The Grand Hall of Mirrors within the palace of Planet Orion.
An ancient expanse designed in bygone eras to reflect the majesty of Orion's kings. Now, it had been repurposed into a nerve-grating, stark white studio room. A blinding, aggressive glare exposed every flaw and pore.
A frustrated shriek shattered the heavy silence.
"No, no, no! This symmetry is an absolute disaster!"
Isabella paced the marble floor. She rubbed her temples in a highly exaggerated, dramatic meltdown. Her starlit eyes scrutinized every angle, every reflection, every single color gradient in the hall. As the architect of the Empire's visual identity, war started through the camera lens.
She stopped dead in front of General Madi Roll, the puppet king of Planet Orion. She shot him a look of pure, aesthetic disgust.
"Madi! Your royal robes are nauseatingly dull!" Isabella yelled, violently tugging at the edges of his embroidered fabric. "They absorb the light instead of reflecting it. Tilt your chin back! You represent the absolute majesty of our Lord, The Emperor, to the entire galaxy. You need to look like a king, not some pathetic mail courier!"
Madi Roll smiled in absolute tranquility. Complete subjugation radiated from his dead, hollow eyes. He maintained a rigid military posture, tightly gripping a scroll of wartime reports in his hands.
"Lady Isabella..." Madi spoke with deadpan seriousness, utterly devoid of sarcasm. "Do you truly believe the luster of my attire will distract the enemy from the pure power of our Lord's Axiom?"
Isabella ignored him completely. She spun around, glaring at Oria in utter frustration.
Oria stood with breathtaking dignity. Her quiet femininity radiated effortlessly. She looked like a rare porcelain statue that had survived a raging inferno.
Isabella approached her, aggressively attempting to wrap a crimson sash around her delicate neck to force a visually striking contrast for the broadcast.
"We need a pop of vibrancy here. Gloom doesn't sell well to the fanatics," Isabella muttered with obsessive focus.
Oria pushed the sash away from her collarbone with infinite gentleness. She smiled with absolute purity, perfectly mirroring a devoted wife setting a quiet dinner table.
"Isabella... drop the fabric," Oria suggested in a soft, soothing tone. "Perhaps the red will feel much more natural and warm if we simply wait for the blood of the invaders' vanguard to spill across our gowns? Authentic bloodstains provide a far superior contrast to synthetic silk. Our Lord will appreciate my look this way, don't you think? Not to compete with you all, of course... simply to please Him and fulfill my duty."
Isabella froze. She blinked in sheer disbelief at Oria's terrifying, domestic logic.
Meanwhile, Madi Roll continued staring into the void with his goofy, subjugated grin. The colossal gap between Isabella's obsession with aesthetics and Oria's fanatical devotion to The Emperor perfectly summarized the current state of the palace.
The Central Command Room.
The space was pitched in absolute darkness. The only light bled from a massive holographic star map, swimming in the freezing air of a chamber carved directly into volcanic rock.
Heavy steel doors glided open without a sound.
The Emperor stepped inside.
In a fraction of a millisecond, all the wives materialized from the shadows. They dropped to their knees, bowing instantly. Madi Roll and Oria followed suit, their foreheads nearly kissing the freezing floorboards.
The entire assembly gathered around the circular war table. The Emperor, his eight wives, Madi Roll, and Oria. The Supreme Council of Planet Orion.
Murderous intent saturated the oxygen. Each individual radiated it in their own unique manner.
Kaori sat with a perfectly rigid spine. Her eyes were wide open, alert and hyper-focused. Her hand rested immovably upon the hilt of her archaic blade.
"I have spent these long months in absolute meditation," Kaori declared. Her tone was dry, strict, and unforgivingly martial. "My intuition is honed. I sense the shifting currents of this reality clearer than ever before."
Beside her, Roxy cracked her knuckles. She bared her fangs in a savage, bloodthirsty grin.
"Meditate all you want, Kaori," Roxy growled. Raw, violent excitement dripped from her voice. "I ain't thinking about nothing but cracking these bastards' skulls with my bare hands. I don't even want to use my Axiom. I just want to feel their ribcages cave in under my fists."
Veronica ignored them entirely. She slid a glowing blue holographic panel toward the center of the table.
"The structural hierarchy of the new military is fully operational." She spoke with extreme, hyper-professional precision, as if managing a sterile corporation. "The Orion divisions and infantry battalions have been categorized based on raw bone density and absolute Imperial loyalty. I have audited the logistical matrices. There is zero margin for error."
Layla smiled with poisoned sweetness. She casually sipped from her quietly boiling ceramic teacup.
"My humble intelligence network yields one unfortunately amusing detail..." Layla whispered, her voice dripping with false gentility. "The Xyroth are nothing but a junk race. Entities completely barren of elegance or martial taste."
Isabella threw her hand up with frantic, overwhelming energy. She projected massive screens flashing with neon, mountain-high bar graphs.
"I have maximized Dogma output to its absolute limits! Millions are chanting our Lord's name with a rabid fanaticism that fuels my reserves to the brim!"
At the far edge of the table, Camille traced imaginary circles in the air with vacant, dreamy eyes. Celine dozed in a quiet half-sleep, resting her head against the high-backed chair. Both simply charged their energy in absolute silence.
Eve stood up. Her eyes were clinical, entirely devoid of emotion.
She tapped the central command console. The star map vanished instantly. A colossal projection materialized, bathing the pitch-black hall in a terrifying blue glare.
The Eye of the Emperor.
The colossal Anomaly satellite dominated the entirety of Planet Orion's sky. A mechanical leviathan pulsing with Anomaly energy, siphoned directly from the bleeding core of the usurped world.
"It is a laser platform that eclipses The Universe Destroyer hundreds of times over." The Emperor spoke with blood-freezing apathy. His voice forced pure terror into the very oxygen molecules of the room. "Forged from Planet Orion's plundered resources. This superweapon possesses the existential capacity to eradicate entire celestial bodies with a single, absolute strike."
General Madi Roll stepped forward. He bowed with rigid reverence.
"The final readiness report for Planet Orion, My Lord." Madi spoke through a fractured, horrifyingly blank smile. "The entire populace is prepared to stand in the plazas and stare at the sky... and die as a willing sacrifice for a single glance from your eyes."
Inside this war room drenched in the scent of impending death, Oria shattered the tension.
She walked forward with graceful, weightless steps. She placed a silver tray directly on the war table. It held a traditional Earth cake she had spent days learning to bake. Decorated with flawless precision, it radiated the warm, incredibly domestic scent of vanilla.
Everyone took their portion. Mute astonishment seized the wives at the explosive, precise flavor.
But The Emperor was the only one who mattered. He took a single bite. He chewed in absolute silence. That heavy silence was the highest cosmic honor Oria could ever receive. A distinct look of satisfaction finally surfaced on his arrogant face.
The quiet was violently short-lived.
A low vibration hit. A continuous, massive tremor ripped through the deep foundations of the palace. The crystal chandelier violently swayed. The silver fork froze mid-air in Veronica's hand.
Eve's pupils dilated. Her monitors flashed a blaring, warning red. Torrents of erratic data streamed across the glass.
"I am detecting a massive data deviation!" Eve shouted. Her voice lost its clinical chill for a fraction of a second. "Frequencies are tearing through the upper atmosphere!"
Everyone turned toward the primary feed.
These were not polished starships fit for galactic emperors or elite vanguards. They were massive, deformed, hideous monoliths. Amalgams of rusted steel. The shattered remains of dead planets. Interstellar scrap metal fused together, burning like flaming meteors as they violently pierced Planet Orion's atmosphere.
The Emperor stared at the screen. There was no rage in his eyes. Only a profound boredom mixed with absolute, god-like apathy.
He calmly placed his silver fork aside.
"The caskets have arrived." He delivered the words like a crushing cosmic death sentence. "Our war has finally begun."
Outside, beneath the choking skies of Planet Orion, one of the metallic vessels crashed violently into a public garden. The rusted hatch split open with an ear-splitting, agonizing metallic screech.
From the thick smoke and blazing hellfire, a massive warrior emerged. Forged entirely from jagged scrap and crude steel. He took his first crushing step onto the planet. His sunken, mechanical eyes pulsed with a lethal crimson glow, officially declaring the start of the slaughter.