Marcus raised his hand and released a blue sphere that expanded rapidly as it flew through the air—the Shackle Coil, one of Vauban's signature minelayer devices.
The moment the sphere activated, several crackling energy beams burst outward from its core, instantly grabbing all the flying debris and yanking it away from Marcus with irresistible force. The telekinetic Kree warrior's attack was neutralized before it could even reach its target.
"Supreme Intelligence," Marcus called out, his voice deliberately low and measured. But this wasn't just speech—he was channeling the Power Stone's energy through his vocal cords, turning sound waves into a weapon.
The enhanced sound waves rippled outward like a visible force, carrying vibrations so intense that they shattered molecular bonds on contact. Every building within a kilometer radius crumbled to dust in seconds. The Kree civilians and soldiers caught in the wave didn't even have time to scream before they were reduced to fine blue mist that dispersed on the wind.
The destruction spread at the speed of sound, carving a path of absolute devastation through the heart of Hala's capital city. In the span of a single heartbeat, millions of lives simply ceased to exist.
The sound wave continued outward, carrying Marcus's message across the entire planet: I am here. I am waiting.
The response was swift and overwhelming. In the distance, thousands of lights began to appear—the Kree Empire's planetary defense forces mobilizing with desperate urgency. Aircraft, ground vehicles, orbital platforms, every weapon the planet could bring to bear was being aimed at the crater where Marcus stood.
Then they all fired at once.
The sky lit up like a miniature sun as countless energy beams converged on Marcus's position. The combined firepower was enough to level mountain ranges, to crack continents, to boil oceans. It was the concentrated military might of an entire star-spanning empire focused on a single point.
BOOM!
The explosion was visible from orbit, a pillar of destructive light that reached into space itself. The ground where Marcus had been standing was vaporized, then the rock beneath that, then the bedrock beneath that. A new canyon opened in the planet's crust, glowing with residual energy.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, from the heart of the inferno, Marcus's calm voice rang out clearly.
"Thanks for the ammunition."
The smoke and fire parted to reveal Marcus standing exactly where he'd been before, completely unharmed. In his hands, a sphere of concentrated energy pulsed with barely contained power—every single one of those devastating attacks, absorbed and compressed into a single projectile.
"This should make for an excellent Photon Bombardment," he said conversationally, as if discussing the weather.
He threw the energy sphere skyward with casual force.
The compressed attacks of an entire planetary defense network, enhanced by Power Stone energy and focused through Warframe technology, erupted in a column of light that dwarfed even Marcus's earlier bombardment. The beam was so bright it temporarily blinded sensors across three star systems. So hot it ionized the atmosphere for hundreds of kilometers. So powerful it actually moved Hala slightly in its orbit.
When the light finally faded, there was nothing left of the Kree forces except a glass-smooth crater that stretched to the horizon.
Marcus looked around at the devastation with satisfaction, then reached into his dimensional storage and withdrew a small red sphere that pulsed with malevolent energy.
"Come out, Supreme Intelligence," he called, beginning to walk toward the center of the city. "We both know you're watching."
His destination was burned into his memory from Ronan's thoughts—a heavily fortified compound that housed the Supreme Intelligence's physical form. The AI could project itself anywhere in Kree space, but its actual body had remained in the same location for over a thousand years.
It was the most heavily defended location on the planet, surrounded by elite Kree guards armed with weapons that could crack starship hulls. For anyone else, it would have been an impregnable fortress.
For Marcus, it was just another obstacle.
As he walked, he began channeling energy into the red sphere in his hand. Each step brought more power flowing into the device, purple energy from the Power Stone mixing with the sphere's own malevolent glow.
The surviving Kree defenders saw him coming and opened fire immediately. These weren't the standard troops from before—these were the Supreme Intelligence's personal guard, equipped with weapons that fired beams capable of punching through battleship armor.
The energy blasts struck Marcus directly and were instantly absorbed by his Power Stone-enhanced shields, their destructive force converted and channeled into the growing sphere in his hand.
"Are you ready," Marcus asked as he reached the defensive perimeter, his voice carrying across the battlefield with supernatural clarity, "to accept death?"
He hurled the red sphere into the center of the massed Kree forces.
At the same moment, dark energy began swirling around Marcus like liquid shadow. His Vauban frame dissolved and reformed, technological precision giving way to something far more primal and terrifying. Where Vauban had been a master of physics and engineering, Nekros was something else entirely—a harvester of souls, a shepherd of the dead.
The transformation was accompanied by an immediate and dramatic change in the battlefield. Every living thing within a hundred meters suddenly felt their life force being drained away, their vitality flowing into the dark figure at the center of the carnage.
"You know," Marcus mused, reaching into his storage again, "a god of death really should have a proper scythe."
The weapon that formed in his grasp was nothing less than a masterpiece—Reaper Prime, its golden frame folding in on itself like the petals of a withered bloom. With a single, effortless motion, the blade unfurled, the crescent edge glinting with a hungry darkness that seemed to devour the very light it touched.
"Perfect," Marcus said, admiring the weapon's balance. "This suits me much better."
He began walking forward again, Reaper Prime spinning lazily in his grip. With each step, Kree soldiers collapsed around him, their life force flowing into his Nekros frame. The red sphere he'd thrown earlier detonated in a burst of crimson energy, tearing through the defensive positions like they were made of paper.
But Marcus barely noticed the destruction. His attention was focused on something far more interesting—the bodies of the fallen Kree soldiers were beginning to twitch and move.
"Now this," he said with genuine curiosity, "should be fascinating. I wonder what effect the Power Stone's enhancement will have on necromancy?"
Behind him, the dead were rising.
One by one, the Kree soldiers who had fallen to his life-draining aura climbed back to their feet. But these weren't the warriors they had been in life—these were something new, something wrong. Their eyes glowed with the same purple light as the Power Stone, and dark energy wreathed their bodies like funeral shrouds.
"Go ahead," Marcus commanded his growing army. "Destroy all the enemies you see."
The undead Kree immediately turned on their former comrades, raising weapons that now crackled with necrotic energy. The sight of their fallen friends attacking them broke something fundamental in the surviving defenders' minds.
Marcus raised Reaper Prime and swung it in a wide arc, purple energy extending the blade's reach by several meters. The enhanced scythe carved through a dozen Kree soldiers in a single stroke, but instead of simply killing them, something else happened.
Ghostly figures—the soldiers' souls—were torn from their bodies and drawn into the Reaper Prime's blade. The soulless corpses collapsed for a moment, then rose again as mindless undead, adding to Marcus's growing army.
A Kree commander, his blue face pale with terror, tried to rally his remaining troops. "Fight back!" he screamed. "Destroy these abominations! For the Empire!"
"Admirable courage," Marcus acknowledged, spinning Reaper Prime with casual expertise. "But ultimately pointless."
He swung the scythe again, this time channeling the full power of the Power Stone through the blade. Purple energy erupted from the weapon in a wave of pure destruction, washing over the defending forces like a tsunami of death.
Every Kree soldier caught in the wave died instantly, their souls harvested to fuel Marcus's growing necromantic power. Within seconds, they too joined the ranks of his undead army.
The compound that had once been the most heavily defended location on Hala was now a charnel house. The dead vastly outnumbered the living, and with each passing moment, Marcus's army grew larger while his enemies grew fewer.
"Supreme Intelligence," Marcus called out, his voice now carrying undertones of otherworldly power. The combination of his necromantic abilities and the Power Stone's enhancement had transformed his mere words into weapons that could break minds and shatter spirits.
Several surviving Kree soldiers dropped their weapons and fled, screaming incoherently as psychological terror overwhelmed their military training. Their armor—designed to withstand energy weapons and projectile impacts—began cracking and falling apart under the influence of pure, existential dread.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The undead army opened fire in perfect unison, their weapons now powered by necrotic energy and enhanced by the Power Stone. The beams that erupted from their guns weren't just destructive—they were corrupting, turning everything they touched into more material for Marcus's forces.
More Kree soldiers fell, and more rose again as undead servants. The cycle continued, each death feeding into Marcus's growing power until the very air around him writhed with barely contained darkness.
In his hands, two opposing forces began to take shape—the life energy he'd drained from hundreds of victims, and the death energy that flowed through his Nekros frame. They swirled around each other like twin serpents, light and dark chasing each other in an eternal dance.
"If I keep harvesting life force like this," Marcus mused, watching the energies play around his fingers, "I really will become a god of death."
His army of undead cleared the way before him with mechanical efficiency, their overwhelming firepower reducing the remaining defenses to scattered debris. Soon, Marcus found himself standing before his destination—a simple, unremarkable building that looked almost modest compared to the grand architecture surrounding it.
But appearances could be deceiving. According to Ronan's memories, this humble structure concealed the most important location on Hala: the chamber that housed the Supreme Intelligence's physical form.
"Hello, Supreme Intelligence," Marcus said, raising Reaper Prime above his head. "We'll be meeting very soon."
The massive scythe, now wreathed in purple Power Stone energy, came down in a devastating arc. The building's reinforced entrance—designed to withstand orbital bombardment—crumpled like aluminum foil under the enhanced blade's impact.
THOOM.
The severed door crashed to the ground, leaving nothing but empty air between Marcus and his goal.
The undead army surged forward like a tide of death, pouring into the building with supernatural hunger. Gunfire erupted throughout the structure as they engaged the Supreme Intelligence's final defenders, but the outcome was never in doubt.
By the time Marcus stepped across the threshold, every living defender inside was already dead—or worse, risen again to serve their killer.
"Supreme Intelligence," Marcus called out as he walked deeper into the facility. "I've been looking for you for such a long time."
The building's interior was a maze of corridors and security checkpoints, but Marcus knew the AI was watching his every move. There was no point in stealth or subtlety now.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
Suddenly, the corridor ahead filled with a deadly laser grid—dozens of cutting beams arranged in a complex pattern that would slice any intruder into component atoms. It was the kind of security system that belonged in a spy movie, all dramatic red lights and inevitable death.
Marcus paused, studying the arrangement with professional interest. "Laser trap? How nostalgic. This reminds me of the Red Queen from those old Earth movies." He glanced at his undead army and chuckled. "Though I suppose that makes this whole scenario rather like Resident Evil, doesn't it?"
He gestured to his undead soldiers. "Go ahead. Show me what the Power Stone enhancement does to your resistance capabilities."
Purple energy flowed into the undead Kree, their already-supernatural forms becoming even more resilient. They walked directly into the laser grid without hesitation.
The cutting beams struck them and... did nothing. The energy was absorbed into their Power Stone-enhanced forms, actually making them stronger rather than destroying them. What should have been a perfect security system became nothing more than a light show.
The undead soldiers raised their weapons and began systematically destroying the laser projectors, their enhanced firepower reducing the Supreme Intelligence's last line of defense to smoking scrap metal.
"Go," Marcus commanded. "Find the Supreme Intelligence's body for me."
The undead dispersed throughout the building like a plague of mechanical locusts, searching every room, every hidden chamber, every possible location where the AI might be concealed.
That's when the Supreme Intelligence finally spoke.
"Leave, invader," the AI's voice boomed from speakers throughout the building. "Or I will activate the planet's self-destruction program."
Marcus actually laughed—a sound like breaking glass and dying worlds. "You want to take me down with you? Can you actually do that?"
He raised his hands, and reality began to shift around the building. Space folded in on itself, colors inverted, and suddenly the entire structure was no longer part of normal reality. They had been pulled into the Mirror Dimension, a pocket universe where the laws of physics served Marcus's will rather than the Supreme Intelligence's.
"What—" the AI began, then stopped as it realized what had happened. Its connection to the Kree Empire's infrastructure had been severed. Its self-destruction protocols were useless here, cut off from the planetary systems they were designed to control.