Ashwalker

Crash Site – Sector VZ-486 Minutes Since Impact

The sky was screaming again.

Kaiell twisted his hips, blade rising with a hiss of breath. Nightfell tore a Voidling in half mid-lunge, scattering black ichor across twisted hull plating and scorched alloy.

The creature didn't even scream—it simply split, spasming as it hit the ground. Another replaced it instantly.

They came crawling from the mist in waves—grotesque, bone-bent, claws like butchered cutlery. The stench of blood and rotting ozone choked the air.

To his left, Joran's rifle unleashed a molten barrage. The barrel was glowing. "Six o'clock!"

Kaiell didn't look—just turned with a grunt and cleaved through another monster. The impact ran down his arms. Something cracked.

Behind him, Halen slammed her gauntlet into the dirt and chanted through cracked lips, each word catching fire in her throat. A flash of Viora burst outward, arresting three Voidlings mid-leap—bodies suspended in paralysis, twitching as if laughing.

Then the next dozen climbed over them.

"We're getting shredded!" someone screamed through comms.

A Kruger vanished under a swarm, another dragged behind a cracked thruster. Screams turned to meat-tearing sounds. Blood soaked the snow-black soil.

"Lareth's down! They opened him like a hatch!"

"Medic's gone too!"

Kaiell slammed a palm to his helmet. "Captain?! Orders?!"

Only static.

Then came the voice, cold as a steel coffin.

"Too many," Captain Revek said. "Full retreat."

A detonation tore the southern ridge open.

"All Theta-9—fall back to the Caves of Guf. Regroup. Anyone left behind dies."

[OBJECTIVE UPDATED: FALL BACK TO GUF CAVES — 1.4 KM SOUTH]

Kaiell's lips curled. He tapped his arm module hard.

[HEART SYSTEM ENGAGED // PULSE SCAN: FRIENDLY BIOMETRICS]

A pulse radiated from his chest, sweeping the terrain. Signals appeared:

Joran – Alive. Minor cuts.

Conzro – Breathing. Shell-shocked.

Halen – Still moving. Burned bad.

Six others – Grey. Flatlined.

The scan replayed their final moments—hearts racing, dropping, then... still.

He tightened his grip on Nightfell until the handle groaned.

"We're leaving!" he barked. "Halen—get up!"

She staggered upright, wrapped in flickering Viora threads, eyes glassy but furious. She didn't answer. She just ran.

They all did.

Gunfire behind. Blades flashing. Voidlings chasing. The world a smear of screaming steel and unburied dead.

Then—Kaiell looked back.

And froze.

A single Voidling stood atop the broken wing of the transport, tall and grotesquely lean. Charred black skin stretched thin over twitching joints, and in one hand, it held a familiar blade.

Lareth's sword.

It sniffed the hilt like a fine cigar. Then, very delicately, it began flossing its jagged teeth with the edge—slowly, thoughtfully, like a gourmand with a fishbone. One fang snapped loose and dropped with a plink onto the metal wing.

The Voidling plucked it up and flicked it at Kaiell.

Then it grinned—wide, unnatural, a stretch of gums and meat.

And with a theatrical flair, it lifted the blade high—and rammed it down into its own chest.

No roar. No agony.

Just a slow, wheezing chuckle as it slumped backward into the wreckage, body engulfed in the growing fire, hand still curled around the hilt.

As if it enjoyed the performance.

As if the joke wasn't just on Lareth.

But on all of them.

"…You seeing this?" Joran muttered behind him.

Kaiell didn't answer. His voice was cold.

"Run."

And they did—into the dark, beneath the surface, toward the forgotten halls of the Caves of Guf.

Where death had patience.And something far older waited with a smile.