Ultimate Destroyer

The cold embrace of the void swallowed everything, its silence stretching endlessly in all directions, as if the universe itself had abandoned sound in favor of a far crueler kind of emptiness. Varos Rael drifted through the remnants of his broken world, the shattered warship receding into the darkness behind him, its twisted metal ribs now little more than a grave marker lost in an ocean of dead stars. His thrusters fired intermittently, each calculated burst keeping him steady as he moved through space, but his mind remained ensnared in the lingering echoes of what had just transpired.

The Eclipse Legion had come for him.

Even though their forms had dissolved back into the nothingness from which they had emerged, he could still feel their presence, their empty visages burned into his thoughts like an afterimage of a distant explosion. He had fought them, though he did not know how. He had bent time itself to his will, stepping between moments, unraveling the threads of existence in ways no living being should have been capable of. And yet, it had felt natural. It had felt like something he had always known.

But if that was true, then why had he forgotten?

His suit's oxygen warning pulsed in the corner of his visor, a cruel reminder that survival was a fleeting thing, measured in numbered breaths rather than in hours or days. He scanned the surrounding debris field, his gaze sifting through the fractured remnants of vessels that had once soared through the cosmos with purpose, only to be reduced to drifting tombs. Somewhere within this graveyard, he needed to find a way to sustain himself. His suit could only hold out for so long, and though he had no memory of where he had come from, he knew with absolute certainty that the Eclipse Legion would return.

He had to move.

Firing his thrusters in a controlled arc, he propelled himself toward the nearest wreckage. The ship was barely holding together, its frame buckling under the weight of whatever catastrophe had torn through this sector. Its hull was lined with deep scars, each one a silent testimony to the violence it had endured. As Varos drifted closer, he activated his suit's scanning systems, sending out a pulse that mapped the interior layout of the derelict craft.

A flickering response registered on his display. Life support—damaged, but operational. Air reserves—thin, but still viable. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

He reached the exterior of the ship, his hands gripping the jagged remains of a broken airlock. The mechanism had long since failed, its access panel shattered, wires dangling like severed veins. Bracing himself, he activated his exosuit's enhanced servos and forced the twisted frame apart with a groan of protesting metal. The moment the gap was wide enough, he slipped inside.

Darkness enveloped him.

His visor adjusted automatically, cycling through different spectral readings until the interior of the vessel came into view. The ship's corridors were a ghostly labyrinth, lined with walls stripped of their plating, wires hanging from the ceiling like skeletal remains. There were no bodies, no signs of the crew who had once walked these halls—only the silence of abandonment.

Yet something felt wrong.

It wasn't just the emptiness that unsettled him, nor was it the eerie quiet of a ship long devoid of life. It was something deeper, something woven into the very structure of this place, like a whisper lingering just beyond the edge of perception. The longer he stood there, the more he felt it pressing against him, a presence without form, a shadow without light.

He pressed forward.

Moving through the corridor, he followed the path indicated by his scanner, leading him toward what remained of the ship's command center. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if unseen hands were trying to pull him back, urging him to turn away before he uncovered something that was never meant to be found.

But he had come too far to stop now.

The doorway to the command deck was sealed, the control panel unresponsive. He placed a gloved hand against the reinforced steel, feeling the faint vibrations beneath his fingertips, remnants of energy still pulsing through the ship's dying systems. With no other option, he activated his suit's enhanced strength once more and forced the doors apart, metal screeching as it resisted before finally giving way.

Inside, the command deck was in disarray. Consoles flickered with dying power, casting erratic shadows across the walls. A massive viewport stretched out before him, revealing the vast emptiness of space beyond, broken only by the drifting remains of other ruined ships. And at the center of the room, a single display remained active, its screen pulsing weakly with an ominous glow.

Varos approached cautiously, his breath slow and steady as he reached for the console. The moment his fingers brushed against the interface, the screen surged to life, data streaming in rapid succession, too fast for his mind to process. Then, a single image replaced the cascading text, and his heart stopped.

The Nihil Engine.

It was a construct of impossible scale, a machine unlike anything built by mortal hands. Its form was a shifting, ever-changing monolith, an amalgamation of metal and darkness, pulsating with a malevolent energy that seemed to defy the very laws of existence. Its core burned with an unnatural light, a singularity of destructive force capable of swallowing entire galaxies without leaving a trace.

And then the whispers began.

They crawled into his thoughts like parasites, twisting and writhing, voices speaking in tongues long since forgotten. He could not understand the words, but he felt their meaning, a knowledge older than the stars themselves pressing into his mind like an iron brand. The Nihil Engine was awake. It had always been awake.

And it was searching for him.

A wave of nausea rolled through him as the whispers grew louder, his vision fracturing as reality itself seemed to buckle under the weight of something vast and unseen. He staggered back, his grip tightening on the edge of the console as he struggled to pull himself free from the suffocating presence that had taken hold of him.

But it was not done with him yet.

A new image appeared on the screen, one that sent a shockwave of recognition through his very core. It was a battlefield, a war fought on a scale beyond comprehension. Titans clashed amidst the ruins of shattered worlds, their weapons sundering reality itself. Armies of light and shadow waged an endless conflict, and at the heart of it all, a lone figure stood defiant, his presence a beacon against the consuming dark.

Varos.

It was him.

He did not remember this battle, did not remember wielding the power that now burned in his veins, but the proof was there before him. He had fought in this war. He had stood against the Nihil Engine. And now, it was hunting him once more.

A distant tremor shook the ship, the sound of metal groaning as something outside moved against the wreckage. His head snapped up, instincts flaring as he recognized the sensation. The Eclipse Legion had returned.

They had found him.

There was no time to think, no time to question the impossible revelations that had just unfolded before him. His body moved on instinct, his suit responding to his unspoken command as he launched himself toward the exit. The corridors blurred past him, the ship shaking as unseen forces tore at its remains. He reached the breach in the hull just as the first shadowed forms emerged from the void, their sickly blue visors locking onto him with unholy precision.

They moved as one, advancing in perfect synchronization, weapons materializing in their hands, their darkened steel humming with an energy that made the air itself tremble. But Varos did not stop.

He reached deep within himself, grasping at the power that had been buried for so long, and in an instant, time shattered around him once more. The void warped. The Legion faltered.

And Varos Rael disappeared into the abyss.