Ultimate Destroyer

Varos Rael stood at the precipice of his own forgotten past, the words of the strange figure still resonating in his mind. He had come home, yet he could not remember ever belonging to this place. The chamber around him pulsed with an energy that felt neither hostile nor welcoming, merely watchful, as if the structure itself was aware of his presence. The weight of the revelation pressed against his chest like the gravity of a collapsing star.

He turned his gaze back to the armored entity before him. It had not moved since speaking, its featureless helm reflecting the faint cyan glow of the symbols lining the chamber walls. Though the figure radiated an undeniable power, it remained unnervingly still, as if waiting for something.

"What do you mean, I was the first?" Varos demanded, his voice steady despite the chaos unraveling in his mind. He clenched his fists, his gloves tightening around fingers that ached from the residual strain of his escape.

The figure tilted its head slightly, the motion slow and deliberate, as if considering its response. "You were the first to defy the will of the Nihil Engine. The first to break its design and fracture the timeline beyond its control."

Varos shook his head, frustration gnawing at him. "I don't even remember what that means."

"The Nihil Engine ensures that you do not," the figure replied. "It erases those who resist, unwriting them from existence, scattering their essence across forgotten strands of time. You have lived a thousand lives, fought a thousand wars, yet each time, the Engine has stripped you of your past, leaving only fragments that do not fit together."

Varos exhaled sharply, his mind racing. He had always known that his memories were incomplete, that something had been taken from him. But this? The idea that he had lived countless lifetimes, only to be rewritten and erased, was something far more horrifying than he had ever imagined.

His suit's systems flickered, struggling to maintain stability in this strange place. His visor displayed erratic data streams, struggling to categorize the environment. His body, though trained to withstand the extremes of deep space, felt the weight of something else—something that was not merely physical, but temporal.

"You expect me to believe that I was some kind of warrior against an all-powerful force?" he asked, his voice edged with skepticism.

"You already know the truth," the figure answered. "You feel it in your bones, in the way the universe bends around you. You have glimpsed it in the fractures of time you create."

Varos tensed. The power within him, the ability to fracture time itself, had always felt unnatural, like something he had stolen rather than earned. But what if it was not stolen? What if it had always belonged to him?

The chamber began to shift. The symbols lining the walls pulsed in unison, and the floating monoliths around them vibrated, as if responding to his thoughts. The space around him felt suddenly unstable, like a storm brewing within the fabric of reality itself.

"The Engine is searching," the figure said. "It will find you soon."

Varos felt a deep instinctive dread coil around his spine. He did not know how, but he understood that whatever the Nihil Engine was, it was not something he could simply run from forever. It had found him before. It would find him again.

"What do I do?" he asked, his voice quieter now.

The figure raised a hand, and for a moment, time itself seemed to still. The walls of the chamber folded away, revealing a vast cosmic expanse unlike anything Varos had seen before. It was not space as he knew it, not the cold emptiness between stars. It was something older, something that hummed with the presence of ancient forces that did not belong to any known universe.

A pathway of light stretched forward, leading into the void.

"You must remember," the figure said. "You must reclaim what was taken before the Engine finds you again."

Varos hesitated. He was no stranger to danger, but this was something far beyond any battle he had ever faced. The unknown loomed before him like an uncharted abyss, offering no promise of safety, only the weight of something inevitable.

But the alternative was to remain a fugitive, to keep running from an enemy he did not understand, to fight without knowing why. That was not survival. That was merely prolonging the inevitable.

With a final glance at the armored figure, he stepped forward.

The pathway of light carried him through the fabric of reality, and in an instant, the chamber was gone.

His vision blurred, his body twisting through currents of energy that did not obey the laws of physics. Time itself felt stretched and fragmented, his perception warping as flashes of memory surfaced and vanished like echoes in a storm. He saw places that no longer existed, faces that he did not recognize yet somehow knew. He saw himself in battles that defied logic, wielding powers that shattered the sky.

Then, suddenly, he was elsewhere.

Varos staggered, his boots meeting solid ground once more. The landscape around him was barren, a wasteland of crumbling structures beneath a sky that churned with unnatural colors. The air was thick with the weight of something unseen, something watching.

A ruined city stretched before him, its towers broken and weathered by time. Fires flickered in the distance, casting long shadows across the desolate expanse. The scent of ash and ozone filled the air. This was not just any battlefield. This was a place that had been erased.

He took a slow step forward, his senses on high alert. There was something here, something buried beneath the ruins of time itself. His visor struggled to identify the location, feeding him data that contradicted itself.

Then, he heard it.

A voice.

Not spoken aloud, but within his mind, a whisper threading through the fabric of his thoughts.

"You are not alone."

He spun around, expecting to see another figure like the one in the chamber, but there was nothing. Only the wind, howling through the ruins like a lament for the dead.

Varos tightened his grip on the hilt of the weapon at his side, its presence feeling more real now than it ever had. He had always carried it, always known it, but never questioned why. Now, he wondered if it was a remnant of a past he had forgotten.

The ground beneath him trembled.

A ripple of energy spread across the landscape, distorting the air like heat rising from scorched earth. And from the shifting shadows, something emerged.

A creature unlike any he had ever seen.

It was massive, its form both solid and shifting, as if its existence was unstable, tethered between realities. Its body was composed of blackened stone and flowing energy, its limbs elongated and clawed. Where its eyes should have been, there was only a void, a deep emptiness that pulled at the edges of perception.

The voice returned, more distinct this time.

"You were the first to fight them. You must fight them again."

Varos had no time to question.

The creature lunged.

Instinct took over.

His body moved before his mind could process, his weapon igniting with a searing pulse of energy. The battle had begun, but this time, he was no longer running. This time, he would fight for answers.