bookpower Chapter 223: The Executioner’s Rage, A Star-Forged Brawl
Chapter 223: The Executioner’s Rage, A Star-Forged Brawl
Chapter 223: The Executioner’s Rage, A Star-Forged Brawl "System," Alvian commanded, his voice ringing with absolute, unyielding authority. "Target: Administrator Code. Action: Absolute Erasure."
Valeria and Seraphina watched in grim silence. Magnus bowed his head. They understood.
Alvian drove the spear into the Admin’s heart.
He didn’t do it to kill. He did it to grant the only mercy left in a broken universe. The colorless blade severed the connection to the infinite. The captive Administrator let out a long, silent sigh of profound relief, the blinding white light finally dimming, fading into a peaceful, empty grey static.
The figure dissolved.
Instantly, the massive conduits lining the room went dark. The deep, vibrating hum of the Null-Ship’s engines sputtered and died. The artificial gravity failed, and the emergency red lights began to flash wildly in the darkness.
Alvian pulled his spear back, standing in the center of the dead engine room. He had cut the power.
"The ship is dead," Alvian announced to his team, his eyes burning with violent purple stars. "Now, we bring it down."
——
The blinding white light of the captive Administrator faded into a dull, lifeless grey static, and with it went the heartbeat of the entire dreadnought.
Alvian stood in the center of the massive engine room, his breath pluming in the sudden, biting chill that swept through the chamber. He had just granted the ultimate mercy—absolute deletion—to a being that had once governed an entire reality. The heavy, vibrating hum of the Null-Ship’s engines sputtered, coughed like a dying engine, and completely failed.
Instantly, the artificial gravity evaporated.
"Whoa!" Seraphina yelped, her boots leaving the metal grating. She flailed her arms, drifting upward toward the dark, cavernous ceiling. "Did someone forget to pay the gravity bill? I am not dressed for zero-G!"
Valeria’s heavy golden boots lifted off the floor a second later. She let out a startled grunt, instinctively trying to plant her [Aegis of Terra] into the ground, but there was no traction. She floated, a heavily armored balloon slowly spinning on her Y-axis. "Alvian, a little warning next time you unplug the universe would be nice!"
"Inefficient to announce the obvious," Alvian replied. He didn’t float. He had immediately channeled a fraction of his [Tablet of the Earth Core] into his boots, maintaining a localized gravitational anchor to the floor grating. "The power is out. The physics engine of this ship is rebooting to a default vacuum state. Adjust your equilibrium."
Master Magnus hovered a few feet away, looking profoundly uncomfortable as his massive, iron-shelled body drifted like a piece of driftwood. "I am a creature of the ocean floor, Godslayer. I do not ’drift’."
"You do now," Seraphina quipped, managing to grab onto a dangling power cable to arrest her ascent.
Alvian ignored the banter, his violet eyes scanning the darkened room. The emergency lights flickered to life—a deep, bloody crimson that cast long, terrifying shadows across the spherical chamber. He didn’t relax. The Administrator was dead, but the System hadn’t issued a ’Zone Clear’ notification.
Something was still breathing in the dark.
"Eyes up," Alvian commanded, his voice slicing through the zero-gravity panic. "We have company."
Above them, hidden in the labyrinth of dead conduits and deactivated mana-pumps, a massive section of the ceiling shifted. It wasn’t metal. It was flesh.
A creature dropped from the shadows, though ’dropped’ was the wrong word in zero gravity. It propelled itself downward using bursts of dark energy from its back. It was a Star-Spawn Executioner, but unlike the grunts they had fought earlier, this monstrosity was terrifyingly elite. It possessed a horrifyingly asymmetric body, boasting six muscular, chitin-plated arms. But it wasn’t the creature’s biology that made Alvian’s threat assessment spike to critical—it was its weapons.
The Executioner wielded four massive, jagged blades that glowed with the sickening, swirling light of a dying sun.
[Target Identified: Star-Spawn Executioner]
[Level: 68]
[Status: Enraged / Guardian Directive Active]
[Warning: Weapons forged from collapsed stellar cores. Extreme thermal and kinetic hazard.]
"It was sleeping," Alvian analyzed rapidly. "Tethered to the Admin’s life force as a final failsafe. I killed the battery, and the alarm clock went off."
"I hate alarm clocks," Seraphina muttered, pushing off the ceiling and throwing three poisoned daggers.
The daggers sailed through the zero-G environment in a perfectly straight line, unhindered by air resistance or gravity. They struck the Executioner’s chest—and instantly vaporized. The sheer heat radiating from the dying-star swords melted the Mythical-grade steel before it could even scratch the beast’s chitin.
"Physical projectiles are useless against that thermal output," Alvian called out. "Valeria, Magnus, we need an anvil. But you can’t tank in zero gravity. If you block, the kinetic transfer will launch you through the walls."
"So we anchor!" Valeria shouted back. She grabbed a thick, structural pillar with her free hand, her gauntlet groaning under the strain. She braced her [Aegis of Terra] in front of her. "Magnus! Lock in!"
The Iron Shell Guardian didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the same pillar from the opposite side, locking his massive boots under a structural crossbeam. He raised his tower shield, overlapping it with Valeria’s golden barrier. Together, they formed a V-shaped wedge of indestructible metal and Titan energy.
The Executioner let out a screech that sounded like tearing metal and swung all four star-forged blades simultaneously.
"Hold!" Valeria roared.
"CLANG-HISS!"
The impact was apocalyptic. The blinding heat of the dying stars clashed with the depleted uranium of Valeria’s shield. The entire room shuddered. Because they were anchored to the ship’s internal skeleton, they didn’t go flying backward. Instead, the sheer kinetic force transferred directly into the Null-Ship itself, buckling the massive metal pillar they were holding onto.
"It’s burning through!" Magnus grunted, his iron carapace glowing cherry-red from the proximity to the stellar weapons.
"I need an opening!" Alvian said, crouching on the floor grating. His 900 Strength stat meant nothing if he couldn’t apply leverage.
"I’ve got your opening, boss!" Seraphina yelled. She had used her [Mistress of Whispers] stealth to maneuver behind the beast, completely ignoring the lack of gravity. "Eat shadows, ugly!"
She didn’t throw daggers this time. She reached into her inventory and pulled out three [Shadow Smoke Bombs]—custom explosives she had laced with Alvian’s void mana. She slapped them directly onto the back of the Executioner’s insectoid head and kicked off.
"BOOM!"
The void bombs detonated. They didn’t produce fire; they produced a sphere of absolute, light-devouring darkness that clung to the creature’s optical sensors. The Executioner shrieked in confusion, temporarily blinded, its six arms flailing wildly in the zero-G environment.
"Now," Alvian whispered.
He didn’t jump. He used [Void Step].
He bypassed the empty space entirely, reappearing directly in the center of the Executioner’s flailing guard. He was inches away from the dying-star blades, the heat blistering the exposed skin of his face, but his eyes were cold, calculating absolute zero.
He didn’t use the [Edge of Entropy]. The colorless spear was too long for this close-quarters grapple. Instead, he equipped [Voidpiercer] in a reverse grip.
"System. Maximize [Chaos Body] output to the right arm," Alvian commanded internally.
He didn’t slash. He punched the dagger forward with the force of a hydraulic press. He aimed for the tiny, unarmored gap between the creature’s massive chitinous collarbone and its neck.
The blade sank in.
"SQUELCH."
[Critical Hit!]
[Void Corruption applied.]
The Executioner convulsed. The void energy, hungry and violently expansive, poured from the dagger directly into the monster’s central nervous system. The creature swung one of its dying-star blades wildly, aiming blindly for Alvian’s back.
"Reflect," Alvian stated calmly.
He activated a single, concentrated purple rune of [Runic Aegis +2] directly behind him. The star-blade struck the rune. The kinetic force was perfectly reversed. The blade bounced off the magic shield and cleaved right through the Executioner’s own left shoulder, severing two of its six arms.
Golden, molten blood sprayed into the air, floating in horrifying, glowing spherical droplets around the room.
"Valeria, finish it!" Alvian shouted, kicking off the monster’s chest to float backward out of the splash zone.
Valeria didn’t hesitate. "With pleasure!"
She let go of the pillar. Using the wall as a springboard, she launched herself like a golden torpedo. She didn’t use her sword. She kept her [Aegis of Terra] raised, channeling all her [Titan’s Bloodline] mana into the heavy, flat surface of the shield.
She slammed into the blinded, corrupted, and maimed Executioner with the momentum of a freight train.
"CRUNCH!"
The impact drove the monster backward. Because they were in zero-G, the creature had no friction to slow it down. Valeria rode the beast through the air, her shield pressing relentlessly into its chest, until they both slammed into the far wall of the engine room. The structural integrity of the Null-Ship, already compromised by the Admin’s death, groaned in protest.
The Executioner’s remaining health bar vanished. Its body twitched once, the dying-star blades slipping from its grasp to float aimlessly in the cabin, before the creature dissolved into a cloud of heavy, grey data-ash.
[Target Neutralized: Star-Spawn Executioner.]
[Experience Gained: 1,800,000.]