Silver Stars, Ch 9: Primal Echo (Patreon)

A wave of silver flames burned across the Vos’Rekan’s body as Sam dodged to the side, letting its massive head tear through the space where he had been.

At that moment, Sleset led the Silver Nagas down toward the beast’s eye. Their formation was a tight wedge surrounded by a brilliant blaze of silver light.

The First Fang of the Silver Lord-Scaled General of the Silver Army led his people at the front. 

Sleset’s blades were raised like the fangs his class was named after, and they shone with the blessing of astral energy he’d received from Sam. 

All of the nagas had similar classes, their main class based on their position as his followers and a subclass that made them part of the Silver Army. Even in the civilized galaxy, finding an army as tightly knit as them would be effectively impossible.

As they approached, a devouring rift opened in front of them, followed by another and then another, blocking their path toward the beast’s eye. If they fell in, they would die in an instant, crushed by the force of the beast’s stomach.

Behind those rifts, the beast’s head swung around toward them. The vortex in the Vos’Rekan’s jaws swelled wide, aiming to swallow them all.

Sam growled as he slashed out and blocked the beast’s claw, and then his hand reached out toward the Silver Army.

A wave of silver runes flowed out from his domain, crashing against the Vos’Rekan’s aura. Flames surged between them, interlocking the runes into an instant enchantment that he carved on the Void.

A pathway opened in front of the Silver Army, stabilizing their flight and defending them as they flew faster.

Lines of astral light merged together in front of them in an Astral Binding, which sealed over the dimensional rifts and forced them closed again.

The strain of holding the beast’s aura back made Sam’s essence thunder in his heart and his grip on his spear tightened, but he refused to allow the thing to kill any more of his people.

Then the nagas were through.

The Armament of the Stars blazed around them as they attacked, aiming all of their mana at the beast’s eye. 

With three hundred Fourth Evolution warriors working together, it was a threat even the Vos’Rekan couldn’t ignore.

The beast tried to move as a wave of voidfire slammed into the nagas, but the Field of Silver Stars around them flared as it blocked it.

Power exploded from them as they saw the opportunity and seized it, throwing everything they had at the giant yellow eye.

Silver blades, emerald runes, fireballs, arrows, waves of sharp-edged scales, tail whips, and a storm of elements all descended on the beast. It was a storm large enough to completely obscure its eye.

The Vos’Rekan let out a Void-shattering howl, its form thrashing in agony as it twisted around in space, trying to hide its eye.

But when the explosions faded, the once bright eye was ripped to pieces, its surface pocked and white with gashes and burns. 

Only half of it remained.

Both of its eyes were blind now. 

A wave of enraged energy crashed outward from the beast, heading for the Silver Army. If it hit, it would wipe them out of existence.

A blade of Shatter Aura flew from Sam’s hand, slicing through the energy as it approached the nagas, and then he swept them up in his domain and teleported them away.

Their suicidal charge had worked, but he’d barely saved them from being eaten. 

Since he knew they weren’t done yet, he dropped them over the beast’s back, where they could continue attacking. 

A trace of humor flashed through his heart as he left them there, since he knew they would complain. They would probably be back up at its head soon.

Even blind, the Vos’Rekan could sense their presence, but it would be a bit safer.

Then he grimaced as he brought his spear around and slammed it against the Vos’Rekan’s jaws, which were closing on him.

Rescuing the nagas had left him open.

A sidestep through the astral paths brought him around to a better angle. 

Then he took advantage of the beast’s blindness to drive his spear into its neck, where he sawed it back and forth, tearing open a miles-long wound that burned with silver flames.

The beast let out a world-shaking roar and an explosion of voidfire swept out of the opening in its neck, covering the area.

The force shattered a field of asteroids floating nearby, ones left over from its destruction of the world it had been sleeping near. The stones disappeared, swept away into devouring rifts as it tried to heal its wounds.

Where Sam was standing, the voidfire howled against his aura and made no advance.

Even if it had managed to break through his aura, his True Dimension Body meant this type of chaotic energy would do nothing to him. 

The last time they fought, this flame had nearly killed him, but he had changed. 

The intensity of energy from his avatars was letting him maintain an enormous Titan form that matched the Vos’Rekan in size and he was putting it to good use.

He was no longer the newly born Titan who was barely able to raise a weapon.

At the Fourth Star, he was an Astral Battle Lord, fully capable of fighting a Vos’Rekan blow for blow, even an old one like this.

And tearing it apart.

His eyes were hot as he raised his spear again.

The astral spear spun in his hand as he slashed at a claw that was coming toward him, severing it from the beast’s arm.

It was 10 miles long as it spun away through the Void, but it didn’t go far. 

A rift from the Vos’Rekan opened nearby as the beast tried to devour it, which would let it maintain its essence and give it the energy to heal the wound again.

But before the claw could fall into the rift, a wave of silver flame seized it as Sam hurled it toward Silverguard.

An arc of light from the fortress wrapped the claw in a dimensional seal and pulled it across the Void. Then Stellar Conversion began to burn around it, melting the claw into energy.

He had no intention of allowing the thing to take it back.

Bit by bit, he continued to sever claws and fangs, as well as everything else that came near him, slowing tearing the thing apart.

The battle surged and flowed, but Sam had the upper hand.

The beast continued to attack, but its efforts were changing as it realized it was losing. 

It was an unaccustomed thought for it, the second time in months that it realized it was in danger. 

Over its long life, the number of times that was true could be counted as barely once in every Age of the Void. Before now, it had only been in danger when larger Vos’Rekan tried to eat it.

But it had finally met a Titan.

It began to struggle more fiercely to escape from the destruction that was raining down on it, but Sam had no intention of allowing it.

Essence was flowing into him, slowly making him stronger as he tore away parts of the beast, but he had lost some of his own to close calls.

He was wounded in a dozen places from damage that his cloak hadn’t been able to block, but it was minor compared to what the beast was suffering.

Behind its head, the assault golems continued their strafing runs as they tried to cut off its head, and from slightly farther out, the emissaries and Keros were fighting at long range.

And now that it was blind, the pace of the battle was changing.

It was time to end this.

His blows turned heavier, falling with the Strength of the First Age and the weight of the Void behind them. Massive rents tore apart the mountains on the Vos’Rekan’s back and crushed its limbs.

The beast shuddered as its body began to collapse.

His spear spun his hands as he stepped past the beast’s jaws and closed in on its body .

The Vos’Rekan tried to bite at him, but a golden fist the size of a meteor slammed its head to the side, making the Void echo like he had hammered on a giant drum.

Then he gathered his essence and a meteor of golden flame descended with his strike, tearing a path 50-miles long as his spear headed straight for its stomach.

It was the same strike Caerlon had once used to kill the beast in his memory, the only sure way to end a Vos’Rekan in a single blow.

Their essence was all gathered there. 

In that moment, as the beast dropped its defenses and tried to wrap itself around him, Sam’s Cloak of the Ethereal Void flared with a wave of frozen runes. He poured out all the essence it held, sealing the entire region of the Void around him in ice.

The beast’s head and limbs were sealed in an icy glacier, its fangs covered in frost like massive comets stretching across the horizon. Its scales and spine were stretched into the distance, covered in gently drifting snow.

Everything was frost.

To those watching, it looked like a frozen world had suddenly appeared across the Void, sealing the beast in a glittering tomb.

Even with all the strength of a semi-divine artifact, it would only hold it for an instant, but it was enough.

In that moment, he channeled all of his energy into the spear as he seized it with both hands and drove it down.

The golden point shattered through the ice like a spear from the sun, tearing through the seal and the Vos’Rekan’s body together.

Then it pierced out the far side, exploding in a wave of force as he tore it a hundred miles straight through the beast’s body.

At the center of that strike, a glowing black sphere was transfixed on the spear, its surface roiling with chaotic force.

As soon as it was visible, the sides of it began to ripple, crackling with waves of dark flame.

“Back!” 

Sam called across the Void as he reached out to the Silver Army and his golems, gathering them in his domain and hurling them away toward Silverguard. 

At the same time, he activated a teleportation enchantment on the fortress, one that recalled the people who had left it.

Streaks of astral light flared through the chaos of the battlefield, dragging people away.

His allies knew better than to resist the command to retreat, and a moment later everything around the beast was clear except for Sam himself and Silverguard shining in the distance.

As he disappeared, he ripped the spear out of the Vos’Rekan, completely tearing its body in half.

When he reappeared, he was standing at the peak of Silverguard. His domain spread outward, covering everything in primal runes and the Aura of Stellar Beginning.

The fortress’s defenses rose in a silver dome, sealing off the island. Runes for astral ice and stasis flowed across the surface like primordial calligraphy.

Then he braced himself.

A massive and boiling dark energy rose up from the center of the beast’s stomach, twisting into dark currents as dimensional rifts and devouring force wrapped around one another.

The Vos’Rekan’s life force was there as well, all the strength of a Fifth Evolution primordial beast contained in that black core. It was much smaller than the beast itself, just a speck at the center, but that was its true stomach.

It was a black hole created and maintained by its essence, the true container for everything that it had devoured across its long life.

Now, it was rupturing.

Unlike a true black hole, the beast’s stomach held mostly essence, but the force of it was an unrivaled explosion. 

It was a dark sun going nova.

For a moment, everything turned to all-consuming flame.

Sam felt Silverguard shaking around him. Streaks of power slammed against the walls, crashing against his aura and the defenses as the force contained inside the core exploded across the entire system.

An ocean of power was contained in that small speck, enough to crush suns and fold dimensions in half.

It was chaotic and hot, a return to the dark beginning of time and life.

As that wave hit him, instead of being crushed by it, Sam felt his strength growing, even as he buffered the impact for the island around him.

In that wave of destruction, life burned.

And he grew.

Crackling lines of primordial force roared through his veins, flooding his essence constellation and his heart. 

Every part of his body exploded with life.

Runes flared in his mind’s eye, laws and domains surging and falling.

A fleck of the moment of creation was trapped in the chaos, a return to the very beginning of it all.

And his eyes were open.

Fragments of time flashed through his mind, things the beast had seen and done, but the most important things he saw were the laws of the Void.

Time meant nothing in that moment as the first energy of eternity roared through him. It resonated with his essence, his will, and his domain.

His knowledge of crafting suddenly seemed like nothing, only a fragment in a great sea of possibilities, and ideas for how to craft a thousand times a thousand greater things flooded his mind.

His Domain of Primal Runes seemed simple, a faint structure in the light of that knowledge.

The memory of everything would stay with him, where it would influence all of his future work, but he knew he had to choose one thing.

One focus for that primal chaos to become.

He had as long as he wanted to make his choice, but once he did, all of the possibilities in front of him would condense into it.

It was this type of insight that let Caerlon comprehend runes, and now it had come to him.

In that endless moment, he could see the choices as clearly as day, as well as what they would become, from beginning to end, every revolution of time.

It wasn’t the complete knowledge of eternity, since it still relied on what he already knew as a base, but his horizon was stretching out endlessly.

He could examine it, see where it would lead, and create the one he wanted.

So he chose the best path, the one that everyone struggled with and that was key to what he needed to do.

He was still at the Fourth Star, but he knew it would be the Fifth Star as soon as he gathered all the essence from the beast.

So that was the focus for his work.

Something that would help him to deal with the Avatar of Blood and rescue Asenya.

He swiftly planned out the racial advancements for the Fifth Star that he would take and then he continued on, looking ahead to the Sixth Star and the unknown future past it.

Then he laid the foundation for improvements to his Domain of Primal Runes, one that would come as soon as he reached the Fifth Star in a moment.

Like the Fifth Evolution, the Fifth Star was the realm of domains, but a Titan’s domain held a Law of the Void. 

With the help of this moment, he made it much stronger than it would have been otherwise.

He focused all of his attention on the nature of primal runes, how they sprang from chaos, established order, and eventually returned to chaos.

It was the best way to use this opportunity, one that rose naturally from the laws he could see. 

If his domain had been a tapestry woven of flame and will, in the future it would be like the descent of the Primal Void itself, or as close to chaos as it was possible to get in the present era.

Even now, as his essence constellation wavered on the edge of the Fifth Star, the insight of the laws flooded through him, subtly adjusting everything and realigning his Fourth Star.

The Star of Primal Runes.

Depth and age filled that star and then the rest of his constellation, flooding through the nebula that made up his spirit. 

Then those laws gathered around the Fifth Star, which was still dark, as an ember began to burn at the center.

But in that moment, the energy from the Vos’Rekan was finally spent and time snapped back into motion.

He was standing at the peak of Silverguard as the explosion crashed across the fortress’s defense. Dimensional anchors locked the fortress in place, but it still shook like a ship on a stormy sea as it rode out the destruction.

As the explosion faded, waves of essence washed through the system. No one here could feel them except for Sam, but they could see the effect. 

It felt like the chaos winds had turned into a storm a hundred times greater than normal. Stone and dust dissolved into them.

If there had still been worlds in the system that were undefended, they would have shattered in the chaos.

But for Sam, it was an echo of the moment he’d just seen, and he moved in it with familiarity, unbothered by the raging forces. He reached across the system and gathered the essence to himself, tearing it away from the wild dispersion.

The experience from the beast would be split among everyone who had fought it, but the essence was his.

Eventually, the winds died down and the system was calm again.

The corpse of the Vos’Rekan floated in the dark like a massive dark continent. Around it, the rubble of the system had almost entirely disappeared. 

The beast had eaten most of it, drawing the stray bits of stone and energy into the rifts around its body, while Sam had ignited some as well, burning it to keep it away from the thing.

The rest had been cleared away by the final blast, sent on a long path away from their origin. 

In time those bits of rubble would turn into asteroids and comets, flying far across the Void to other realms.

Sam scanned Silverguard to make sure it was still intact, but the fortress was fine. It was more than capable of enduring that final blow, especially with him there to shield it. As for the rest of the system...the dark wave had become fuel for Stellar Conversion, the flames he’d ignited everywhere in his fight with the Vos’Rekan.

Now, silver stars stretched across the system, burning like an ocean of diamonds in the night.

They were full of astral quintessence.

Sam looked at the devastation of the system, and then he nodded.

A fraction of the astral quintessence spun out from those stars and merged together where the sun of this area had once been.

The quintessence wove itself into a nascent enchantment, one that would gather energy from the chaos winds over thousands of years or perhaps even aeons. 

It would take as long as needed.

Then a spark of yellow flame ignited at the heart of the enchantment, a tiny version of the sun that had once shone here.

One day, a new sun would be born from this region and life might once more flourish in the Void.

But that was only a small amount of the astral quintessence in the area. 

The rest of it poured toward Silverguard, where it fused into the stone of the island and the enchantments.

It would be needed there, because he had plans for the fortress, as well as for the massive chunks of the beast’s corpse that were floating in the Void.

Silverguard had been built from Vos’Rekan stone, and now that so much more was available, it was time to expand it.

A wave of his hand caused the floating chunks of Vos’Rekan stone to gather together and they began to spiral around Silverguard, slowly fusing into the island’s base.

The fortress would become greater from this battle. 

The enchantments he’d built would merge with the new quintessence and spread through the material he was adding, until everything was complete.

It would follow the current design core, which meant the artifact spirit could oversee it.

It was already a floating city, but it would be vastly expanded by the time it was done.

As the stone fused into Silverguard, he focused on it, searching through the fragments with his domain. 

Then he began to extract things.

Swiftly, a pile of rare materials and ancient treasures appeared at his feet.

They were the other rewards of the battle. Some he planned to keep and the others he would to give to his allies for their efforts.

Most of the items were rare ores and magical crystals, dimensional treasures, and other natural elements of the Void, the natural remains of a Vos’Rekan that had eaten its way through the stars for aeons.

These things were invaluable, but they weren’t the most important to him. He continued searching until he found what really mattered.

A Fragment of the Primal Void.

First one, and then another appeared in the Vos’Rekan’s corpse, followed by a third, which was as many as he’d gotten the last time from just a part of the beast. 

They were the greatest reward for a Titan who killed one of these things.

The foundations of Divine artifacts.

As he continued to search, his hopes bore fruit, and by the time he was done, there were a full dozen of the dark crystal shards gathered in his hands.

Not just one, but twelve Fragments of the Primal Void.

He looked down at them in his hands and a slow smile spread across his lips. 

With this many, he could upgrade Silverguard and his artifacts, and perhaps even more.

With the enemies he had, it would be needed.

All around Silverguard, his allies began to recover from the battle and fly toward him, looking for answers to their questions.

He would use these fragments soon, but for now he tucked them away, and then he turned his attention to the essence and experience from the battle.

The voice of the Titan Star rang in his mind, calculating it all for him.

Congratulations, Lord of Silver Stars.

You have discovered the meaning of the Battle Star and gained insight into the nature of Primal Chaos.

You have gained 15,792,105 essence.

You have achieved an Evolution of your Race.

Do you wish to advance now?

A massive swirl of essence was spiraling around his essence constellation, gathering around the Fifth Star. It only needed a touch to condense it and make it ignite.

Without hesitation, he reached out to it.

And the Void turned to silver flames.