The initial enthusiasm had evaporated, replaced by despondency and frustration. The Monolith remained there, immutable, a black wall mocking our efforts.
The perimeter was secured, but the atmosphere at the base of the structure was one of defeat.
Engineer Jorin sat on a supply crate, rubbing his temples. Around him, half a dozen probes lay inert in the ash. "Nothing," he said, his voice hoarse from the dry air. "I've tested all frequencies. Thermal, sonic, particle radiation... It's like screaming at a black hole. It returns nothing. Not even an echo."
A few meters away, Magister Elara had stopped casting spells. Her circle of runes had gone dark. "It is a magical void," she admitted, leaning heavily on her staff. "There is no mana to manipulate. It is a dead rock, General."
Dr. Aris was kneeling in front of the wall, packing away a diamond-tipped drill with a broken bit. He had tried to extract a physical sample three times; three times the material had rejected the Imperial steel without suffering a scratch. The pathologist stood up and checked his bio-scanner with a grave expression. "I have applied acidic solvents and surgical lasers. Nothing reacts."
Further back, young Lorken stood motionless, his gaze lost in the black immensity. His datapad dangled forgotten from his hand. "It makes no sense..." he murmured, swaying slightly.
Thorne looked at his demoralized team, then at his chronometer. "It's over," he sentenced. "Pack everything up. We are retreating."
The group obeyed instantly. Jorin began disconnecting cables and Aris closed his case with a dry snap, then approached Lorken to guide him toward the ship. Elara turned around, putting her back to the wall.
I was the only one who didn't move. I remained anchored to my spot, my eyes fixed on the black surface.
"Acheron!" Thorne barked when he saw I wasn't reacting. "That is an order! Move!"
I didn't turn.
"General," I said. My voice came out firm. "Give me one attempt."
Jorin scoffed, shouldering his equipment. "Rhys, let's go. If my quantum scanners couldn't do it..."
"One attempt," I insisted, turning and locking eyes with Thorne. "Or we return empty-handed."
Thorne held my gaze for a second, evaluating the risk. He nodded once. "Do it. Fast."
I focused my vision on the Monolith and activated my gift to maximum power. Pain slammed into my eyes instantly, but I gritted my teeth and resisted it.
I swept the surface until I identified a point of distinct composition. It shone with a golden color unknown to me.
"Grix, take me up there," I said, pointing to the spot high above.
I climbed onto his back. With a great leap, Grix latched onto the wall and began to climb. My eyes were already bleeding from the pressure.
Upon reaching the point, I could see it clearly.
In the black stone, the shape of a Scorpion shone.
I reached out and touched the symbol.
Nothing happened.
The stone remained cold. The golden glow did not react. I couldn't help but feel disappointed; I ordered Grix to descend.
But as I withdrew my hand, I felt it—a prick.
It was a sharp, poisonous pain in the tip of my index finger. I jerked my hand back by reflex. A drop of blood welled from my skin and floated toward the symbol, being absorbed by the rock as if it were thirsty.
The golden scorpion moved.
Its legs twitched. The drawing began to swell, gaining volume, pushing outward as if it wanted to burst from the wall. It grew half a meter in a second. Then two.
"Grix, jump!" I screamed, slapping his shoulder.
The sergeant didn't hesitate. He propelled himself backward, free-falling from fifteen meters. We landed on the sand with a heavy impact.
"What is happening, Acheron?!" Thorne bellowed.
I didn't answer. I pointed at the wall.
The wind began to howl. The sand and ash on the ground rose in a spiral, blinding us. The Monolith was no longer an inert wall; the Scorpion symbol had grown to cover almost the entire visible surface.
The figure began to spin, becoming a golden vortex in the middle of the Monolith.
Immediately, we felt a crushing pressure upon us, and our Vorakhian instincts, trained in war, warned us of the approaching danger.
"Defensive positions!" Thorne ordered instantly.
We quickly positioned ourselves for battle with Grix at the front, like a shield.
From the center of the vortex, something shot out toward the sand.
It landed in front of us with a thunderous crash that sent piles of sand and ash flying.
It was a colossal white scorpion, three meters tall. Its chitin shone like polished bone. But where the arachnid's head should have been, the pale, muscular torso of a giant man emerged.
His eyes were hidden by a blindfold, his black hair reached down his back; he had no nose, only a slit revealing grotesque teeth.
He brandished a bone spear in his human hands, while his rear stinger dripped a golden liquid.
"Fire at will!" shouted Thorne.
The General's bolters roared. The explosive projectiles impacted the creature's chest. There was no blood. It didn't even flinch. The bullets bounced off its white skin like hail against a tank.
The creature emitted a high-pitched shriek and charged. It was too fast for its size.
It aimed directly at me. Its stinger shot toward my chest like a lightning bolt.
"No!" Grix roared.
The stone giant interposed himself in the trajectory, shoving me aside.
The stinger struck Grix's chest, piercing his armor but stopping within his granite skin.
Grix did not waste the proximity. He let out a growl and grabbed the scorpion's left pincer with both immense hands. His stone muscles tensed, grinding from the effort.
"Rrrraaaah!"
With a violent yank, Grix ripped the limb off. The Scorpion's golden blood spilled, and the beast shrieked in pain.
The sergeant was already going for the second pincer to disarm the monster when the stinger retracted and fired again. But this time, the tip glowed with a golden light.
The stinger hit the same spot. This time, the rock skin offered no resistance. The golden light melted the sergeant's natural defense and skewered him from side to side.
"Sergeant!" I screamed from the ground.
Grix grabbed the beast's tail with his crushing hands, trying to pull it from his chest, but his titanic strength faded before the guardian's magic. The creature, far from being afraid, curved its facial slit into a smile of pure malice.
With a flick of its neck, it lifted Grix into the air. The sergeant's three hundred kilos of rock and muscle swung over the sand, suspended like a rag doll.
Grix looked at the wound. There was no blood. His stone body began to crack.
In less than a second, the loyal Grix crumbled into a cloud of grey ash.
He had vanished.
"Fall back!" shrieked Jorin, running toward the ship.
The creature twisted its human torso with fluid movement. It raised its bone spear and threw it. The weapon pierced through Jorin and Lorken on the same trajectory, pinning them to the sandy ground. Neither managed to scream. Instantly, their bodies collapsed into piles of ash and flew toward the black wall.
Elara stood firm, raising her staff. "Aegis!" she invoked. A dome of golden light formed around her and Aris.
The Scorpion didn't even slow down. It struck the magical shield with its remaining pincer. The barrier shattered into a thousand shards of light. The claw continued its path and closed around the Magister's waist. There was a dry crunch. Elara turned to dust in the air.
Old Aris didn't attempt to flee; he knew that even if he tried, he couldn't. He watched the claw coming for him as if it were a fascinating specimen. The creature's backhand blow disintegrated him on impact.
Only Thorne and I remained.
The General looked at the piles of ash where seconds earlier his men had stood. There was no fear in his eyes, only a cold, terrible resolve. He understood the tactics in a split second: if we both died, the Empire would never know what it was facing. Someone had to tell the tale.
He threw aside his empty rifle and activated a command on his wrist gauntlet. His armor's servos hummed with a high pitch, entering overload, but that was when the air changed.
an intense smell of ozone filled the desert. Arcs of blue electricity began to dance over Thorne's armor, crackling with the fury of a contained storm.
"Acheron!" he bellowed, his voice amplified by the thunder. "Get out of here! Run to the ship and don't look back!"
I understood instantly what Thorne meant.
I turned and ran with all my might. My right hand went straight to the pneumatic injector on my belt. I jammed it forcefully into my leg.
I felt my muscles tense and an explosion of strength flood my body.
Behind me, I heard the crash.
"Come here, bastard!" Thorne roared.
The Scorpion attacked with its spear, but the General moved faster than the eye could follow, leaving a trail of blue light. He dodged the mortal blow and slid beneath the beast's legs. With an upward slash charged with thousands of volts, he sliced off one of the limbs.
The beast shrieked in pain and fell to its side, losing its balance.
Using the severed leg as a springboard, the General jumped toward the monster's human torso. The creature tried to catch him, but Thorne unleashed an electric explosion that repelled the giant hands.
"For the Empire!" Thorne shouted.
He plunged the knife deep into the giant's pale shoulder, tearing muscle and tendon down to the bone. Golden blood gushed out, sizzling on contact with his armor's electricity.
Faced with the proximity of its aggressor, the beast dropped the useless spear and began to pummel him with its massive fists. Impacts that would have demolished a building crashed against the General, denting his plating and cracking his helmet. But Thorne resisted.
Between every brutal blow he received, Thorne responded with a frenzied thrust. The giant's fists fell on him like hammers, breaking bones, but the General refused to fall. He sank his electrified blade again and again into the pale torso, desperately seeking the beast's heart.
The creature, realizing that brute force was not enough to crush this human, reacted with another lethal weapon.
Its tail arched at a speed impossible to dodge from Thorne's position.
CRAACK.
The stinger penetrated his chest, punching through his reinforced armor and lungs in a single fluid motion, lifting him off the ground.
Thorne went rigid. He spat a mouthful of thick blood that stained the inside of his visor. He felt the absolute cold of death expanding from the wound, draining his strength, dimming his vision.
It's over, a part of his mind whispered.
But Thorne was a soldier of the Empire.
In the darkness closing in on him, memories flashed. The flag waving over the capital. His wife's face. The sacred duty to protect the Empire.
His eyes snapped open, shining with a blinding blue light.
"Not yet!" he roared, his mouth full of blood.
Thorne initiated the final protocol. He didn't just overload his armor's fusion core; he linked his own life force, his very soul, to the electrical circuit. He converted every second of life he had left into pure destructive energy.
With a scream that tore his throat, he delivered the final thrust.
It wasn't a simple cut. When the knife touched the monster's flesh, the release of energy was such that it sounded like an electromagnetic cannon fired at point-blank range. The air ionized, and the world lit up in a blinding white.
The beast couldn't even scream.
Where there had been a chest and ribs, now there was only a gaping black hole, cauterized and smoking, passing through the creature from side to side. Its heart had been vaporized.
With nothing to sustain its existence, the colossus crumbled like a ruined tower.
And Thorne fell with it.
The General impacted the sand, his gaze fixed on the grey sky. He no longer felt pain. He felt the sand and ash beginning to cover his shattered armor.
Mission accomplished, he thought, as he disconnected from his body.
He turned grey.
He turned to dust.
And in a moment of peace, the wind took him and dragged him toward the vortex, uniting his spirit with that of his fallen men.