[Scene — Elsewhere in the Country | Burned Plains, Dusk]
The sky burned with dying light, casting long shadows over the charred battlefield.
Torvok corpses lay scattered across blackened soil—hulking, armored beasts twisted in death, their bodies still seeping smoke. The stench of scorched flesh mingled with metal and ash.
Kael Vorn stood atop the twitching carcass of one—the largest yet. Its obsidian scales were shattered beneath his boots, still smoldering where his broadsword had cleaved through. The sword itself—a slab of brutal iron etched with glowing runes—was embedded to the hilt in the beast's chest, pulsing with residual heat.
Across the wreckage, Sira Elen walked like a ghost through flame and ruin. Her twin swords shimmered with Torvok blood, black and thick, dripping in slow arcs as she moved. Her cloak billowed behind her in the ash-laced wind. Her breath was calm.
Her kills had been clean.
Dead Torvok lay at unnatural angles behind her—one decapitated mid-lunge, another split from shoulder to hip, its halves still twitching. She'd moved through them like water.
She stopped beside Kael and flicked a strand of blood-drenched hair from her face, lips pressed tight.
Then, her hand twitched.
A spark—blue, searing—crawled across her fingers.
"Did you feel that?" she asked, her voice low, edged like drawn steel. "A signal. Like static under my skin."
Kael yanked his blade free with a guttural crunch, one arm steady, one knee bracing the corpse.
He stared into the blood-slick steel—then paused.
Something moved in the reflection.
Words.
Not engraved. Not natural. Projected.
> Unite.
Find the others.
He exhaled. His voice was a gravelled whisper.
"The call's getting louder."
Sira's swords glowed faintly now, as if answering an unseen current. She turned toward the eastern sky—where faint tremors echoed in the distance.
"From that direction," she said, eyes narrowing. "Like a beacon. A surge. Someone just woke up."
Kael followed her gaze, jaw tightening.
"Then we're not the only ones left."
He turned to the bodies behind them—thirteen dead Torvok, torn apart not by numbers… but by fury.
"Let's find them," he said.
But before they could move—
A low snarl echoed from the darkness beyond the crags.
Three more Torvok emerged. These were different—leaner, armored in jagged, glistening exoskeletons, their claws longer, sharper. They hissed in unison, flanking with precision.
Sira spun her blades.
"I'll take left and center," she said coldly.
Kael didn't argue.
The leftmost Torvok lunged—only to be met mid-air by Sira's flashing blade, which severed its forelimb in one stroke, then turned the momentum into a backspin, driving her second blade through its throat.
The center one roared and charged, but she dropped low, slid beneath it, and drove both swords upward through its abdomen, slicing it open before it even realized she'd moved.
Kael was already on the third, his blade glowing hot.
The creature swung—
Kael caught the strike with his forearm guard, then drove his knee into its gut, knocking it back before burying his broadsword through its skull, cleaving the head like a watermelon.
Silence returned.
The beasts fell—limp, steaming.
Kael pulled his blade free once more.
Sira wiped her blades clean with a swift motion and turned toward him.
"Still think we're the only ones?"
Kael shook his head.
"No. But I think we're the first."
They looked again toward the east.
Toward the pulse.
Toward Neil, who had just unleashed Shock Plus, a blast that had rippled across the terrain like a drumbeat meant for warriors to hear.
The summons had been received.
Together, Kael and Sira stepped forward into the dust.
Not running.
Not hunting.
Answering.
[Scene — Neil, Present]
Neil sat alone on a cracked stone, overlooking the scorched remains of the city.
Fires still smoldered in the distance. Military operations moved like ants—methodical, relentless, too late.
He stared up at the moon.
Beside it, hanging like a god's forgotten weapon, was the asteroid.
But he knew now—it wasn't an asteroid.
It was waiting.
Watching.
And now… they were coming.
He had fought. Bled. Screamed. Shattered the ground with his will.
He had survived.
But even as he wiped the last of the Torvok from his region, a deeper truth clawed at the edges of his mind.
"This isn't over."
He closed his eyes, listening to the silence beneath the silence.
Inner Voice — Neil
They were just the first flood.
Cleansers. Scavengers.
But the real architects?
They're coming now.
And I don't know if I'm a weapon…
or just another piece on the board.
He looked at the reflection of the asteroid in a puddle of blood near his feet.
What will they bring next?
[Scene — Unknown Location | Dusk]
The last Torvok lunged, its claws slicing the air with bone-chilling force.
But the man didn't flinch.
He stepped to the side, smooth as a whisper, and dragged his glowing bowstring back—its drawstring forged from the claw of a Torvok Prime, still crackling with the beast's residual energy.
The arrow shimmered, pure light wrapped in vengeance.
He let it fly.
The arrow split the dark like a bolt of judgment—piercing straight through the Torvok's chest. It didn't just die.
It disintegrated mid-scream.
Silence returned to the battlefield, broken only by the slow exhale from the archer's lips.
He lowered his bow.
Ash rained softly, settling over the broken earth.
His boots crunched as he stepped forward—and then paused.
A thin layer of water pooled in a crater near the kill site, rippling gently.
In it, words began to shimmer across the surface—not spoken, not carved, just… appearing.
"Unite.
Find the others."
He stared, the firelight flickering in his storm-gray eyes.
"More of us," he whispered.
He turned his gaze toward the horizon.
Toward the storm building near the moon. Toward where he felt the pulse.
A name rose in his mind—one not given, but felt.
Riven.
He adjusted the bow across his back.
"Then it's time."
And without another word, he vanished into the smoke.
[Scene — The Mountain Circle | Nightfall]
Above the ragged mountains, a low hum vibrated through the thinning air.
A sleek black spaceship glided silently just above the ridgelines, its underbelly glowing faint blue as it scanned the terrain below with methodical pulses of light.
Seconds later—another ship emerged from behind the peaks, mirroring the first, scanning the opposite slope.
Then came the others.
Eight more ships streaked down from the heavens like silent predators, settling on mountaintops in symmetrical formation—forming a perimeter.
Two ships held their position mid-air, continuing their reconnaissance sweeps.
Ten vessels. Coordinated. Prepared. Not Torvok.
With a hiss and hydraulic growl, the central ship opened first.
Troops began to emerge—dozens, then hundreds—flooding down the ramps in tight formations. They looked human at a glance, but each wore sleek dark armor, their faces hidden behind full visors and breathing masks. Their movements were mechanical, too precise.
But then—
Two figures emerged from the core of the flagship, their presence commanding the very air around them.
Taller.
Nine feet. Broad-chested. Muscles rippling like coiled steel cables. Their skin shimmered in the moonlight—grey with veins of mossy green, like living stone. Not human. Not alien. Something ancient.
The ground quaked beneath their steps, a tremor that echoed through the landscape.
The soldiers around them lowered their heads, not from fear, but from a deep, reverent respect.
The first giant, Khoraz, tilted his head back, claws dragging across the surface of his mask before removing it with a slow, deliberate motion.
He inhaled deeply, the mountain air hissing between his fanged teeth. A twisted grin curled across his face, as though savoring the moment.
"Hah… It's good air," he rumbled, his voice thick like grinding stone. "After the Devas were purged… the planet breathes properly again."
The second giant, Rilvaar, stepped forward, his gaze scanning the smoldering horizon. His voice, when it came, was calm, colder—laced with an ancient detachment.
"Now we take what's ours," he said. "We were cast into exile… but we endured. We return as kings."
Khoraz's laughter rumbled, dark and deep, echoing across the battlefield. "Humans… they've grown. They build cities. Machines. Weapons."
Rilvaar scoffed, his sharp eyes narrowing. "Still weak. Still soft." His gaze pierced the horizon as if measuring the world itself. "They were never meant to rule. They were meant to serve."
The two stood tall, towering above their army of red-armored soldiers—unbent, unbroken, and ready to reclaim their birthright.
----
And behind their ships, from the shadows, something larger stirred—not yet revealed.
It wasn't just a mothership.
It was the beginning of something older. Something buried in myth.
From a distance, it looked like a lifeless asteroid—jagged, cold, forgotten.
But it pulsed with buried heat. Laced with ancient architecture. A colony of Rakshasas—beings thought to be legend. Exiled gods of war and domination, forced into the void during the First Collapse.
Now, they were returning.
And within the heart of the massive vessel, deep in its hollow command sanctum, a figure watched.
Massive. Crowned. Eyes like molten gold. Claws drumming slowly on obsidian stone.
On screens surrounding him, live feeds showed humans tearing through the Torvok legions. Neil's Shock Pulse. Kael and Sira's relentless precision. Even the archer who carved light through the shadows.
The figure leaned forward.
"So… they awaken," he murmured, voice like cracking stone.
Another Rakshasa approached, armored in scarlet bone, and knelt. "The old blood stirs, my lord. They've begun to unite."
A rumble of satisfaction echoed through the chamber.
"Good," the leader said, rising to full height. "Let them sharpen their blades. Let them burn what's left of the Torvok."
His grin widened—cruel, fanged, ancient.
"We were not banished to be forgotten. We were sealed to be feared."
He turned toward the darkness beyond the chamber, where an entire city of Rakshasa stirred from hibernation.
"Soon, they'll remember who truly rules this realm."
----
A new threat had landed.
And the war wasn't over.
It was just beginning.