Chapter 567: Trap of Singularity

Kylus jammed his superheated thermal cutter directly into the center of the massive blast doors guarding the command center. The hyper-titanium bubbled and turned to liquid slag within seconds. He kicked the molten metal inward with brutal force.

The crew poured into the circular command room with their weapons drawn and auras flaring. A single figure sat in the oversized captain’s chair facing the main viewport, bathed in the glow of tactical holograms. Kylus charged forward and grabbed the demonic general by the throat to rip the answers right out of his vocal cords. The rotted head popped clean off the neck and bounced across the floor plating.

Kylus stumbled back as the headless demon corpse slumped onto the floor. A small holographic projector attached to its chest flickered and died, dissolving the illusion of a living commander.

“What kind of joke is this?” Reva sneered while retracting her talons.

Rin sheathed his dark steel swords and examined the room. “They evacuated the command structure.”

Viola slipped past Kylus and jammed her data pad into the central console’s interface port. Her fingers flew across the holographic keyboard to rapidly slice through the encrypted logs. The ambient vibrations of the orbital station vanished entirely as the red emergency lights shifted to a sickly violet pulse.

Viola’s eyes widened behind her visor. “Captain, the remaining thirty percent of their forces is actually a sacrificial tether.”

“Explain,” Xavier demanded while stepping into the room.

“They anticipated our arrival,” Viola said, her voice tight with panic. “The Demonic Society rigged the central dark-matter core to overload upon our entry. They are intentionally collapsing the entire staging ring into a localized black hole.”

A massive metallic groan echoed through the bulkheads as the artificial gravity violently pitched sideways. Lyra stumbled and caught herself against a terminal, while Requiem planted his mechanical greatsword into the floor to anchor his footing.

“Time until singularity?” Xavier asked.

“Ninety seconds,” Viola yelled as she ripped her data pad out of the console. “The Strider’s warp drive will be useless once we cross the event horizon.”

Kylus stared down at the decapitated corpse with trembling fists. The enemy had played him flawlessly and turned his grief into the exact trigger needed for their trap.

“We are leaving,” Xavier ordered. He grabbed Kylus by the shoulder and shoved the Aurelian toward the exit. “Save the rage for later, Kylus. You need to be alive to kill them.”

The crew sprinted back through the bloodstained corridors as the station tore itself apart. Wall panels buckled and exploded inward to vent pressurized gas and dark matter exhaust. The surviving Vanguard demons scrambled over each other in sheer terror, desperately trying to reach offline escape pods.

A massive armored brute tried to tackle Lyra in the chaos. She maintained her sprinting pace, ignited her demonic fire, and backhanded the creature’s face into bubbling ash.

“Out of my way, ugly,” Lyra shouted while vaulting over a piece of collapsed ceiling.

“Keep moving,” Requiem roared from the rear. He swung his mechanical greatsword like a battering ram to swat away falling support beams and terrified demons, keeping the path clear for Viola and the others.

They burst back into the disintegrating main hangar. Entire sections of the floor ripped upward and drifted toward the core under the rapidly intensifying gravitational pull. The Strider sat exactly where it had crashed, with its loading ramp lowered and engines firing at maximum thrust.

Xalvoria stood in the open airlock. Her crimson hair whipped wildly in the artificial wind. She looked incredibly irritated by the inconvenience of the collapsing space station.

“Get on board,” Xalvoria shouted over the roaring destruction.

Just as Kylus reached the ramp, the primary overhead gantry sheared off its mounts. Thousands of tons of reinforced steel plummeted directly toward the Strider.

Xavier stopped in his tracks. He raised his right hand and unleashed the full crushing force of his Emperor’s aura directly upward. The falling gantry slammed into an invisible wall of golden starlight. Space warped and shimmered under the immense gravity field, halting the catastrophic collapse just fifty feet above the ship.

“Move,” Xavier yelled while holding the massive structure aloft with one hand.

Rin, Reva, and Lyra dove up the ramp. Requiem grabbed Viola by the harness and tossed her inside before stomping up the incline. Kylus cast one final glare into the collapsing abyss of the station and leaped into the airlock.

Xavier swatted his hand to the side, throwing the massive steel structure into the far wall, and dashed up the ramp. The airlock doors sealed shut the instant his boots hit the deck.

“Hit it,” Xavier ordered as he walked onto the bridge.

Viola slammed the thrusters to maximum override. The Strider shot out of the collapsing hangar like a bullet from a gun and abandoned the standard exit vectors entirely. The violet light consumed the staging ring behind them. The massive hyper-titanium structure violently imploded and collapsed inward upon itself until a pitch-black sphere of infinite density swallowed the remaining debris in complete silence.

The Strider caught the edge of the gravitational shockwave and surfed the violent ripple of dark matter into the safety of the void. Kylus stood near the bridge window to watch the singularity stabilize where the station used to be.

The opalescent glow of his skin dimmed, and his jaw clenched tight enough to crack stone.

Xavier walked over and stood beside him.

“They set a trap because they fear what happens when you catch them,” Xavier stated, keeping his eyes fixed on the distant black hole. “Next time we find them, we will burn their entire society down.”

“They must have realized what you did to the…” Kylus paused for a brief second only to realize something. “Fuck, we didn’t even get his name, but he called himself King of the Anti-Intergalactic League or something. Since he was an elder of the demonic society who was on some kind of mission, and he has been following you…. Or rather, Lyra, they must know a lot about you also.”

“Honestly, we don’t have to worry about them. I feel like we will run into them one way or another, and more often than we think. They want to hunt us down, and we want to hunt them down. So it doesn’t matter who finds who first, we just have to be ready to beat the shit out of them.” Xavier patted on Kylus’ back and left.