The roar was not sound. It was pure pressure that crushed the air, the earth, the mind.
Dorian felt as if his skull would burst. The suit compensated, filtering the most harmful frequencies, but the psionic effect sliced through his defenses as if they didn't exist.
<< WARNING: VERY HIGH-LEVEL PSIONIC INTERFERENCE >>
<< NEURAL INTEGRITY: 78% AND FALLING >>
"Omega, countermeasures!" he shouted, though his voice was lost in the void the roar had created.
— "Focused electromagnetic emission in three… two… one."
A blue pulse erupted from the suit. The air crackled. The mental pressure eased just enough for Dorian to breathe.
But the Primordial Guardian had not moved. It didn't need to. Its secondary tentacles, each as thick as a tree, rose and pointed toward the darkened sky.
I think with that thing, I'll have to activate that. It will be worth it against an enemy of this magnitude, even though I didn't want to. But there's no other choice.
The swarm of flying creatures—thousands of them, aerodynamic bodies with iridescent membranes and beaks like obsidian daggers—plunged downward.
Not toward the Guardian. Toward where Dorian stood.
The sky became a storm of claws, beaks, and piercing shrieks.
— "Estimated dispersal: 2,347 hostile units. Temporary classification: 'Shadow Cenzontli'. Swarm tactics. Objective: distraction and immobilization."
"Distraction, this is just great!" Dorian spat, activating the compressed sword.
The usual hum was a sickly whine. The energy blade flickered, unstable, its blue tainted with red flashes.
<< SWORD CORE: DAMAGED >>
<< CUTTING EFFICIENCY: 41% >>
"Damn, I had a feeling," Dorian shouted.
There was no time for lamentations. The first Cenzontli arrived like a high-velocity projectile. Dorian ducked and swung the sword in an arc. The blade should have cleaved the Cenzontli in two. But instead, it struck like an iron bat, sending the creature flying with a screech of broken bones.
— "Efficiency insufficient. Recommend avoiding direct contact."
"You think?" Dorian grunted, dodging another trio of birds.
It was a rain of steel and feathers. Dorian moved as if possessed, using the defective sword more as a shield and club than a cutting weapon. Each impact reverberated up his arms, sending painful vibrations through the suit.
But the Guardian was the real headache. While Dorian fought the sky, the 40-meter beast began to move. Each step made the plain of black rock tremble. The fragment embedded in its chest glowed with a steady rhythm, synchronized with the distant heartbeats Dorian now felt through the soles of his boots: the planet itself.
<< IMPROVISED MISSION: "SURVIVAL" >>
<< OBJECTIVE: DO NOT DIE >>
<< REWARD: CONTINUE BREATHING >>
"Thanks for the encouragement, Omega!" Dorian said, plunging the sword into the ground and using it as a pole to propel himself backward, just before a Guardian tentacle crushed the spot where he had been moments before.
The tentacle didn't just strike. It fused with the rock for an instant, absorbing its mass, growing thicker, before retracting.
— "The Guardian assimilates inorganic matter for regeneration and growth. Estimated rate: 0.5% per contact."
"Are you saying if it touches me, it'll eat my suit? What a glutton, it'll have to pay me!"
— "And possibly the bones underneath."
Dorian cursed through gritted teeth. The swarm didn't let up. They weren't just pecking now; they hurled themselves in coordinated formations, trying to entangle his limbs. One of the creatures latched onto his left arm. The sword flickered violently as he tried to pry it off.
That's when he saw it.
Amid the chaos of wings and shadows, he saw the pattern. It wasn't a chaotic attack. The creatures flew in precise spiral formations, creating downdrafts that tried to immobilize him. And every time the Guardian moved, the swarm adjusted, opening corridors for its tentacles.
They were hunting as a team. The swarm was the net. The Guardian was the spear.
Dorian needed to change the rules. He needed height, he needed to be in the sky.
He had his helmet loose around his neck and had it cover his entire head again. "Omega, maximum jump thrust. Now," Dorian ordered Omega.
The suit roared. Gravity engines in the boots and back overloaded. Dorian crouched and jumped.
It wasn't just a jump. It was a full-power projectile. He shot vertically, dodging a tentacle by meters, piercing through the swarm like a bullet.
The world shrank. The wind howled. For one glorious second, he was above the storm of feathers and metal, seeing the black plain, the colossus of living stone, and the swarm swirling below like a living tornado.
— "Altitude: 85 meters. Free fall in 3…"
The thrust had ended. The planet's gravity reclaimed its debt.
But Dorian didn't plan to simply fall as if he had only wanted to see the black plain, the Guardian, or the swarm. He decided it was a good idea to jump toward where the swarm was.
He spun in the air, aiming his boots at the dense mass of Cenzontlis. He activated the stabilizers.
— "Impact imminent. Preparing cushioning."
Dorian landed feet-first on the back of a large Cenzontli. The animal screeched, its bones crunched, and they both began to plummet. Dorian didn't stop there to wait for it to fall. He ran. And he used the bodies of the flying creatures as stepping stones in the sky.
He jumped from one back to another, balancing precariously, the defective sword tracing reddish arcs to clear the path. It was madness. It was unbelievable. But it was the only terrain where the Guardian, anchored to the earth, couldn't easily reach him, for now.
— "Strategy inefficient long-term. Suit energy consumption: 65%," Omega told Dorian.
"Then give me something better!" Dorian responded.
— "Analyzing… The swarm operates as a hive mind. Coordination signal: low-intensity psionic frequency, emitted by the Guardian," Omega said, sending the data to Dorian's mind.
Dorian dodged a beak that grazed his helmet. Coordination signal?
He looked at the Guardian. The eyeless crest vibrated constantly, emitting those waves visible in the air. It wasn't just a weapon. It was a transmitter.
"Omega! Can you hack the signal? Or jam it!" Dorian asked.
— "The frequency is organic, not digital. But… I can attempt an electromagnetic pulse overwrite on the same band. Side effects unknown," Omega replied.
"Do it! Before everything spins out of control!"
They were already falling and almost reaching the black surface.
He launched himself onto another Cenzontli's back, performed a mid-air flip, and landed standing on an isolated rock jutting from the plain. Meanwhile, the Cenzontli crashed into the ground, raising a cloud of black dust. It was a few seconds' respite.
The Guardian, seeing him stabilized, raised two main tentacles. They began to glow with the same black-blue energy as the fragment.
— "Energy charge detected. Possible focused beam attack. Time: 10 seconds."
— "Initializing interference pulse. Charging suit capacitor."
"Faster!"
<< INTERFERENCE CHARGE: 70%… 80%… >>
The Guardian's tentacles glowed like dying suns. The air smelled of ozone and burnt earth.
<< 95%… >>
The swarm parted, opening a perfect tunnel between Dorian and the Guardian.
<< 100% >>
"NOW!"
<< EMI PULSE DEPLOYED >>
There was no sound. Only a high-pitched whistle that cut through everything else. A wave of visible distortion, like heat rising from asphalt, erupted from Dorian's suit.
The effect was instantaneous and chaotic.
The Guardian's psionic waves distorted, becoming a shriek of feedback. The colossus's crest vibrated violently.
But the real change was in the swarm.
The Cenzontlis, deprived of their coordination signal, went mad. The perfect formation disintegrated. Creatures crashed into each other, spun in disoriented circles, flew off in all directions. The sky had cleared.
The alien sunlight, purple and gold, bathed the plain once more.
It was a one-second relief.
Because the Primordial Guardian, though wounded in its control, the attack hadn't stopped. No, it hadn't canceled its attack.
The two charged tentacles fired.
They weren't beams of energy. They were columns of pure compressed gravitational force. The air between Dorian and the Guardian collapsed, creating a vortex that sucked in rocks, dust, and light toward itself.
Dorian had no time to dodge. Only to block.
He crossed his arms, activating the suit's maximum energy shield.
The impact had no physical contact. It was as if the universe had punched him directly in the soul.
The shield flared with blinding intensity… and then shattered. The force wave lifted him and hurled him as if Dorian were an old rag doll.
He flew backward, breaking the sound barrier in his agony, and slammed into the wall of the crater his own sword had created earlier.
The world turned white, then black, then red with pain.
<< CRITICAL ALERT >>
<< SUIT INTEGRITY: 1% >>
<< LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS: NOT COMPROMISED >>
<< SWORD CORE: INACTIVE. IRREPARABLE DAMAGE WITH HIGH PROBABILITY OF DETONATION RISK >>
Dorian coughed. Something hot and metallic filled his mouth. Blood. It was his blood.
Omega spoke, its voice now weak, fragmented by static.
— "Op-options… limited. Final recommendation… Escape… but that's impossible right now, sir."
Dorian looked at his sword. The core glowed with a sinister red, flickering like a dying heart. Risk of detonation.
He tried to get up. But his right arm hung uselessly, a flare of pain shooting up to his shoulder. At least two ribs screamed with every shallow breath.
Through blurred vision and the dust still settling, he saw the Primordial Guardian advancing. Slow. Relentless. Like a glacier made of nightmare. Each step sent shards of black rock flying like shrapnel. The fragment embedded in its chest pulsed with a triumphant rhythm, a war drum resonating in Dorian's bones.
The swarm of Cenzontlis, recovered from the interference, congregated above once more. But they no longer attacked. They only watched. Circling in a slow, ceremonial pattern, blocking the sun, plunging the battlefield into a deep purple twilight. Because they were the audience present at Dorian Astra's execution.