The moment the gunshots rang out, Lara knew she'd lost the element of surprise.
She'd emptied an entire magazine to bring down the bear as fast as possible. The endless echoes of gunfire hadn't been absorbed by the snow but had ricocheted down the lonely canyon walls, carrying far across the mountains and undoing hours of careful stealth. Trinity would be on her in minutes.
There was no time to skin the bear, no time to bring a new trophy back to Croft Manor. She turned and dashed toward the cave the bear had emerged from.
A shamanic totem hung by the entrance, its rusted bronze bells jingling in the snowstorm's breath. She didn't know where the tunnel led, and she didn't have time to find out. Her only choice was forward.
As the adrenaline slowly faded, Lara flexed her fingers, shoulders, and lower back, all nearly frozen and numb. Trinity, cutting corners on budget, hadn't even equipped their mercenaries with flash suppressors, and the rifle's recoil—combined with her unstable firing stance—had almost thrown her to the ground, threatening to snap her spine and neck.
Inside the cave, she found traces of artificial construction. A wall, likely over a thousand years old, stood unsteadily before her, allowing icy wind to pour through its cracks. She could smell water—glacial meltwater, crisp and fresh—distinct from the sharp, lung-freezing air of the Siberian wilderness. Beyond the wall, the trickle of a subterranean river echoed faintly.
Lara thought she was lucky.
But this was only the beginning of something far worse.
Her gunfire hadn't just alerted Trinity's bored mercenaries.
Far across the galaxy, on the edge of the Milky Way, Solomon stirred from his deep sleep.
"My beloved child, descendant of Terra…" A warm voice called him from slumber. Solomon immediately recognized it—the Great Mother of the Gods, whose incarnations appeared in countless Earthly mythologies. She revealed his purpose for coming here, and she had accepted his request. She would aid him in completing his task.
Moments after his awakening, Merlin, avatar of Gaia, swaggered into the captain's chamber.
"We've arrived."
Solomon took a deep breath and stretched. His eternal companion, Phoenix, rustled her wings and shook her head with a quiet chirp.
As he awoke fully, the pilots before him—until now motionless at their consoles—finally stopped working. The golden light that had been radiating on a soul-deep level faded, revealing shriveled corpses in their seats.
These pilots had faced Solomon's True Mark head-on, their mortal souls like snowflakes in flame. They evaporated utterly, but they had died as themselves—free of corruption, their souls intact. That, at least, was more merciful than the fate many others aboard the fleet had met.
The nightmares had breached Solomon's defenses more than once. Though he reclaimed ground each time, their corruption lingered, deep and malignant.
To the mortal eye, this place was simply a lightless void. Distant stars speckled a black canvas. The vibrant colors of gas nebulae were nearly invisible. But to the soul's eye, this place oozed with filth—purple ribbons of rot drifting in space.
Twisted, laughing things circled the fleet. Formless horrors, made only for the admiration of the insane. Their warped mouths whispered curses and lures, calling out the names of the crew, inviting madness, beckoning them to join a wretched eternal celebration. They fed on lunacy—spawn of Chthon's dreamscape. The sensation made Solomon's scalp itch.
This place was the rash on reality, its sicknesses bubbling underneath: cancers of logic, tumors of broken physics, all desperately clawing for the material realm. His True Mark rejected them. He was their antithesis, their natural enemy. Reality itself barred them from crossing fully into existence.
And so they cursed him.
Tempted him.
Their master longed for his fall. For his madness.
"I've been mad for a long time," Solomon muttered, pressing a small silver bell beside the iron armrest of his captain's throne.
First Mate Alex burst into the room, wild-eyed and fanatical.
"My Captain!" he boomed through the vocoder embedded in his throat.
"Good evening, Alex. Anything to report?" Solomon glanced at him with a strange expression. Though most of his focus had been on repelling Chthon's influence and shielding the crew from corruption, he'd still sensed the unfolding events aboard his ship.
"No rebellions, Captain! Loyalty is absolute!" Alex beamed. He didn't spare a glance at the mummified remains of the pilots. His new power armor gleamed—black iron plates engraved with ornate patterns, golden eagle wings flared across his pauldrons. Twin bloodstones glittered in his gauntlets. His belt held a revolver-sword hybrid and a magnetized laser rifle. It had all been custom-forged by the Kree artisans from salvaged wreckage—according to Solomon's aesthetics.
Solomon didn't comment on the madness. He didn't care about the crew's lives.
They were only ever meant to get the ships here.
"I wasn't asking about loyalty… Never mind. Have these bodies removed. Engrave their names on the chairbacks. They weren't volunteers, but they gave everything. We honor that. Get replacements ready—we're going to engage the inertial dampeners and glide into the void ahead."
"Yes, Captain!"
Alex turned to leave, but Solomon called after him.
"Alex. That feline mechanic of yours—clean him. Use my water rations if you have to. I don't care how, but I want that cat scrubbed from ears to tail. I don't care if it doesn't talk—I know it understands."
Alex blinked. "Captain, you're not saying you… have that kind of interest, are you? I mean, on Hala, it's totally nor—"
"Don't be an idiot. It's a cat! I don't want a flea outbreak!"
"Understood, Captain!"
He sprinted away like a man on a divine mission.
Solomon turned to Phoenix.
She chirped softly.
"I need you to scout ahead. Check the rift. Make sure the fleet can pass safely."
"My dear Solomon," Merlin said, inspecting the corpses with clinical calm, "do you really trust me so little?"
"Then tell me… how's Dave?"
"Sleeping. Surprisingly tough, that one. Didn't even complain after getting hurt. But in my opinion, he's a fool. Not nearly ruthless enough to be my heir."
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