Page 138 of Scorching the Alien Empire
They are everywhere.
Jagged, serrated prongs screech across my father’s armor, grasping, gouging, desperate to reach the blazing flesh beneath. Deep gashes mar the plates, new scars forming over old ones. A new history etched in arcweave and blood.
A fate forged not by skill—but by endurance. By rage.
And my rage is eternal.
My white-scaled Chieftain’s cloak—once a symbol of command, of power—is nothing but shredded remnants, fluttering in the chaos like a dying war banner.
I lash out, plasma claws carving through the droids with ruthless aggression, molten metal spilling from their ruined bodies before they can even fire.
Another lifts its cannon—too slow.
My boot crashes into its chest, sending it tumbling backward, colliding with the others. They topple together, limbs writhing, servos whirring in panic.
I do not stop.
I vault into the air, plasma bolts streaking past me, barely missing as they rip through the ceiling. Superheated debris rains down like deadly clouds, molten metal droplets sizzling against the floor. I land, boots-first, and the writhing droids explode under my titanic weight. Shattered limbs and arcweave plating scatter like shrapnel, the crunching pop beneath my heels a sweet symphony to my blood-pumping ears.
Manic laughter tears from my singed throat, a twisted, guttural croak that echoes through the haze of blistering air. The droids know no fear, even as the corridor is littered with their shattered remains—thousands of them. Their red lenses glint beneath flat, insectoid heads, their movements relentless, eager for more, eager to die.
Good. Let them come. Let us bathe in blood, Arawnoth’s pyres demand sacrifice.
An array of droid limbs shoots toward me. Slow, languid, as if moving through water turned to ice. Too slow for life. My plasma claws carve through their disordered ranks, a blazing blue blur of destruction.
Metal bodies twitch, thinking they’re still operational. Stalk torsos crisscrossed with glowing lines buckle before their top halves slough off from the bottom. Their skittering legs shuffleaimlessly, spluttering and toppling as their servo gears fade into silence.
Then, I see it. Something almost unbelievable in the haze.
A gap forming in their ranks. An end in sight.
It must be a mirage. Another temptation from the Voidbringer.
My armor’s shield erupts with bright, shimmering blue light. The searing hiss of plasma on plasma fills the air, blinding sparks forcing me to cycle to a new vision spectrum. I curse myself for the distraction, the lesson etched in the scalding, singed flesh on my neck and hands.
I almost falter, my standing leg wobbling as I slam a boot into the droid with the smoking cannon, shattering it into thousands of broken pieces. The countless wounds, the weight of my armor, the stifling burning oxygen—it all presses down on me like the volcanoes of Scarn. Sudden. Brutal.
But I refuse to falter. I will never submit again!
Princesa needs me. Even here, in this chaos, the bond tugs at my mind, cutting through the fog of my fury and pain. I sense her confusion, her rising panic. Outside these accursed corridors, the Scythians must be massing against us.
It seems endless war was always my fate.
“Is that you, you big shorthair bastard?” A voice calls out, distant, almost drowned by the skittering limbs and whirling gears of droids. “This voiding steam...” A faint grumble. “If you can hear me, you’ll want to cover your ass.” Laughter, wild and cackling, reverberates through the ruined passage.
Drexios?
The fool! He should be protecting Princesa and our females.
Still, I set my shoulders, barreling into the droids behind me. Some are trampled beneath my feet, while others cling to me like znats on a pouncing venefex.
A series of metal clangs echo in the distance, faint yet familiar, like ballistic casings dropping on a floor.
“Smoky, smoky, explody, droidy time!”
His hooting is quickly replaced by deafening explosions. One, two, a half-dozen. A chain reaction of destruction rips through the corridor, a blinding flash like stars going nova forcing me to shield my eyes. Searing pieces of droids pelt against my armor, a heavy downpour of molten metal clanging against metal, each a deadly bullet that could kill weaker species. But not us. Not me.
I stand a titan amongst the ruin. Unbowed. Unbroken.
