Ultimate Destroyer

Pain.

It was not the sharp, immediate kind that came from a wound or the dull ache of exhaustion. It was deeper than that—woven into his very existence, into the marrow of his bones, as though something had been carved out of him and left an emptiness behind. Varos Rael felt it settle in his chest like a void threatening to collapse in on itself.

His body ached from the battle, but the fight itself was already fading from his mind like a dream slipping through his fingers upon waking. The creature—no, the thing that had attacked him—was gone, its remains reduced to flickering embers of energy dissolving into the air. It had not been alive in any conventional sense. It had been something else entirely.

He exhaled shakily, his breath uneven as he tried to process what had just happened. His weapon, still humming with residual energy, felt heavier than before. His fingers tightened around the hilt as though letting go would mean losing something more than just the blade.

The ruined city around him remained eerily silent. No voices, no footsteps, nothing but the distant crackle of dying fires. His visor's display flickered, struggling to provide accurate readings. The air felt thick with something unseen, something that pressed against his mind like unseen hands grasping at his thoughts.

Then, there was the voice. The one that had whispered to him in the moments before the attack. It had felt familiar, like an echo of something long forgotten, yet its words held weight.

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

Varos clenched his jaw, a sharp frustration bubbling beneath his exhaustion. He did not understand. None of this made sense, and yet, a part of him felt that it should. Pieces of a puzzle he did not know how to solve lay scattered before him, taunting him with their incompleteness.

He took a step forward, forcing himself to move, to push through the confusion and uncertainty. His boots crunched against the fractured ground, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence.

How long had he been running?

Not just from the Eclipse Legion, not just from whatever force had been hunting him, but from himself. From the truth.

He could not remember the first time he had awakened to the feeling of being lost. It had always been there, lurking beneath the surface of his thoughts, an ever-present void he had learned to ignore. But now, it was no longer something he could push away. It was staring him in the face, demanding to be acknowledged.

A bitter chuckle escaped him, but there was no humor in it. "Home," he muttered under his breath, echoing the words of the mysterious figure from before. "If this is home, then why does it feel like I've never belonged anywhere?"

There was no answer.

The city remained lifeless, its ruins offering nothing but cold indifference.

But he knew he could not stay here. If what the figure had said was true, the Nihil Engine was searching for him, and standing still was as good as inviting it to come claim him.

A low pulse of energy rippled through the air, sending a chill down his spine. It was distant, but he recognized it instantly.

A distortion.

Not the same as the one that had pulled him into the structure, but something similar. A fracture in reality, a sign that something unnatural was shifting.

His grip tightened around his weapon, and despite the fatigue weighing on him, his body moved on instinct. He turned sharply, scanning the broken skyline for the source.

Then, he saw it.

A tear in the fabric of space itself, hovering above the ruins in the distance. It shimmered and twisted, edges frayed like a wound that refused to heal. The sight of it sent an unexplainable dread coursing through him.

Memories flickered. Not complete ones, just fragments, like shattered glass catching the light. He had seen this before. He had stood before a rift like this, only… there had been others with him. He could not remember their faces, but the feeling remained—the weight of shared purpose, of knowing that they had fought together.

And they had lost.

His breath caught in his throat as something moved within the rift. Shadows, shifting and writhing, coalescing into a form that should not have existed.

He had seconds to react.

His body moved before his mind could process, diving behind the crumbling remains of a fallen structure just as the rift released its abomination into the world. The air vibrated with a soundless scream, a pressure that made his skull feel like it was moments from fracturing.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look.

The creature was nothing like the one he had fought before. This one was larger, its form constantly shifting between solidity and something that did not belong in this reality. Its elongated limbs stretched unnaturally, its jagged exoskeleton glistening with an otherworldly sheen. Where eyes should have been, there were only gaping voids, endless and consuming.

For the briefest moment, Varos felt something claw at the edges of his thoughts. It was not words, not in any language he understood, but something deeper. A presence that sought to unravel him from the inside out.

No.

He pushed back, gritting his teeth as he forced his mind to remain his own. He had survived worse. He had fought through the abyss before, even if he could not remember it.

With a sharp inhale, he surged forward.

The creature moved with unnatural speed, but he was ready. He twisted, dodging the first strike as one of its limbs shattered the ground where he had just stood. The impact sent a shockwave through the ruins, debris scattering in all directions.

Varos did not hesitate. He ignited his weapon, the blade humming to life as he slashed across the creature's torso. The strike connected, a burst of energy crackling through its unstable form. It shrieked—not in pain, but in recognition.

It knew him.

That realization sent a chill through him, but he had no time to dwell on it. The creature retaliated, twisting its body in an impossible motion, its claws aiming for his throat. He barely managed to deflect the strike, his body twisting with the momentum as he used it to drive his blade deeper into its shifting mass.

The force of the impact sent him skidding backward, his boots grinding against the broken ground. His breathing was ragged now, each inhale burning his lungs.

The creature convulsed, its form flickering, distorting.

He had wounded it, but it was not dead.

Not yet.

Varos steadied himself, his muscles tensed, his heart pounding against his ribs. He did not know how many more of these battles he had fought before, how many times he had faced these horrors only to have the memories torn from him.

But right now, in this moment, he refused to be erased.

He would carve his own path, even if the universe itself sought to erase it.

The creature lunged once more, and with a battle cry that came from somewhere deep within his soul, Varos met it head-on.