Ultimate Destroyer

Varos Rael had fought before—he could feel it in the way his body moved, in the instincts that guided his every step—but this was something else. This battle, this moment, felt different. It was not just another fight for survival. It was a reckoning.

The creature before him twisted, its form defying logic, limbs flickering between solid and spectral, its jagged silhouette breaking apart and reforming like a nightmare resisting the laws of reality. It was wounded, its unstable body struggling to maintain cohesion, but it was not done. Not yet.

Varos steadied his breathing, gripping his weapon tighter, its energy pulsing in sync with the rapid beat of his heart. He had survived the impossible before. He would survive this.

The creature lunged, its movements a blur of shifting mass, but he was ready. He sidestepped, his boots skidding across the fractured ground, narrowly avoiding a clawed limb that carved through the air where he had just stood. Dust and debris erupted around him as the strike impacted the ruins, shattering ancient stone as if it were brittle glass.

Varos countered. He twisted his body, bringing his weapon up in a fluid arc, striking across the creature's torso. Energy crackled along the blade's edge, slicing through the unstable mass. A screech tore through the air, a soundless cry reverberating within his skull, clawing at his mind.

He grit his teeth, refusing to falter.

Pain rippled through his arms as the creature retaliated, its elongated limb catching him across the chest. The impact sent him flying backward, his body crashing through the remnants of a crumbling structure. Stone and metal collapsed around him, a cloud of dust engulfing his vision.

His mind screamed at him to move.

Varos forced himself up, ignoring the sharp pain lancing through his ribs. His suit had absorbed most of the damage, but he could feel the bruises forming beneath the armor. He could not afford to stop.

The creature advanced, its distorted form seething with a hunger that was not physical, but something far worse. It did not simply seek to kill him. It sought to unmake him.

Varos tightened his grip on his weapon. He would not let it.

Summoning every ounce of strength, he surged forward, dodging another strike as he slid beneath the creature's shifting mass. His blade ignited once more, carving upward in a precise, controlled motion. This time, he aimed for the core.

The impact sent a shockwave through the air, a pulse of energy rippling outward as the creature's form buckled. Its body convulsed, light spilling from the deep fissures forming along its surface. The voids where its eyes should have been widened, and for the briefest moment, Varos thought he saw something within them—something familiar.

Then, with a final shudder, the creature collapsed, its form unraveling like strands of unraveling fabric. A vortex of energy consumed it, pulling it inward until nothing remained but silence.

Varos exhaled, his chest heaving. His body ached, his mind a storm of questions with no answers. But he had won.

For now.

He stood there for a moment, staring at the empty space where the creature had once stood, trying to make sense of what he had just faced. The whispers at the edges of his mind had faded, but the weight of them lingered. This was not over. It was never over.

A flicker of movement caught his eye.

Varos turned sharply, his instincts kicking in, but what he saw was not another enemy. It was something far stranger.

The air before him shimmered, as if reality itself was bending, and from within the distortion, a figure emerged.

Not the armored entity from before.

Someone else.

A woman.

She was clad in a suit not unlike his own, but the design was unfamiliar—sleek, built for speed rather than endurance. Her visor was partially lifted, revealing sharp, piercing eyes that locked onto his the moment she stepped forward.

"You survived," she said, her voice laced with something that was not quite surprise, but something close.

Varos tensed, his grip tightening on his weapon. "Who are you?"

The woman studied him for a moment before responding. "A ghost," she said, her tone unreadable. "Just like you."

His pulse quickened. The way she said it—like it was a fact, not a metaphor—made something inside him stir.

A ghost.

A remnant of something that should not exist.

He did not lower his weapon. "You knew I'd be here," he said. It was not a question.

She tilted her head slightly. "I wasn't sure. The fractures in time are unstable. But if you're here, then that means the Engine failed to erase you completely."

The Nihil Engine. The thing that had taken his past.

Varos felt something cold settle in his chest. "Then you know what it is," he said. "You know what's happening to me."

The woman's expression darkened. "I know enough. But explanations will have to wait. We need to move. Now."

Varos frowned, suspicion creeping in. "Why?"

She pointed toward the sky.

Varos followed her gaze—and felt his stomach drop.

High above, the sky was splitting apart. Fractures, like cracks in a broken mirror, spread across the heavens, revealing glimpses of something beyond. A void that pulsed with an unnatural energy, shifting and writhing like a living thing.

And within that void, he saw them.

Figures.

Dozens, maybe hundreds. Not like the creature he had just fought, but something worse. Armored silhouettes standing in formation, waiting. Watching.

They had found him.

The Nihil Engine had sent its enforcers.

The Eclipse Legion.

Varos felt the weight of their presence pressing against him, a force beyond comprehension. These were not mere soldiers. These were the hands of something vast, something that had existed long before him and would exist long after.

Unless he stopped it.

The woman turned back to him, urgency in her expression. "If we stay here, we die," she said. "Come with me, and I can give you answers. I can help you remember."

Varos hesitated for only a second.

Then, without another word, he nodded.

She activated a device on her wrist, and the air around them shimmered. A gateway formed, a tear in space leading somewhere unknown.

Varos did not know what awaited him on the other side. But staying here meant death—or worse.

Without looking back, he stepped through the portal.

The world vanished.