The Hound tore into the void like a living catastrophe, its matte-black frame streaking through space with violent intent. The moment it entered the battlefield, three Terrian Orbitons broke formation and launched straight at it — rookies, eager and untested, driven by orders and fear in equal measure, their thrusters flaring bright blue as they closed in with plasma rifles charging and their targeting systems screaming for a lock. The Hound did not evade. It did not slow. It met them head-on.
In a single fluid motion its arm came up with plasma igniting along its claws. In one sweeping arc it tore through the first unit, which split cleanly across its midsection before its core flashed and erupted in a bloom of fire. The second pilot barely had time to react before the Hound's cannons destroyed his machine in midflight. The third fired. A clean, precise beam lanced across the void, but the Hound twisted in flight and let the shot graze its armor, scattering sparks across its plating to no real effect. Before the Terrian pilot could adjust, it closed the distance, seized the unit by the head and crushed it inward with terrifying force, the metal crumpling like paper. Then it threw the lifeless husk into a nearby cruiser, where the impact set off a chain of explosions that ripped through the ship's side.
And the Hound kept moving — ship to ship, unit to unit — carving a path through the battlefield, not fighting and not engaging, but erasing. Plasma fire lit the void in flashes of orange and white as Terrian ships scrambled to answer and their formations collapsed under the sheer unpredictability of the assault. LEX units deployed in waves, surrounding, firing, coordinating, but every move they made was too slow and too late.
Then something changed, and Larsen noticed it at once. His visor flickered with updated telemetry as he hung for a moment between strikes, and he saw that the chaos around him was shifting — not in intensity, but in pattern. Ships were pulling back. Orbitons were withdrawing and repositioning — not out of fear, but by design. A perimeter. They were avoiding him. They were making space.
Larsen frowned slightly, his fingers tightening on the control grips. "…What are you—"
The radar screamed. A violent spike of energy surged up behind him, so sudden and so overwhelming that it cut through every other signal like a blade. Then came the strike: a massive gray plasma blade cleaving through the space where the Hound had been a fraction of a second earlier. Larsen reacted on instinct and forced the Hound into a brutal side-thrust. The blade missed a direct hit, but not entirely. A deep scar opened across the Hound's chest plating, the armor splitting open with molten edges while its internal systems flared in warning.
Larsen's breath caught — not from fear, but from recognition. Slowly, he turned, and there it was, towering behind him, rising from the void like a god of death. Altopereh. Its presence alone distorted the battlefield, dark and immense, its form pulsing with an unnatural, oppressive energy, the gray blade extending from its hand. And at its core, awake and watching — Youri.
The comms crackled violently. "Larsen!" Serin's voice cut through, sharp and urgent. "Be careful! That's not a standard unit — you're facing a God Unit!" A pause, and then, more quietly: "Altopereh. The Reaper."
For the first time, the battlefield itself seemed to hesitate. Larsen let out a slow breath, his eyes narrowing behind his visor, and his lips curled — not in fear, but in something darker. Excitement. "I was wondering when you'd show up," he muttered.
Altopereh didn't answer. It moved. In an instant it was gone. Then it was above him, its blade coming down in a vertical arc meant to cleave the Hound in half. Larsen boosted backward with his claws forming just in time to meet it. The clash was catastrophic. Gray and orange plasma collided and sent out a shockwave that tore through the nearby debris fields and ground the fragments of destroyed ships into dust, energy rippling outward in waves of distortion until both units were forced apart. And Youri pushed forward again — no hesitation, no strategy, only intent. To kill.
Serin's voice came back, sharper now. "Larsen, listen to me — we're sending the Trident. Coordinates incoming—"
"That won't be enough," Larsen cut in.
Silence. Then a breath. "…Alright," Serin said. "Then I'm sending both."
Far below, on the surface of Seron, two massive launch platforms ignited at once. The sky cracked open as twin payloads shot upward and pierced the atmosphere like meteors in reverse. In orbit, Youri saw them — two signatures, fast and precise. He understood at once. But he didn't move. He didn't intercept them or try to stop them. He let it happen, because somewhere deep inside him, he wanted this.
The Hound surged back and caught the first package in flight, and its casing shattered open to reveal the Trident. But this time the weapon pulsed brighter, hotter and more unstable than before. The moment Larsen gripped it, it came alive and fused with the Hound's systems. Then the second package arrived, and it unfolded in silence. A ring — perfectly circular, pure white, no larger than the Hound's hand. But the energy radiating from it was monstrous.
"Do it," Serin whispered.
Larsen didn't hesitate. He reached out and took it. The moment the ring made contact, everything changed. A violent surge of energy erupted outward, white and orange colliding in a blinding explosion that consumed the battlefield, overloading every sensor and turning every screen white. Ships lost their tracking and pilots screamed as their systems failed under the sheer intensity of the release. Even Altopereh staggered. For a moment there was nothing at all.
Then the light faded, and what stood in its place was no longer just the Hound. The Trident burned brighter than ever, its orange plasma stretching out like a living flame; the horns on its head had surged higher, sharper and more defined; and its tail had lengthened, the blade at its end splitting into segmented edges that pulsed with lethal energy. But that wasn't all. Behind it, thirteen white plasma swords hovered in perfect orbit, forming a slow, rotating halo, each blade identical and each radiating a cold, divine intensity that clashed violently with the Hound's infernal glow. And above its head, floating just over the horns, was a crown — a thin, circular halo of white plasma. Angelic. Oppressive. Unnatural.
And yet the two energies didn't fight each other. Heaven and Hell, which should never have been able to exist side by side, existed there together, perfectly balanced between destruction and transcendence.
Serin's voice trembled — not with fear, but with awe. "…It worked. Chaos Mode is stable."
Larsen rolled his shoulders slowly, testing the new form. The energy coursing through the Hound answered him instantly, faster, sharper, more alive than anything before. He looked at Altopereh, and smiled. "Let's see how deep your hell goes… Reaper."
Across from him, inside the abyss, Youri didn't speak, and didn't react. But Altopereh did. A low, monstrous roar echoed through the void and shook space itself. Two beings stood there now — one crowned in chaos, and one born of annihilation. As they began to move, the war around them ceased to matter.