The hull screamed like a dying god.
Emma's teeth rattled as the Observer tumbled through what couldn't possibly be called space anymore. The viewport showed nothing but swirling, impossible colors that hurt to look at directly. Reds that shouldn't exist. Blues that made her eyes water. Light that moved in spirals and somehow sang.
"Gray!" Lucas shouted over the grinding metal. "What the fuck is happening?"
"It's not a rift!" Gray's voice cracked as he fought with controls that sparked and died under his hands. "It's a goddamn highway! We're in some kind of... transit system!"
[Auren - Online. PRIME QUEST: 'CHAOS WOVEN IN CRYSTAL'. Objective 1: Survive Impact Sequence. Objective 2: Assess Hostile Environment. Current Location: Cosmic Arbor (Tier 11). Warning: Extreme Energy Signatures Detected! Multiple TIER 9+ Power Events Ongoing!]
Auren's voice sounded like someone trying to speak through a hurricane of static. Emma's HUD flickered violently, showing fragments of a golden tree-like overlay that cracked and reformed every few seconds.
"I can't control it!" Gray screamed. "Brace for—"
The screaming stopped.
They burst into silence so profound it felt like dying. Then the hum started. Low, omnidirectional, coming from everywhere and nowhere. The sound of something vast and alive and ancient breathing.
"Holy shit," Aisha whispered.
Through the shattered viewport, Emma saw impossible things. Three suns hung in the sky, one silver, one gold, one a deep purple that made her brain itch. Nebulae stretched between them like veins of pure light, shimmering with energy that felt almost alive. And far below, planets that wept golden tears from continent-sized cracks in their surfaces.
In the distance, streaks of crimson and gold light moved faster than thought, clashing and separating in combat that made stars flicker when they collided.
"The Cosmic Arbor," Gray breathed, his enhanced intellect processing data faster than his voice could keep up. "We're in the actual fucking Cosmic Arbor. Tier 11 reality zone. The energy readings are... they're impossible. The scale is..."
He trailed off. There weren't words.
Emma tried to reach for her Aetherweave, to stabilize their descent into whatever fresh hell awaited them. Golden light flickered around her fingers for half a second before agony lanced up her arm.
[Aetherweave - Reality Stabilization Attempt: FAILED! Insufficient Power! Brace for Impact!]
"Shit," she gasped, cradling her arm. The backlash from overusing her abilities during their escape still burned through her nervous system like liquid fire.
"There," Lucas pointed through the viewport. "That moon. We're going to hit that moon."
Emma looked. The celestial body was massive, easily ten times the size of Earth's moon, orbiting a ringed planet that looked like someone had set it on fire from the inside. The surface was covered in what looked like cities, but the architecture was all wrong. Spires that curved impossibly, platforms that floated without support, structures that seemed to exist in more dimensions than her eyes could process.
"Those aren't human cities," Chloe said quietly. She was gripping the data chip holder on her wrist, the one containing Markus's consciousness. Her knuckles were white. "Markus, you seeing this?"
The chip pulsed once. Somehow, that made it worse.
Movement caught Emma's eye. A figure hung in space between them and the moon, small at this distance but growing larger as they fell toward it. Crimson robes that seemed to move in wind that didn't exist. Human-shaped but wrong in ways that made her skin crawl.
"Who the hell..." Aisha started.
The figure drew back its fist.
Reality cracked around it like glass. Space itself seemed to bend inward, drawn to the point where its knuckles gathered energy that wasn't quite light, wasn't quite darkness, but something that hurt to perceive.
"Oh fuck," Emma whispered. "Oh fuck, everyone hold on!"
The figure punched the moon.
The impact wasn't loud. It was beyond loud. It was the sound of a universe screaming. The moon didn't just explode. It disintegrated. Became a billion tons of superheated rock and magma and something else, something that glowed with sickly light and made Emma's teeth ache.
[WARNING! CATASTROPHIC PLANETARY DESTRUCTION EVENT! POWER LEVEL: TIER 9 EQUIVALENT! EVADE! EVADE! REROUTING IMPACT TRAJECTORY TO LARGEST FRAGMENT!]
Auren's voice cracked like breaking glass. Emma's HUD went insane, showing trajectory lines that curved through dimensions that shouldn't exist.
"He just..." Chloe's voice was barely a whisper. "He just punched it to death."
The largest fragment of the moon was still huge, still glowing white-hot from the impact. And as they fell toward it, Emma's enhanced vision caught something that made her blood freeze.
On the surface of the fragment, four figures. Three kneeling, one standing over them. The standing figure wore crimson robes and had its hand raised, crackling with energy that looked like crystallized hatred.
An execution.
"No," Emma breathed.
Time slowed. Her Aetherweave might be fucked, but her Kineticvance was still there, still burning in her chest like a caged star. She could feel it responding to her desperation, to the absolute certainty that she couldn't watch three people die while she did nothing.
[THREAT! LETHAL INTENT DETECTED! SURVIVAL INSTINCT PROTOCOL - OVERRIDE AUTHORIZED! Diverting all available energy to kinetic output! TEMPORARY POWER SPIKE TO 10^38 J! DURATION: 1.2 SECONDS! WARNING: SEVERE PHYSICAL BACKLASH INEVITABLE! Execute: Precision Strike Gamma-9! NOW!]
"Emma, don't!" Lucas shouted, but she was already moving.
Still strapped to her seat, she drew back her fist. Golden light erupted around her arm, not just Stormgleam but something deeper, something that made the air itself sing. She punched through the viewport, through the hull, through space itself.
The beam of kinetic force crossed the distance in an instant. The crimson-robed figure looked up, surprise flickering across features that were almost human but not quite, and then its head simply ceased to exist.
The backlash hit Emma like a sledgehammer made of broken glass. She screamed, her arm going instantly numb, golden blood streaming from her nose. Every nerve in her body felt like it was being flayed.
[BACKLASH CONFIRMED! Emma - Right arm structural integrity: 38%! Internal micro-tears detected! Applying Nanite Stasis! WoodDust reserves now at 35% and falling!]
"Emma!" Aisha lunged forward, but there was nothing she could do. Emma's right arm hung limp, feeling like it was full of crushed glass and fire.
"I'm..." Emma gasped, trying to form words through the pain. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
She wasn't okay. Not even close.
The Observer hit the fragment with a sound like the world ending. Metal shrieked against superheated rock. They skidded across the surface, leaving a trail of sparks and debris, finally coming to rest near the three figures Emma had saved.
The silence that followed was deafening.
They stumbled out of the wreckage, every step sending shockwaves of pain through Emma's mangled arm. The air was thick with dust and the smell of ozone and something else, something that made her sinuses burn.
The three figures were staring at them. Humanoid but definitely not human. Their features were too perfect, too symmetrical, like someone had carved them from marble and then taught them to breathe. Their skin had a faint luminescence, and their eyes... their eyes were the color of starlight.
"Luminari," Gray whispered, blood trickling from his enhanced brain's processing overload. "They're Luminari. Fuck, we're in the middle of their civil war."
One of the Luminari, a female with silver hair that seemed to move in its own wind, stepped forward. Her voice was like music, but music played on instruments that didn't exist.
"You... saved us," she said, her accent strange and lilting. "But you are not of the Arbor. What are you?"
Before Emma could answer, a voice boomed across the fragment. Amplified by magic, calm and condescending and absolutely terrifying.
"Interesting debris."
The figure that had destroyed the moon was floating above them now, close enough that Emma could see his face. Beautiful, like all the Luminari, but wrong. His eyes burned with fever-bright light, and when he smiled, reality seemed to shift slightly around the edges.
"A new variable in the equation," he continued, his gaze fixed on Emma. "Show me what power brought you to my war, little spark. Show me if you are worthy of my attention."
Emma clutched her shattered arm, glaring up at him. Her HUD was going crazy, showing power readings that made no sense, threat assessments that just read ERROR ERROR ERROR.
[Adrenaline: 98%. Hostile Intent: 100%.]
She looked at her team. Lucas was bleeding from his nose, his Kineticvance leaking uncontrolled sparks. Aisha's remaining eye was wide with shock. Chloe was crying silently, still gripping Markus's chip. Gray looked like he might collapse from information overload.
They were fucked. Completely, utterly fucked.
But they were alive.
"Let's find out," Emma gritted through her teeth.
Movement to their left. Five more figures in crimson robes landed on the fragment with impacts that cracked the superheated stone. Their eyes burned with the same fevered light as their master, and when they moved, reality seemed to bend around them like they were walking through thick liquid.
"The Master wants the anomaly," their leader said, pointing a gauntleted hand at Emma. Its voice was like grinding metal. "Alive, if possible. In pieces, if necessary."
[Threat Incoming! Zealot Squadron! Power Level: 10^38 J Each! ENGAGE! Emma - You are injured. Let the team take point.]
Emma stepped forward, her good arm crackling with golden light. Behind her, she could hear the others getting ready to fight. Lucas's power was building, unstable but growing. Aisha was checking her weapons. Chloe was whispering something to Markus's chip.
"Come on then," Emma said, her voice carrying across the fragment. "Let's fucking dance."
The Zealots smiled. Their teeth were too sharp, too white, too many.
The war had found them.
Or maybe they'd found the war.
Either way, people were about to die.