The rhythmic crunch of heavy combat boots against jagged, unfamiliar terrain had long since become a mind-numbing background noise.
On a remote, unnamed planet inside the moving planet, Kealen of the 10th Division walked slightly ahead . Behind him, two members of the 9th Division followed: Kross and Kahn.
They had been trekking through this desolate wasteland for hours, and they haven't been getting any signal at all.
"If I have to look at another grey rock formation, I'm going to start shooting them out of spite," Kross muttered, his voice raspy from the dry atmosphere. He dropped his arm in frustration, giving up on the dead tracking grid entirely. "Our signals are dead. The atmosphere is thin. We're practically ghosts out here."
"Save your energy, Kross," Kahn said calmly, his sharp eyes scanning the high ridges above them for signs of life or movement. "Complaining won't do anything. Kealen, you've been quiet. See anything through that helmet of yours?"
Kealen didn't answer immediately. He stopped walking, his body freezing as he adjusted the magnification settings on his specialized 10th Division helmet.
He stared past a massive, split boulder at the base of a jagged cliff roughly half a mile away. There, half-buried under a massive avalanche of stone and debris, was a distinct, metallic silhouette.
"I see a way out," Kealen said smoothly, pointing a gloved finger toward the base of the cliff.
Kross and Kahn quickly stepped up beside him, straining their eyes through the hazy horizon. As they drew closer, the metallic silhouette resolved into a fully intact, xenocides space ship.
It had clearly crashed during the chaotic rearrangement of the moving planet.
"A space ship," Kahn breathed, a rare smile breaking across his stern face. "Tell me the engine still works"
"Only one way to find out," Kealen replied, quickening his pace as they scrambled down the rocky slope toward the buried vessel. "Let's go check it out."
Meanwhile, the mountain valley below the dark alien fortress was being systematically torn to pieces.
Elias and the Malkor Elite known as Nihil had cleared the castle walls entirely, their locked forms plummeting thousands of feet through the open air toward the rocky gorge below. Nihil's head, a terrifying vortex of dark purple and neon pink energy framing an absolute black abyss, flared violently as he spun in mid-air, throwing a devastating, point-blank left hook aimed right at Elias's jaw.
Elias reacted instantly. He cocked his head back, the physical fist whistling past his chin by a fraction of a millimeter. The sheer wind pressure from the miss sliced a thin line into the stone ridge behind them. In mid-plummet, Elias coiled his body, driving his knee straight into Nihil's ribs.
BANG.
The blow connected with a heavy, metallic thud, but Nihil didn't even flinch. His bandaged hands, wrapped tightly , shot forward like striking vipers. Nihil grabbed Elias by the front of his suit , using their falling momentum to violently hurl him downward.
Elias slammed into the side of a massive mountain crag, shattering the stone into a shower of pebbles. He didn't let the impact slow him down; using the rock face as a launching pad, Elias kicked off with immense force, rocketing right back up toward Nihil. His silver eyes burned with intense focus as he unleased a lightning-fast barrage of punches.
Left, right, upper-cut, body blow—Elias's fists became a blur of kinetic energy, striking Nihil repeatedly across his chest and shoulders.
but as the hand-to-hand combat dragged on, Elias began to notice something terrifying.
Every time his fists made direct contact with the energy surrounding Nihil, a small portion of his physical momentum was completely erased.
He wasn't just blocking or enduring Elias's attacks; the absolute nothingness radiating from his body was literally deleting the force of the blows on impact.
Nihil let out a distorted, echoing laugh . "Is this the best you can offer? Pathetic!"
Nihil ducked beneath a sweeping kick, slipping directly into Elias's blind spot. His bandaged right hand clamped onto Elias's forearm.
The moment his fingers closed, the void energy flared, instantly dissolving Elias space suit into nothingness, exposing the bare skin beneath.
Before Elias could pull away, Nihil drove his elbow straight into Elias's chest, followed by a brutal, spinning sweep that sent Elias crashing hard into the rocky valley floor below. The ground caved in, creating a massive crater fifty meters wide.
Elias gasped, tasting iron as he pushed himself up onto one knee. His breath was ragged, and his muscles were screaming in protest. For the first time in a very long time, he was being systematically, slowly overpowered in a pure physical brawl.
Nihil descended from the sky, hovering a few feet above the lip of the crater. The geometric sigil at the center of his void face glowed with a blinding, malicious pink light. He raised both hands, gathering a massive, swirling sphere of absolute negative space between his palms.
"Die in the dark," Nihil hissed.
He hurled the sphere down. The moment the void blast struck the center of the crater, there was no loud explosion, no fiery eruption. There was only a terrifying, deafening silence as a massive dome of purple and black energy expanded, violently erasing the rock, the soil, the air, and Elias himself from the physical plane. The dust and debris kicked up by the shockwave swirled wildly, obscuring the entire valley in a thick, suffocating grey cloud.
Kiki and Elena stopped as the castle Shaked
"Is that an earthquake?" Elena asked
"No I doubt it, it's probably Elias. I hope he's ok" Kiki replied,as she and Elena began to move.
Nihil lowered his hands, his void face dimming slightly as he looked down at the perfectly smooth, empty hemisphere carved into the ground. "Looks like it's over," he muttered turning his back to the crater. "Just another stray dog put down."
Thump.
A heavy, rhythmic heartbeat echoed through the quiet valley.
Nihil stopped, his shoulders tensing as he slowly turned back around. "What...?"
The thick cloud of grey dust began to settle, pulled toward the center of the crater by a sudden, immense gravitational force. But Elias wasn't dead. He wasn't even bleeding anymore.
Standing in the center of the absolute void was a completely transformed being.
Elias had transformed, into his form called TRUE EVOLUTION, his human skin had turned into a smooth, flawless obsidian grey, and his hair had erupted into a crown of brilliant, flowing golden flames. Floating majestically around his back , which started from his arms were long, shimmering halo of pure, ancient golden energy, covered in ancient text.
His silver eyes had shifted into a piercing, radiant gold, looking at the Elite with absolute, god-like authority.
Elias raised his right hand, the text in the golden ribbon change. Then a small smirk touched Elias face "Over?" Elias's voice echoed, carrying a multi-layered, resonant tone that shook the valley. "This is just the beginning l."
Meanwhile
Far away in another planet:
silent landscape unfolded. This world was a barren, metallic wasteland, covered in endless rows of heavy iron cages, subterranean labor camps, and massive, smoking refineries that blocked out whatever faint starlight tried to penetrate the atmosphere.
This planet was a massive prison colony, populated by thousands of desperate, emaciated alien civilians who had been conquered and enslaved by Malkor.
Walking through the shadows of a massive structural pipeline, three towering figures kept their movements tight and concealed. Drakye Void, the Captain of the 10th Division, moved with an aura of absolute silence. Beside him was the Shadow Captain of the 9th Division, whose form seemed to warp and blend effortlessly into the surrounding darkness, and Reid Gedion Swallow, the Captain of the 1st Division,
They had been stuck on this prison world for hours
Due to the moving planet rearrangement.
"Look at them," Reid Gedion Swallow whispered, his eyes tracking a line of chained alien workers being forcefully marched into a glowing plasma refinery by brutal cybernetic guards. "These are probably the prisoners princexx talked".
"Yeah , we have to save them,who knows maybe they might have a space ship" Drakye Void said,
"I seriously want to go home," the Shadow Captain of the 9th chimes in, his voice emerging like a whisper from the dark. "So let's quickly get this over with".
Before Reid could formulate an extraction plan, a sudden, space ship came down from the sky.
The automated alarm sirens across the prison colony instantly began to blare a deep crimson alert.
Three massive shadows materialized at the far end of the central walkway, stepping out from the command elevator. The air pressure dropped so low that several alien prisoners collapsed to their knees, gasping for air.
Three of Malkor's Elites had just arrived on the planet, their collective auras flaring with a terrifying, absolute power that signaled the trap had officially been sprung. They looked directly up toward the dark rafters where the Captains were hiding,
Shadow stepped out. his cold gaze locking onto the three Elites below as a dangerous smile broke across his face. "Looks like we got a space ship, but we have to fight to get it ".