The atmosphere was a soup of black bile and burning oxygen. I hit the ground in the ruins of the National Mall, my Nil-shield shattering upon impact. I didn't have time to check for broken bones. The sky was still a panoramic nightmare of Abyssal throat, and the Imperial Fleet was spinning out of control above us like a hive of headless wasps."Elias!" Lydia was there, pulling me from the crater. Her face was smeared with soot, but her eyes were sharp. "The flagship’s explosion stalled it, but the entity is reaching for the Moon now. If it cracks the Anchor, we lose the gravity stabilizers.""I know," I wheezed, coughing up a mouthful of gold-flecked blood. "Merchant! Are you still alive in that tin can?""Barely, Sire!" the Merchant’s voice crackled through a salvaged comms-relay. "But we have a bigger problem. The Imperial generals are prep-ping for a 'Scorched Earth' retreat. They’re going to nuke the atmosphere to mask their jump to hyperspace. They’re leaving the civilians behind

The silence was the worst part. After the tectonic roar of the Abyss, the sudden, airless quiet of the National Mall felt like a burial shroud. I stood at the center of the New Temple, my hands fused to the golden filaments of the altar, watching the Moon. It didn't look like a satellite anymore; it looked like a great, weeping eye of violet rot."Merchant! Report!" I screamed, my voice cracking through the telepathic link. "Why is the Anchor rotating? I thought Julian was locked in the core-cell!""He is, Sire, but the Abyss didn't break the cage—it used the bars!" the Merchant’s voice was hysterical. "The black bile from the entity’s finger... it didn't just hit the surface. It’s a sentient carrier-wave. It’s hijacked the Anchor’s targeting sub-routines. The Moon isn't our battery anymore, Elias. It’s a gun pointed at our heads!""General Vane! Move the fleet!" I roared. "Intercept that beam!""With what, Thorne?" Vane’s holographic face was washed in a sickly purple light. "The *Ve

The white-hole event had stabilized, but the silence that followed wasn't peace. It was the heavy, suffocating pressure of a world whose soul had been bruised. I stood in the epicenter of the National Mall, my silver-grey skin humming with the residual radiation of the Council’s strike. The "Mouth" was gone, but the sky remained a bruised, oily purple, like a hematoma on the face of the universe."Elias! Look at the Temple!" Mira’s voice was a jagged shard of panic.I turned. The New Temple—the anchor of the Sovereign Union—wasn't just smoking. The golden filaments that had connected me to the 1st Legion were turning black, vibrating with a high-pitched, harmonic whine. Beneath our feet, the ground began to ripple. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a rhythmic, pulsing heave, like a chest trying to draw breath."The repulsion field is drawing from the mass graves," the Merchant’s voice crackled, his signal fading in and out. "But the Abyss left a gift before it recoiled. A parasitic code

The sky didn’t just go dark; it vanished.The sun didn’t set; it was snuffed out like a candle in a gale. Above the ruins of Washington D.C., the bruised purple of the Abyssal aftermath was replaced by a void so absolute it felt physical. This wasn't the "Void" I commanded—the clean, cold deletion of the Nil. This was a suffocating, oily blackness that smelled of wet earth and ancient metal."Merchant! The sun! Did the entity swallow the sun?" I roared into the comms, my voice echoing off the hollowed-out ribs of the New Temple."Negative, Sire! The sun is still there, but the light isn't reaching the crust! There’s a spatial membrane wrapping the entire planet!" The Merchant’s voice was a frantic staccato. "It’s an eclipse, Elias, but not from a moon. Something is *draping* itself over the world!""The obsidian barge," Lydia whispered, her hand trembling as she pointed toward the horizon.I saw it. Emerging from the total dark was the ship I had seen in my vision—a massive, jagged sl

The humid air of the Thorne Imperial City felt like a physical weight against my skin. It was the scent of night-blooming jasmine and expensive cigars—the smell of a world that didn't know it was about to burn. I stood on the marble balcony of the High Palace, my fingers gripping the cool stone.I looked at my hands. They were smooth, unscarred, and tan. The black veins of the Void were gone. The silver-grey pallor of the Emperor was gone. I was twenty-two years old, the Golden Prince of a dynasty that owned half the stars in the sky."Elias? You’ve been out here for twenty minutes. The High Inquisitors are starting to think you’ve got cold feet."I turned. Sarah stood in the archway, her gown of liquid gold shimmering under the chandeliers. She looked radiant. She looked human. She looked like the woman who would, in five minutes, whisper the secret of the "Eye" into my ear and trigger a century of planetary slaughter."Faceslap of the century," I whispered, the words feeling foreign