The void-tendrils were fast, intelligent, and relentless. One wrapped around Leyla's waist, yanking her off her feet. Another snared Mira's ankle, trying to pull her into the consuming shadow. Ryn fired, but her shots were absorbed by the cloak.
Echo hacked at a tendril holding Leyla, but his blade merely sparked against the solidified nothingness. Nox was toying with them.
"Your power is biological," Nox intoned, advancing. "It commands the river of life. But void is the absence. The silence between heartbeats. Your sovereignty means nothing here."
Echo's mind raced. His bloodline was useless against this. His bonds were under attack. The Soul-Scrambler Charge floated uselessly on the dais, ten meters away through a forest of void-tendrils.
He felt Leyla's panic, Mira's struggle, Ryn's furious calculation through the bond.
And then, he felt something else.
A fifth pulse. Faint, distant, but familiar. A rhythm of storm clouds and feathers.
Korvax.
Not the Zephyrian himself—he was dead. But the echo of their bond, the memory of his sacrifice, the unbroken line of loyalty he represented. It was a ghost in the bond-network, a whisper from a friend who had given everything.
And it gave Echo an idea.
His power couldn't touch the void. But the void was being channeled by Nox. And Nox was a living being, a Corrupted Ascendant. He had a body. He had a system.
He had blood. Or whatever nightmarish equivalent flowed in his veins.
Echo stopped fighting the tendrils. He stood still, dropping his blade.
"Echo, no!" Leyla screamed.
Nox paused. "Acceptance? Wise."
"Not acceptance," Echo said, his voice calm. He looked at each of his bonded—at Leyla's fierce love, Mira's unwavering faith, Ryn's steadfast courage. He drew it all in. He thought of Korvax's sacrifice, of the freed hybrids buying them time. He thought of the spark within him, the anomaly born of dead universes.
He wasn't just a Blood Sovereign.
He was the ** Nexus of Bonds.** The Anomaly of Connection.
He reached into his own chest, not with his hand, but with his will. He reached for the kaleidoscopic energy from the Genesis World, still nestled in his core. He reached for his anomaly spark. He reached for every drop of strength his bonds had ever given him.
And he fused them with his bloodline.
[ FORCED EVOLUTION: BLOODLINE IGNITION ]
[ Sanguis Imperator – Stage 1 Awakening ]
[ Cost: 90% of current energy reserves. Risk: Systemic Collapse. ]
Crimson light, shot through with silver, blue, yellow, and cosmic gold, erupted from Echo's body. It wasn't an attack. It was a beacon. A declaration of sovereignty that transcended biology.
He wasn't trying to command Nox's blood.
He was declaring that every life force in the sanctum was under his domain.
The void-tendrils, extensions of Nox's life force, flickered. For a single, crucial second, they became tangible, biological.
That was all Leyla needed. With a roar of effort, she flexed and tore the tendril holding her in two. Mira folded space, snapping the one on her ankle. Ryn fired a charged shot into the base of the cloak where it met Nox's armor.
Nox staggered, a flinch of genuine pain. The void-field wavered.
"NOW!" Echo bellowed, pouring every ounce of his remaining will into one, final, sovereign command aimed at the one biological system he could truly touch in this room of nightmares:
His own body.
He commanded his legs to move with impossible speed. He commanded his heart to pump furiously, ignoring the tearing pain in his chest. He became a bolt of crimson lightning, zig-zagging through the faltering tendrils.
He didn't go for Nox.
He went for the dais.
He slammed his hand onto the Soul-Scrambler Charge and activated it.
A pulse of silent, white energy exploded from the device.
It passed through Echo, his team, doing nothing.
It hit Admiral Nox.
The Nightmare-Class entity froze. The violet light in his eyes fragmented into a thousand shattered pixels. A deafening, mental scream of rage and confusion echoed through the sanctum, through the entire dreadnought, and out into the fleet.
On the viewscreen, the perfect, ordered formation of the Corrupted armada dissolved into chaos. Ships drifted, collided, fired randomly.
The Ordered fleet, seizing the moment, plunged into the fray.
In the sanctum, the void-cloak dissipated. Nox clutched his head, his form flickering uncontrollably between shapes. "Y-you… insect! What have you DONE?!"
He was crippled, disconnected, enraged. But he was still a Nightmare-Class, and he was still in the room with them.
His blade-arm rose, aimed at Echo's heart in a final, killing strike.
But the strike never landed.
Three figures moved as one.
Leyla's claws took his weapon-arm off at the shoulder.
Mira folded space around his legs, snapping the bones.
Ryn put a high-explosive round into his chest plate.
Admiral Nox looked down at the ruin of his form, then up at Echo. There was no fear in his eyes, only a final, cold assessment. "The template… is lost. But the data… is uploaded. The Legion… learns."
His body imploded into a pinpoint of black light, which then winked out.
The dreadnought around them let out a final, dying shudder.
They had won.
They had killed a Nightmare.
And as the Abyssal Heart began to tear itself apart around them, Echo collapsed into the arms of his bonded, his consciousness fleeing into a deep, victorious, and utterly exhausted darkness.