The Corvin System died in silence.
Regulus felt the severance hit the marrow of his bones. It was a sudden, violent snap of his awareness that nearly brought him to his knees. A moment prior, the hum of billions of souls had warmed the back of his mind, a choir of life singing across the vacuum. Then, the connection disappeared.
The Void had claimed them.
Regulus gripped the edge of the obsidian table in the Command Sanctum. Under his gauntleted fingers, the edge of the table crumbled and turned to dust. He forced his breathing to steady, fighting the urge to project his grief outward. If he lost control now, his pressure alone would crush the lungs of every officer on the Sanctum.
"Lord Commander?"
The voice belonged to a Lieutenant, a veteran of the campaigns. The man stood five paces behind Regulus, trembling. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his body fighting the instinctive urge to flee from the predator standing at the window.
Regulus stared out at the universe. The viewport, reinforced with transparent glass alloy and layers of barriers, offered a panoramic view of the galaxy. Yesterday, the Corvin quadrant had been a tapestry of diamond starlight, holding eight habitable worlds and a thriving trade route.
Now, a perfect, circular blackness marred the space. A puddle of ink growing on the clear water, spreading and consuming the light.
"The Corvin System is gone," Regulus said. His voice, a low rumble like grinding tectonic plates, vibrated the deck. "The stars are gone."
"We have reserve fleets in the sector, sir," The Lieutenant stammered, checking his datapad with shaking hands. "General Draco is stationed at the quadrant. If we send a signal, we might—."
"General Draco is gone."
Regulus turned. His celestial armor hummed in a low-frequency, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. The masterwork plates of the cosmos and gold filigree caught the dim lighting, glowing with an inner luminescence. He walked past the Lieutenant, his cape of woven light trailing behind him, distorting the air like heat rising from pavement.
"Recall the Outer Rim fleets," Regulus marched toward the blast doors. "Pull every ship to the Core Systems. We make our stand here."
The Lieutenant's eyes widened in horror. He stepped into Regulus's path—a suicidal act of bravery born out of desperation.
"M-my Lord, the evacuation transports are still loading in the Belts. If we pull the fleet now... it will condemns trillions."
Regulus stopped. He looked down at the soldier. Cosmic light burned in the Lord Commander's eyes, swirling with the terrifying heat of a dying sun.
"I am aware."
Regulus stepped around the man. He did not look back as the blast doors hissed shut, sealing the command crew inside with their despair.
———
The Grand Hallway of the Citadel stretched for miles, a monument built to consecrate a lie.
Regulus marched down the center of the hallway. His boots struck the marble floor with the sound of a metronome counting down the end of the world. Above him, vaulted ceilings soared hundreds of feet into the air, decorated with moving frescoes depicting the 'Great War' of the Founding Fathers.
He looked up at the painted faces of their leaders. They stood atop mountains of dead Void beasts, swords raised in triumph, bathed in golden light.
Propaganda.
The Empire hadn't defeated the Void a thousand years ago. They had run faster than the darkness. Fleeing across the empty spaces between galaxies, burned their engines to cinders, until they found a pocket of space, a galaxy far from the Void. They built their grand walls, told their children they were conquerors, and prayed the hunger wouldn't follow them.
But the Void picked up their scent. And they were hunted, yet again.
Servants and junior officers threw themselves to the floor as Regulus passed. They pressed their foreheads against the cold stone, averting their eyes from his radiance. They worshipped him. To them, he was the Absolute Will. They believed he could command the tides to cease and the suns to burn forever.
He could feel their hope clawing at his skin, sticky and desperate. It sickened him. He had nothing to give to them.
He reached the end of the hallway. Before him stood a giant arch, a structure of ancient, alien stone that predated the Citadel itself. It hummed with a frequency that made his teeth ache.
Regulus raised his left gauntlet. The complex Mark burned into his palm flared with searing heat. The arch recognized its master's frequency. The space inside the arch twisted, folding in on itself until a circular gateway spiraled open.
He stepped through, leaving the noise of the dying empire behind.
———
The transition was instant. One moment, he breathed the recycled air of the Citadel; the next, the vacuum of the ether filled his lungs.
He emerged into the Grand Orrery.
A place existed outside of normal space, a pocket dimension tethered to the soul of the galaxy. It was a vast, roofless observatory floating in deep space. There were no walls to hold back the cosmos. The floor was a disc of polished obsidian miles wide, reflecting the swirling nebulae and distant galaxies above like a black mirror.
In the center of the disc sat a simple wooden chair. In the chair sat an old man.
He wore robes of midnight blue that seemed to absorb the starlight. He leaned heavily on an enchanted walking stick, staring up at the patch of unnatural darkness eating the northern sky.
"The Corvin System has fallen," Regulus said. "The Void is adapting. Our cosmic barriers are useless against it. Our mana only fuels the beasts."
The old man didn't turn. He kept his gaze fixed on the encroaching dark. "I know."
Regulus stalked forward, his anger cracking the obsidian floor with every step. "You sit here and watch while my people burn? You told me you had a contingency. You told me that if the Outer Rim fell, you had a solution."
"I promised you a way to win," the old man whispered. His voice sounded like dry leaves skittering over stone. He turned. His eyes were milky white, blind to the physical world but seeing too much of the spiritual one. "We were arrogant, Regulus. We built walls of matter against a force that eats it. You cannot kill the dark with a sword. You cannot burn it with fire."
"Then give me something that can!" Regulus roared.
His control snapped. His gravity field expanded uncontrollably. The obsidian disc groaned, spiderweb cracks racing outward from his boots. Space itself warped around him, light bending toward his mass. The spiderweb cracks mended themselves in seconds.
"My generals are gone," Regulus's grief finally bleeding into his rage. "Draco. Libra. Aquila. I felt their lights wink out. I felt them die, Grandfather. Give me the weapon you promised, or I will tear this Orrery apart until I find one."
The old man looked at him. There was no fear in his expression, only a heartbreaking pity.
"You are the weapon, little one."
The Grandfather raised his walking stick and tapped the floor.
THOOM.
The sound was absolute. It bypassed the ears and struck the soul.
Regulus slammed into the ground.
A weight heavier than a neutron star crushed his shoulders, pinning him to the black obsidian floor. He struggled to lift his head, the plates in his celestial armor whining and sparking as they fought to keep him upright. Veins bulged against his neck. He flared his pressure, pushing back with enough force to crack a planet, but the pressure didn't budge.
The old man's pressure was made from ancient Authority.
"Look," the old man said, waving a trembling hand toward the northern edge of the disc.
"Witness the price of survival."
The shadows at the edge of the observatory receded. Seven massive thrones carved from solidified nebulae rose from the floor, towering over the prone Commander.
Regulus's heart hammered against his ribs. He looked up, and the scream died in his throat.
The thrones were all occupied but one.
On the far left sat a figure in gleaming white-plate armor. Her hand was frozen halfway to the hilt of her sword, her cape solidified in mid-billow. Libra. Her helmet was removed, revealing a face locked in a mask of utter confusion. She was still alive. Paused, preserved in a stasis so absolute that even her thoughts had halted.
Beside her sat a hunter in midnight blue. Orion. He sat rigid, his visor dark, his bow resting across his knees.
To the far right, the massive form of Draco filled a throne of iron scales. The Dragon General's mouth hung open in a silent roar, his eyes wide with betrayal.
The rest of his generals. Canis. Andromeda. Aquila. They were all there.
"You..." Regulus choked out. Blood sprayed from his lips as he fought the crushing pressure. "I sent them to the front lines."
"And I pulled them back," the old man said. Tears streamed down his withered face, dripping onto the obsidian. "Minutes before the Void consumed them, I snatched them. I pulled their souls through the ether and bound them here."
"You killed them!" Regulus clawed at the stone. "They trusted you! I trusted you!"
"I saved them!" the old man's voice thundered with a power that shook the stars above. "The Void eats the soul, Regulus. It hollows you out and doesn't even leave a husk. If they had died out there, they would be gone forever. I have saved them for the only thing that matters."
The old man pointed the stick at the seventh throne—the largest one, rising in the center of the arc. It pulsed with a hungry, white light.
"The Order needs a pillar," the Grandfather whispered. "These souls are powerful, but they are disparate. They need a Will strong enough to bind them together. A pillar strong enough to hold them together across the eons. They need... you."
Regulus stared at the empty throne. He understood. The horror of the plan crystallized in his mind. It wasn't a weapon to fight the Void today. But, a time capsule, a second chance to deal with the Void."
"You want to bury us," Regulus hissed. "You want us to hide while the entire universe dies."
"I want you to awake when the universe is ready," the old man said. "When the cycle turns.
When a vessel is born that can wield this power without breaking."
"No!" Regulus forced himself up. His armor fractured, pieces of gold filigree shattering under the strain. He pushed against the Authority, rising inch by agonizing inch. "I will not let you… I will not abandon them!"
"The ritual is done."
The stick slammed down again.
Regulus felt a tearing sensation in the center of his chest. It began as a burn and exploded into an inferno. He looked down.
His hands were dissolving.
The flesh, the bone, the celestial armor—all of it transmuted into blinding white light. He watched his own fingers turn to motes of light, floating away into the vacuum.
His soul is fading. The disintegration attacked his mind. His memories of his life crumbled. The face of the Lieutenant and the people he had left behind vanished. His romantic interest for Libra, his friendly rivalry with Draco.
The man named Regulus was being chipped away. The complexity of an Overlord's soul was too heavy for the Orrery. It had to be refined. Simplified. Hardened.
Authority. Dominion. Order.
That was all that remained.
He tried to scream, but his mouth was gone. He tried to fight, but his body had become energy. No longer a commander; he was a concept given form.
He became a comet of pure will, blazing silently across the observatory. He slammed into the seventh throne with the force of a supernova.
The impact shook the foundations of the Orrery. The light blinded the stars. And then, silence.
"I do not ask for forgiveness.
In time, I hope you understand my decision.
And… I'm sorry. I have failed you, all of you..."
The Grandfather collapsed, weeping, his strength spent. He watched as the seven thrones faded into the darkness of the ether, vanishing from reality. They were safe from the Void.
They were safe from time.
They could wait.