The wreckage of the Leviathan still drifted in the void, its burning fragments painting the nebula in eerie shades of red and gold. Ashoka's fleet hovered nearby, battered but unbroken, their ships scarred from battle yet glowing with the pride of survival.
On every channel, voices rose. Soldiers cheered. Pilots who had flown through fire screamed victory cries into their comms. Even the weary crews, bloodied and sleepless, wept with joy. Against impossible odds, they had slain the beast.
Ashoka stood at the viewport of the Indraprastha, his reflection caught in the glass. He saw not a king, not even a commander, but a man who had led his people through the jaws of death. The cheers outside did not reach him; inside, he heard only the echo of the Leviathan Commander's last words: The Council is eternal.
Behind him, Arhaan strode in, armor scorched, axe still stained from the boarding assault. He laughed, his booming voice filling the chamber. "Ashoka! You should have seen their faces before they died. They thought the Leviathan was a god. Now it's a carcass drifting in the stars."
Meera entered more quietly, exhaustion etched into her every movement. "And yet," she said, her tone low, "a carcass does not kill the beast. The Council will not stop. This was one of their claws, nothing more."
Ashoka turned to them both. His voice was calm, but iron lay beneath it. "You're right. We struck a blow, but not the killing one. They will come again—stronger, hungrier."
At that moment, the comms officer's console lit up. "Priority transmission… it's not ours. It's coming from deep within the Shadow network."
The room fell silent. Ashoka gestured. "Put it through."
Static crackled, then resolved into an image. A vast chamber of black stone and burning crimson light appeared on the holoscreen. Around a circular table sat the figures of the Council of Shadows. Cloaked in armor and veils, their faces were hidden, but their voices carried across the void like whispers of doom.
The largest of them leaned forward, his voice a rumble of contempt. "So. The child-king has teeth. He slays our beast, he rallies the broken, he believes himself destiny."
Another voice hissed like a serpent. "Good. Let him rise higher. The greater the fire, the darker the smoke when it dies. We will drown his empire in shadows."
A third spoke with chilling calm. "Deploy the Harbingers. Burn his border worlds. Break his allies. Leave him nothing but ashes and loyalty too heavy to bear."
The central figure raised a clawed hand, silencing the others. His words were a blade across the silence: "Let the boy keep his victories. He believes himself dawn. We will show him that every dawn is followed by night."
The transmission cut, leaving only silence in the command chamber.
Arhaan spat on the deck. "Cowards. Hiding in their holes, whispering threats like snakes."
But Meera's expression was grim. "They are not whispers. They are promises."
Ashoka said nothing. His eyes remained locked on the void, where the Leviathan's debris floated like the bones of a slain titan. He could already feel it—the storm gathering on the horizon, the weight of coming wars.
Finally, he spoke, his voice steady as stone:
"Then we will meet their night with fire. Let the Council come. For every shadow they cast, we will light a thousand suns."
And across the fleet, as if carried by the very stars, a single truth spread among the soldiers: The war for the empire had only just begun.