The Aegis Line was burning.
From the command deck of the Sovereign, space looked like a canvas painted by a madman. The disciplined, golden geometry of the Imperium's Phalanx was clashing with the jagged, swarming chaos of the Void Fleet. Beams of coherent light crossed paths with bolts of screaming, purple entropy.
Explosions bloomed in silence, brief stars born and dying in the dark.
"Shields at 80% on the port flank!" Admiral Vorlag barked, his hands flying across his tactical console. "They are swarming the Indomitable. We're losing cohesion in Sector 4!"
"Hold," Anya's voice cut through the chaos. She wasn't looking at the viewport. She was looking at the holographic map, her eyes glowing with the liquid silver of the Tapestry.
"Your Highness," Vorlag pressed, sweat beading on his brow. "If we don't reinforce Sector 4, they will break the line!"
"They want us to reinforce Sector 4," Anya said, her voice calm, layered with the unnerving echo of the Binary link. "It's a feint. Malakor is pushing the flanks to draw out our center. He wants a straight shot at the Sovereign."
She reached out, her hand hovering over the hologram. "Kaelen. Pull the 3rd Legion back. Open the center."
"Open the center?" Kaelen looked at her as if she were insane. "Empress, that's suicide! You're inviting him in!"
"I'm inviting him into the coffin," Anya corrected. "Do it."
Kaelen hesitated for a fraction of a second, then slammed his fist down. "All units! Withdraw from Sector Central! Form the funnel! Let them through!"
On the viewport, the golden wall of Imperium ships split. It was a disciplined, terrifying maneuver. To the Void fleet, it looked like a rout. It looked like fear.
And the Void took the bait.
"Here he comes," Mali whispered.
He stood beside Anya, his hand gripping the railing of the command dais so hard the metal groaned. He felt the battle through the floorboards, but mostly, he felt it through her.
Through the [BINARY STAR] link, he felt the millions of variables crashing through Anya's mind. He felt the terrifying weight of command, the knowledge that every decision cost lives. But he also felt her cold, diamond-hard certainty. She wasn't guessing. She was solving.
From the center of the Void swarm, a shadow emerged.
The Severed. Malakor's flagship.
It was an abomination. A ship the size of a city, built from the twisted, fused hulls of a thousand conquered vessels. It bristled with cannons that dripped liquid shadow. It didn't fly; it tore its way through space, bleeding corruption.
" Found you... "
Malakor's voice ground through the Sovereign's speakers, bypassing comms security.
The Severed accelerated, ignoring the flanking fire from the Imperium ships. It was charging straight for the Sovereign, a battering ram of pure entropy.
"Range: 5000 kilometers," Vorlag counted down, his voice tight. "Shields overlapping. Prepare for impact."
"No impact," Mali said.
He stepped forward. The Sovereign's Mantle was active, burning his EP, keeping the terror in its cage. But this time, the terror was quiet. Because Anya was there.
He raised his right hand.
"Vorlag, drop the forward shields."
"Your Majesty!" Vorlag shouted. "If I drop shields, his main battery will vaporize us in—"
"Drop. The. Shields." Mali's voice wasn't a shout. It was a Dominion command.
Vorlag's fingers moved instantly, overriding his own survival instincts. The shimmering golden barrier in front of the Sovereign vanished.
They were exposed. The Severed was a charging bull, and they had just taken off their armor.
"Anya," Mali said. "Aim me."
"I have him," she whispered.
She didn't touch him physically. She grabbed his mind.
Mali felt a sudden, jarring shift in his perspective. His PER stat, usually a 360-degree radar, suddenly narrowed. It focused. It telescoped.
He saw the Severed not as a ship, but as a structure of stress points and energy flows. He saw the pulsing, purple core deep within its hull—the Void Reactor that powered the beast. He saw the chaotic, swirling Karmic signature of Malakor himself, sitting on a throne of bone inside the bridge.
Target lock, Anya's voice rang in his head. Distance: 3000 kilometers. Relative velocity: Mach 40. Shield modulation: Chaotic. I need a piercing shot, Mali. Thread the needle.
Mali closed his eyes. He reached into the ocean of his POW.
He didn't summon a lance. He summoned a needle.
He compressed his Alkahest energy. He squeezed it, folding the black-purple power over and over, refining it until it was a microscopic point of infinite density.
[SKILL MODIFIED: ALKAHEST LANCE -> ALKAHEST NEEDLE]
[COST: 5000 EP (SHARED POOL)]
[WARNING: SOUL STRAIN CRITICAL]
"Fire," Anya commanded.
Mali opened his eyes and flicked his finger.
It was quiet. There was no thunderclap. No beam of light.
Just a single, invisible ripple in the fabric of reality.
The "Needle" crossed the 3000 kilometers instantly. It bypassed the Severed's void-shields because it didn't interact with them; it simply dissolved the space between the shield particles.
It struck the flagship's bow.
It didn't explode on the surface. It punched through. It traveled through five kilometers of twisted metal, flesh, and armor, unmaking a tunnel the width of a coin as it passed.
It reached the bridge. It reached the throne.
It reached Malakor.
On the viewscreen, the massive, charging ship suddenly... lurched.
" Wha— " Malakor's voice cut off in a wet, static-filled crunch.
The "Needle" didn't just hit him. It hit his Karmic Core. It introduced the concept of "Zero" to a being made of "Negative Infinity."
The reaction was catastrophic.
The Severed didn't blow up. It imploded.
A sphere of black silence expanded from the center of the ship. The massive hull groaned, buckled, and then folded inward, sucked into a temporary singularity caused by the Alkahest reaction.
In three seconds, the flagship was gone. Compressed into a sphere of ultra-dense trash the size of a marble.
Then, the marble dissolved.
Silence.
The Void Fleet, suddenly leaderless, suddenly cut off from the dark will that drove them, fell into chaos. Ships collided. Engines died. The "hive mind" was broken.
"Target destroyed," Anya whispered, her legs giving out.
Mali caught her. He caught her before she hit the floor, wrapping his arms around her waist. He was shaking. They were both shaking.
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE FIRST DEFENSE]
[TARGET ELIMINATED: VOID-LORD MALAKOR (LVL 90)]
[REWARD: +50,000 XP (SHARED)]
[LEVEL UP! MALI IS NOW LEVEL 5]
[LEVEL UP! ANYA IS NOW LEVEL 5]
[NEW TITLE: THE VOID-SLAYERS]
General Kaelen stared at the empty space where a Leviathan had been. He slowly turned to look at the couple clinging to each other on the command dais.
He didn't cheer. He didn't salute.
He fell to his knees.
Around the bridge, officers followed suit. It wasn't protocol. It was instinct. They had just witnessed a miracle.
"Admiral," Mali said, his voice weak but steady, leaning heavily on Anya. "Mop them up."
Vorlag snapped out of his trance. "Yes... Yes, Your Majesty! All wings! Pursue and destroy! Leave no scraps!"
The golden fleet surged forward, turning the battle into a massacre.
But Mali and Anya weren't watching. They were looking at each other.
We did it, she thought, her mental voice faint and exhausted.
We missed, Mali thought back.
Anya blinked. What?
We aimed for the reactor, Mali projected, a ghost of a smile in his mind. We hit the captain's chair. You pulled to the left.
I did not! Anya indignantly shot back, her energy returning with her annoyance. You compensated for drag! There is no drag in a vacuum, you uneducated scary cat!
There is when you're dissolving reality, he teased.
They stood there, amidst the kneeling crew and the burning fleet, arguing about ballistics in their heads, holding each other up.
They were exhausted. They were terrified. But they were winning.
And for the first time, Mali Alkahest didn't feel like an imposter. He felt like half of a whole.
He looked at the System.
[DEBUFF: IMPOSTER SYNDROME]
[STATUS: DORMANT]
"Come on, Empress," he whispered aloud. "Let's go home. I think we've earned that dinner."