Chapter 7: Records from the Vault I - Ozymandias, King of Kings.
Recently decoded [7742.3.4 MGE] from a memory crystal shard found decades ago in an asteroid belt surrounding star Y2039X213Z341 in the Arclight Sector on the border of the Uncharted Zones. The alloy is unknown, hence astral plane decay was unable to determine its age. As a result, less accurate cosmic radiation measurements were taken that establish it to be approximately 15000 years old, dating back to 8000 pre-Modern Galactic Era.
This makes it one of the oldest Shadowed Era artifacts - and the best preserved. We hope that it may shed some light into this dark age of galactic history. Although we have screened it for safety, and all present meet the minimum soul-strength to view it, we urge all present to take the utmost precautions.
Command Centre does not take responsibility from any haemorrhage, stroke, mind-death, soul-death, spontaneous combustion...[click to expand] that may ensue.
Location: ex-Consortium territory, plant Y298
Timeline: 12328.82 P.V.
A sun blazed in the sky above, its scorching rays mercilessly bombarding the surface with no clouds daring to block its onslaught.
We felt it before we saw it. A dull vibration the echoing in the base of our skulls. The grains of sand under our boot shaking in rhythmic intervals as though in response to the footsteps of an approaching titan.
Yet it was no titan we fought. Cresting a dune on the horizon, obscured by the heat haze rising from the desert sands, glints and flashes of metal appeared. A banner raised high; the sigil of Life embroidered onto it.
My hands were slick with sweat despite the cooling enchantments on my armour. My gravspear stood ready in my right hand, its dark blade standing out ominously against the bright day. The presence of my comrades was a bulwark for my will. I knew I was not alone. This battle would be the culmination of a war spanning many fronts on countless planets across the galaxy. The flames of war had burned long enough that entire generations knew nothing but heat. Yet it was to end here and now, on this desolate rock of a planet.
Fitting that an enemy called Life would die on a planet so inhospitable to its namesake. The culmination of a thousand years of tactics devised by the brightest minds of the Council had resulted in this chance. Isolated from his fleet, the Enemy was alone - with only by few of his closest advisors and guards by his side.
Yet this only served to heighten my fear. We all knew the stories they told of Him. The planets that had fallen, the fleets decimated, the trillions of lives snuffed out.
But we too were mighty. The Silver Legion. Each of us equipped with the strongest artifacts, forged in the crucibles of Ares Prime. The mana that flowed through our veins was vis deorum - the power of the gods. And more than that we had our leader. High-General Ten-Kai was the only being on our side to be known as equal in strength to the vaunted Enemy.
Regardless the outcome, I was living in the annals of history. This battle would no doubt go down as legendary.
"PRIME YOURSELVES"
An echoing roar sounded from the centre of our frontline. The High-General sat atop his Nightstalker, decked in resplendent obsidian armour. A halo of dark surrounded him as though the sunrays themselves were unable to escape the pull of his presence, leaving the area around him in conspicuous shadow. He spoke again, softer, though no less easy to hear as if the world itself conspired to project his words to our ears.
"They are weak. Few against many. No aid will come to them, no divine intervention will grace them. Their gods lay broken and shattered before our mighty fist. Star-Crusher Alexei heads our spearhead into their homeworlds. High-Admiral Latarus leads a billion ships against their scrambling remnants of a fleet. And I, High General Ten-Kai, the Last Spear of the Council, am with you against our Enemy here. Their defeat is a foregone conclusion. Our victory as inevitable as the setting sun."
He paused. "Let us show them the irony of calling themselves 'Life'".
His voice rose in a crescendo until he ended in a calamitous roar, raising his weapon to the sky in defiance.
"BY MAKING THIS PLANET THEIR GRAVE".
Our warcry resounded, filling the empty silence of the broiling desert with the certainty of our victory. By now, the approaching figures of our foes could be elucidated. They were clad in shining metallic armour reminiscent of ancient knights in contrast with out sleek, cutting-edge suits. Their standard bearers were interspersed throughout their force, each hoisting that despicably self-righteous symbol.
I felt rage boil away any trepidation I felt at their approach. I was a blade of the Council. I will not falter on my duty to cut.
Warning. High-energy surge detected. 3.4 gigalux.
Thanks to the forewarning from my helm, I was able to bring my shield up just a fraction of a second before it hit me. As it was, our defence array was perfected within a split-second and their attacks slid harmlessly off like rain on a plexiglass window. A flash of blue light, the smell of burnt mana. I readied my gravspear in preparation for the return volley, thumbing the safety off.
"PRIME YOUR SPEARS"
In sync, we raised our throwing arms. I felt the flowing power of vis deorum surge from my core throughout my body, elevating my very being. I felt instantly energised, as though molten adrenaline were poured directly into my veins. With a momentous flex of will, I guided the roaring current of mana into the gravspear through my hand. I felt it greedily absorb the power, interlocking its circuits with my own mana veins and the intricate arrays of my armour.
The Gravspear Mark IV was a miracle of engineering. It would not be an exaggeration to say it was the reason we stood poised to win this war. Forged solely on Ares Prime, it was smelted by dimensionfire – the remnants of some ancient conflict that left the very foundations of the universe aflame. As a result, it too held a spark of that heat. Then carved with sigils of magic power orders of magnitude more powerful than some warships boasted on their main cannons. Add on to the cumulative effect when wielded by thousands in sync, the power of the resulting blast was beyond reckoning.
I felt the shaft of the spear vibrate in my hand in an attempt to hold back the veritable flood of power that filled its alloyed body as it awaited the signal with impatience.
"FIRE"
There was silence. Then a resounding boom. My muscles tore in effort, bones harder than battlesteel creaking under the pressure. The vis deorum building up in the shaft of the spear finally had an exit. It flooded out of the end of the spear like a burst dam. No; like a solar flare. The protective enchantments of my armour activated just to protect me from the back-blast of wind.
A rain of dark beams lanced towards the enemy. A thousand spears. A thousand shots. That was the kind of power used to ignite stars, and we had just used it on the surface of a planet. The desert was no more, a cylindrical funnel of smooth black rock was carved between us and them. The vitrified surface only served to reflect the glare of the overhead sun more clearly.
I was certain this was it. Victory was finally ours. A thousand long years of battle finally over.
I was naïve.
In a single moment, the rain of spears halted in mid-air. For a second I thought there as a malfunction in my helm, but it registered the energy still present in the air as within several teralux. More than that, I could see it. That much energy in one place yet prevented from sublimating directly into nuclear fusion was a perversion of natural laws.
The universe expressed its dislike as the astral plane itself leaked into the material, creating a corona of unseen colours around the amassed shots. Abruptly, all of that energy began to orbit a point. Squinting, I made out a small dark sphere, no larger than a marble. Yet all energy that touched it disappeared instantly. Our attack was unrecognisable now. Only an ever-accelerating whirlpool of energy existed, cracks appearing and being mended as the universe attempted to rectify the clear attempt at breaking its laws. Like water down a drain, all that power simply disappeared within seconds, leaving just the sun glaring down at us mockingly.
In one moment, our momentum had turned, and we remembered who we faced. While many High-Generals and High-Admirals had headed our fleets over the centuries, the Enemy was singular. Despite the light show, our foes continued their advance unhalted. No defensive measures taken, as though mocking us.
The voice of our High General broke me from my brief reverie.
"Do not be disheartened, soldiers. That the fool has wasted his orb this early speaks to his desperation. A cornered animal is illogical in its thinking. He is already dead - all we are is formality".
Stolen story; please report.
My training kicked in and I remembered. Such an attack was well-documented - a powerful skill of the Enemy yet notably rarely used. But seeing it in person, all of that power gone with the snap of a finger, caused a kind of mental pressure hard to describe. The High General's voice brought me back to rationality.
"READY YOUR ENERGY COLLIDERS. PREPARE FOR ENGAGEMENT".
I went through the motions mechanically. Even in a suit this advanced, automation was limited. After all, the best weapon a soldier could wield was himself. The checklist was short, but familiar, and soon my suit was primed for combat. Limiters removed, reactors and back-up reactors online and pulsing with excitement. The energy enhanced my own, filling me with vigour. I waited with bated breath as our foes approached the engagement distance.
The distance numbers on my display decreased with agonising slowness. My muscles tensed in readiness, like a panther in the jungle. I felt the auras of my fellow soldiers sky-rocket along with mine, the High-General's standing out like a blowtorch amid candles.
"3...2...1 BREAK. BREAK. BREAK."
Without further ado, I sprung forward, my feet leaving deep furrows in the vitrified ground below. Our battle formation activated, enhancing our speed and power several times. I felt that brief false sense of invincibility caused by sudden increases in power. But I regained control within a split-second. My awareness expanded to fill my entire body. Each nerve impulse, each muscle fibre contraction, each blood vessel constriction was under my conscious directive.
All of us accelerated at mind-boggling speeds. A thousand sonic booms sounded almost simultaneously, like the roar of a leviathan. My thoughts accelerated along with my body; my reflexes honed to a razor’s point. I gripped the gravspear tightly in my hand, pointing it forward. Exhaust mana spilled from my armour, leaving a dark trail behind me as though I had written on reality itself in black ink.
I felt the High General shift directions and leap forwards and upwards into the air along with an indistinct figure from the other side, reaching tens of kilometres high within microseconds. But I had no further attention to spare on his clash with the Enemy. For I had my own foes to face.
Barely a second had passed, though it felt like minutes, but our foes were not as incompetent as we often wished. They readied themselves and burst forward, anxious not to be outdone. Their figures seemed unwieldy yet moved with swiftness unbecoming of their ancient looking armour. Their soldiers wielded gleaming swords, while their standard-bearers pointed their banners at us, revealing the halberds on their ends.
As we approached each other, our forces had spread out. Battles on our level rarely took place on the surface of the planet and so we both took precautions lest the crust crumble beneath our feet - though I doubted our foes would be against such an act of mutual destruction as a last resort anyways.
We were similar in number, each of us faced one opponent each. Despite this, I schooled myself against overconfidence. Any other battlefield in this blasted war would be a walk in the park compared to what we faced now.
I was shaken out of unnecessary thoughts by an enemy soldier who was charging directly at me. The miles between us were eaten up in less than a second as we clashed a hundred metres above the ground. My gravspear against his sword. My vis deorum against his Life. We came out equal, my hands not even having time to be sore before the overwhelming vitality in my body healed any superficial damage.
Numbers flashed across my helm, damage read-outs and tactical recommendations. We paused, staring at each other in the air above the ground, the shockwaves and clashes of others surrounding our brief oasis of calm. I took the initiative. Collecting power in my left leg, I pushed off the air, readying my spear in a thrusting position with both hands.
He took a defensive stance, raising the tip of his sword. In the blink of an eye, I was on him, yet his reaction was just as fast. His sword flashed an arc through the air, colliding with my spear, diverting its momentum just enough that it brushed past his left ear.
Taking advantage of my overextension, he punched a gauntleted fist towards my abdomen. I countered on impulse, twisting my torso unnaturally to avoid the blow. Seemingly caught off-guard by my contortionist movements, I managed to grab his wrist and swing my overextended spear in my other hand.
I was unable to generate much power from such a tight angle and his hasty block barely stopped my blade slicing his neck from ear to ear. I felt a coalescence of mana in his other fist and hurriedly let go.
Just in time as he shot out a beam of concentrated energy towards me. I crossed my spear in front of me, blocking with both hands. My suits defensive arrays were more than enough to tank the blast, though it blew me away, granting him enough space to reset.
This time, he was the one who burst forward. Except there were three of him. One took a path to the left, one the right and one directly at me. All three angled their swords such that it was impossible to block with a single spear. My helm was unable to distinguish the real from the fake, its sensors too slow compared to my heightened battle awareness. I ignored it, focusing on my own intuition.
I concentrated my vis deorum into my core. I compressed it several times over until it shook with instability. Just as the three figures were approaching, I released it, and a wave of force emanated from me in all directions with a loud roar. The pulse of blue-tinted mana disintegrated all three figures.
I then took my spear and stabbed it in reverse. I felt the brief resistance indicative of armour then mana-infused flesh before I slashed it to the side, using the momentum to turn around. My foe hovered motionless, sword raised at the apex of a downward slash aimed at the back of my neck. His bisected form slowly fell, trailing a multicoloured emission characteristic of short-range astral plane jumps.
Using the energy of the blast to launch me back and fool my senses, he had already entered the astral plane, leaving the false images behind. An extremely high-level application of Life.
I felt a grudging respect for my foe. No tactical preparation could have helped me, only the intuition born and honed on the battlefield. On another day, perhaps I would be the one falling to the ground, defeated.
Such thoughts, however, were useless on the battlefield. I quickly honed into the battle formation. Many of the ‘duels’ had finished, and I lamented the loss of my comrades. Nonetheless, the figure stood in our favour. 753 of our soldiers remained while 598 of theirs still fought. I spared a second to send a signal towards where the High General had disappeared to along with the Enemy, but I sensed nothing.
No matter, it was of no consequence to me. My entire world had bled away, leaving only the problems I could solve immediately. Namely, the foes we fought here.
Highlighting the nearest one in my HUD, I shot off. There was no need for comms among the Silver Legion. We fought as one whether that be in twos, threes or in thousands. And with momentum on our side, our victory only snowballed.
While the first foe I fought took effort to defeat, the next fell easier to our combined might. And the next easier than that. The battle lasted several more hours, though my armour’s chronometer was the only record of time’s passage as the sun remained firmly at its zenith above our heads.
By this time, even my muscles were sore and my energy was depleted. The entire planet was a mana deadzone, meaning nothing to absorb except the weak radiation of the distant stellar mass.
In the last few moments, I had to resort to the back-up fission reactors of my suit to power my attacks, leading to a few close calls. Scorches and scratches marred its previously pristine surface. My left shoulder in particular was left unusable by an enemy sword that I was unable to avoid in time.
He succumbed quickly the blows of my comrades in exchange for his attack, but the damage was done. Luckily, the many redundancies in my armour meant its core functions were still intact.
I collapsed to the ground far below in a kneeling position, breathing heavily. I could feel myself on the brink of succumbing to the bone-deep exhaustion that accompanying mana fatigue. But I had to remain wary. Although our battle here was won, the real decider was taking place far above our heads. The victor of that clash would be the victor of this battle.
‘And the inheritor of the galaxy’, I realised as an afterthought.
Taking advantage of the brief respite, I glanced around. The planet had been completely terraformed. What little oceans it had were boiled away, its mountain ranges flattened as new ravines and trenches marred its surface. Broken figures from both sides lay motionless in craters of varying sizes. I crushed the feelings that arose at that sight. There would be time enough for mourning later.
I sent a trickle of my mana towards my suits sensors – the only part that was largely undamaged. My vision pierced through the sky, out of the feeble atmosphere of this rock. Out in the vacuum of space, two figures hovered against the backdrop of stars.
All my fellow soldiers were silent, no doubt bearing witness to the final clash that would determine our fate. The suspense was a physical object that fused with my battle-fatigue, granting me intense tunnel vision. The only thing that existed to me was those two.
A bright flash, the figures disappeared and re-appeared. Small puffs of escaping gas bled from minor cracks in both their armours. I could sense that the final clash was approaching.
So could they it seems, as they paused their battle momentarily. Perhaps they exchanged words. I would never know. But it wasn’t long before I heard warnings resound from my suits alarms.
Warning! High energy surge detected! 100 teralux exceeded! Take evasive measures immediately!
I did not take this lightly, interlocking my suits defensive arrays with my comrades, increasing its power by several orders of magnitude.
The figures were an iridescent white to my mana-sensitive eyes. The space around them bent and warped as they manifested their strongest attacks onto the material plane.
The High General was silent, raising his own custom gravspear with ominous intent. But the insidious energy surrounding the Enemy sent chills down my back.
Then he spoke. No-one had heard his voice in the millennia of war, yet he spoke here. His voice was unintelligible, yet the meaning of his words bypassed my ears and mind to resonate with my soul.
““[CODEX: EMPYREAN]””
I shivered. Such power that even his words would elicit a reaction within my soul. A weaker being would have imploded here and now.
““[EDICT: AUTHORITY OF A KING]””
An intense pressure slammed my down to the floor. The lithosphere of the planet writhed and buckled under the formless attack. My vision blurred and I lost sight of the figures. I felt like as though I had entered hyperspace unprotected, battered on all sides my unseen energies, compressing my form down.
It took all I had to not be crushed. The same could not be said for the bodies that littered the planet. Even their suits, made of the strongest alloys discovered, were crushed. Boiling and evaporating under the intense pressure. The very mana in my veins cascaded uncontrollably, damaging my already injured internals.
Our defensive array buckled, cracking and being repaired in a fragile equilibrium. After what felt like an age, the pressure yielded. For the first time, the first grey clouds appeared in the sky. The sky darkened, as though in mourning.
Descending from above, the figure of the High-General stood battered and bruised yet victorious. Naught remained of the Enemy after their final clash. The everlasting stars the only witness to the end of his inglorious crusade. Dust and ash the remnants of Life.
But I had no energy left to spare on such useless thoughts. I collapsed on my feet, barely managing a cheer before the sweet embrace of unconsciousness enveloped me and I blacked out.
The formation of the asteroid belt object was found in was dated to a similar time period as the object itself. Furthermore, the stellar mass underwent some catastrophic energy drainage within similar timeframe transforming it from an energetic yellow star into a white dwarf. Attempting direct viewing from beyond the time horizon, as with all Shadowed Era events, has been unsuccessful [see vault record 2.1.3].
The following actions have been taken following decoding 7742.3.4 MGE:
* Increase Codex Hollowtech research priority
* Research dimensionfire – [see record 4.4.5]
* Obtain more memory shard crystals
Viewing is now complete, please proceed to area C5 for subsequent thought containment.