted, forcing it inward, and shoved.
Click.
The joint snapped. The scream that followed was hideous—wet, high-pitched, alien.
Vyzen rose slowly, head tilting to one side. His visor glowed faint cyan. "Give up. That's it. You lose."
The Enforcer snarled, pincers gnashing. "Soft-skin filth… degenerate freak!"
Vyzen saw the movement too late.
A blinding yellow flash. The hum of a Rupterer cannon charged, then spat fury. The blast struck him squarely, detonating against the cliffside and hurling him deep into the rock.
The Mantos chittered triumphantly, but its celebration ended in a heartbeat.
From the smoldering crater, Vyzen emerged. His body flexed, his augment plating shifting, crimson armor crawling across his flesh. This was no longer Vyzen the hunter.
This was Arthora.
The Enforcer reacted instantly, yanking free his Dornoyatra-R plasma gun. "Die!"
But the shot wasn't aimed at Vyzen.
It was aimed at the boy.
The blast screamed across the moorland.
Arthora materialized in its path. His Xeloyatra—sleek, glowing with alien etchings—appeared from his augment, humming with pure plasma energy.
The two beams collided mid-air, shrieking against each other, collapsing the very air between them into a vacuum. Then—detonation. A shockwave tore outward, incinerating the bog grass, flattening stone outcrops, erasing life within a hundred-meter circle.
The Enforcer thought them dead.
But from the smoke, something moved.
Arthora's stride was slow, unstoppable. His armor gleamed wetly in the firelight.
The first punch shattered the enforcer's breastplate, ribs folding inwards with a spray of ichor.
The second cracked the Tetrapod's cockpit glass.
The third ruptured its magnetic gyro core, sending the vessel plummeting into the mire.
Then came the fourth.
The fifth.
The sixth.
By the twentieth, the insectoid was unrecognizable—a ruin of flesh, bone, and chitin ground into the mud.
Arthora's augment arms unraveled, lengthening into jagged thorns. They pierced the Mantos' body, lifting it high into the air, twisting, reshaping into the semblance of a throne. Blood rained down, pooling in the wreckage.
A voice crackled across comms.
"Grenon? Grenon, answer your admin! Did you secure the boy?"
Arthora turned his head slightly. His voice, low and cold, replied: "He's dead."
A long silence. Then the voice returned, quieter, calculating. "…Who are you?"
Arthora said nothing. He slammed the corpse into the mud and let the thorns retract.
The Tetrapod behind him exploded in a shower of molten shrapnel, painting the moorlands in fire. But Arthora stood unmoving, shadowed by flame, unrelenting and merciless.
Only then did he turn.
The boy stood frozen, trembling, staring up at the inhuman figure that had slaughtered his captor.
Arthora's visor flickered, cyan light softening just for a moment. He stepped closer.
And the moorlands grew quiet again.