"Looks like you're alive, Zane Walker," Malkor said. His voice was cold, carrying a flat, resonant tone that vibrated through the metal hulls of the nearby ships.
Every head snapped toward the sound, Soldiers drew their weapons, and the captains narrowed their eyes, their respective elements and physical forms tensing for an immediate clash.
Zane stood completely unmoved. He didn't pull his hands from his pockets, and the cold, indifferent expression on his face didn't falter for a fraction of a second.
"Looks like you came out of hiding, Malkor," Zane replied. His tone was deadpan, completely devoid of fear or hesitation.
Malkor did not deign to answer with words. Instead, he slowly raised his right arm. As his fingers extended, malkors elites appeared but they weren't alone behind them Soldiers clad in dark, interlocking armor poured from the rifts. Tens, thousands, hundreds of thousands—until millions of them flooded the terrain, stretching across the horizon like a sea of obsidian.
They utterly outnumbered the Xenocides. The sheer visual scale of the army was enough to break the morale of any ordinary military force.
"This is a war to create peace in the universe," Malkor said, looking down at the frontline of humans with a detached, savior-like conviction. "You've left me no choice."
Zane just kept his hands in his pockets, his gaze sweeping across the millions of advancing combatants. A small, humorless tilt formed at the edge of his lips. "Peace? Don't make me laugh. Let's skip this bullshit and let's start fighting."
Malkor's eyes narrowed slightly, the absolute certainty in his posture hardening into disappointment. "You humans are all the same. Monsters who refuse to talk things out."
He dropped his hand.
"Attack."
The command shattered the silence. With a unified, deafening roar that shook the very foundation of the planet's mantle, millions of Malkor's soldiers and his elite guard rushed forward, a tidal wave of steel and dark energy. On the opposite side, the Xenocides didn't hesitate. With their captains leading the charge, the human vanguard launched themselves forward, rushing headlong into the oncoming storm.
Amidst the chaotic blur of the collision, Elias and Renji found themselves running flank-to-flank.
Elias glanced sideways, a confident, sharp smile breaking across his face. "Hey, Renji! Let's see who gets to Malkor first!"
"Alright," Renji said, his voice cutting through the noise of the battlefield. "I hope you can keep up."
Before Elias could even respond, Renji accelerated. Without a word, he lunged directly into Malkor's army, leaving a trail of displaced dust in his wake.
"Hey! Wait!" Elias shouted, his smile widening into a laugh as he forced his own legs to pump harder, diving right into the fray after him.
The clash was instantaneous and brutal. Three of Malkor's heavy-armored soldiers intercepted Renji first, their long, jagged polearms swinging in a synchronized arc designed to decapitate him. Renji didn't slow down. Moving with a cold, calculated precision, he ducked beneath the first swing, his body shifting perfectly within the narrow gap between the blades.
Renji drove a straight right jab directly into the center of the middle soldier's chest plate. The impact was precise and devastating. The high-grade armor caved inward with a sharp, metallic CRACK, the shockwave passing through the soldier's torso and blowing out the back of his gear, sending him flying into the ranks behind him.
Before the other two could recover, a streak of bright energy cut through the air. Elias dropped from above, his boots slamming into the shoulders of the left soldier, crushing him into the dirt. With a fluid pivot, Elias spun on his heel, delivering a sweeping kickoff that shattered the helmet of the third attacker.
"That's one for me!" Elias yelled over the din of battle, already scanning the next wave.
"Don't count your victories yet," Renji said coldly.
Two shock-troopers, wielding massive dual-bladed broadswords , materialized from the side, executing a pincer attack. The blades hissed through the air, aimed directly at Renji's blind spot.
Renji didn't even turn around. He trusted the position.
Elias intercepted the strike perfectly. Interposing himself between Renji and the blades, Elias parried the first broadsword with a precise, high-speed deflection, the sparks illuminating the grim expressions of Malkor's men. At the same instant, Renji dropped low, utilizing the cover Elias provided to deliver a sweeping leg strike that knocked both shock-troopers off balance. As they stumbled, Renji rose, delivering a lightning-fast sequence of strikes to their exposed joints, neutralizing them instantly.
The two worked like a single machine, a seamless rotation of offense and defense .
Malkor's men continued to pour in, recognizing the two frontline fighters as a major disruption to their advance. A platoon of forty soldiers formed a defensive wall, locking their heavy ballistic shields together to create an impassable barricade of alloy and energy fields. Behind them, long-range casters began charging dark projectiles, aiming directly at the duo.
"We need to break that wall before the casters fire," Elias said, his eyes tracking the growing glow of the energy signatures behind the shields.
"Follow my lead," Renji replied simply.
Renji sprinted straight toward the center of the shield wall. The soldiers braced themselves, digging their boots into the rocky ground to withstand the impact. But Renji didn't just ram into them. Five paces before the wall, he planted his foot and leaped, spinning his body mid-air to concentrate the entirety of his forward momentum into a single, devastating dropkick aimed at the central seam where the two main shields met.
The collision sounded like a cannon shot. The sheer force of Renji's physical prowess fractured the energy field, forcing the two central soldiers backward and creating a narrow, two-foot fracture in their formation.
"Now, Elias!" Renji commanded as he hit the ground.
Elias was already there. Utilizing the exact opening Renji had forced open, Elias slid through the gap in the shields, entering the interior of the platoon's formation. Surrounded on all sides by the enemy, Elias unleashed a rapid-fire sequence of close-quarters strikes, disabling the shield-bearers from the inside out. With their formation shattered from within, the soldiers scattered, leaving the long-range casters completely exposed.
Renji closed the distance before the casters could re-target their projectiles, his strikes ending the threat before a single shot could be fired.
The battlefield around them was a chaotic tempest of millions of fighting souls, but within their sector, Elias and Renji cleared a path of absolute devastation. They fought side-by-side, clearing wave after wave of Malkor's endless army, their eyes never losing sight of the distant, silent figure of the tyrant king who watched from the horizon.