novelraw Chapter 508: Versus Kylus
Chapter 508: Versus Kylus
Drones swarmed up from hidden launchers embedded in the broken terrain, their frames compact and aggressive, weapons spinning to life as targeting systems locked on. Automated turrets rose from beneath the rubble, snapping into firing position and flooding the ground ahead with suppressive fire.
Rin hit the first wave head-on.
His sword tore through the nearest drone, splitting it cleanly before its weapon finished spooling up. The wreck slammed into the ground and exploded, sending fragments skidding across the stone. He pivoted through the blast, blade already moving, cutting down another two as their fire stitched the space he’d occupied a second earlier.
Reva followed, hands empty for half a heartbeat before claws tore free.
She moved through the bots instead of around them, ripping limbs from frames, tearing power cores out with brutal efficiency. Energy fire scored her shoulders and back, but she didn’t slow, driving forward with single-minded focus.
"Left side," Rin shouted, ducking under a sweeping beam and bringing his sword up through a turret mount.
Reva adjusted instantly, leaping over a collapsing slab of stone and landing in the middle of a drone cluster. The ground shook as she tore into them, metal and sparks flying as systems failed under raw force.
More machines poured in.
They came in layers, aerial units dropping from above while ground drones surged in tight formations, trying to box them in. The air filled with overlapping fire, explosions blooming close enough to feel against skin.
Rin took a hit across the ribs that sent him sliding. He rolled, came up coughing, and laughed again as he threw himself back into the fray.
"This is more like it," he yelled.
Reva didn’t answer. She was already ahead of him again, carving a path forward, eyes fixed on the distant chaos where Kylus and Jareth still tore at each other through smoke and fire.
They pushed deeper, step by brutal step.
Behind them, more drones activated, the basin lighting up with automated defenses meant to keep anyone from reaching the heart of the battlefield. In front of them, the war raged louder, closer, the sounds of shouted orders and impacts bleeding together into something relentless.
Rin vaulted a wrecked transport and landed hard, blade humming as he cleared another wave. "We’re not even halfway there."
Reva wiped coolant and blood from her cheek without slowing. "Then we keep going."
The basin had reached a point where nothing meaningful could be added to it anymore. His perimeter was gone. His crew was scattered, pinned, or already dead. Kylus was still advancing through fire and wreckage like the concept of attrition didn’t apply to him, tearing through what remained with the same relentless pressure he’d started with.
Jareth opened a private channel.
His voice stayed level when he spoke, but the decision behind it scraped something raw inside his chest.
"Authorize denial strike," he said. "Full saturation. No exclusions."
The reply came back almost instantly, tight and incredulous.
"Confirmed? That zone still has friendlies."
"I know," Jareth said. "Fire."
Above the basin, the sky answered.
The first impacts didn’t announce themselves with sound. The ground convulsed as if something massive had punched it from above, whole sections of the basin collapsing inward as kinetic warheads slammed down with surgical cruelty. A heartbeat later, the sound arrived in a rolling wall that drowned out every shout, every scream, every weapon discharge still firing uselessly below.
Fire blossomed everywhere at once.
Jareth’s crew vanished in flashes of white and orange, their positions erased before their bodies even registered pain. Defensive lines disintegrated. Shield emitters overloaded and imploded. Vehicles were lifted off the ground and torn apart midair.
Kylus’ people died just as fast.
Dropships were shredded before they could pull altitude. Ground teams were swallowed by collapsing terrain and secondary blasts. The assistant barely had time to shout a warning before the space she’d occupied ceased to exist, replaced by fire and debris thrown high enough to blot out the sky.
Kylus himself took the strike head-on.
The blast caught him mid-advance, hurling him across the basin like a broken weapon. He crashed through stone and metal, armor screaming as systems flared and failed in rapid succession. When the dust settled, he lay half-buried, one arm twisted wrong, the ground around him still burning.
He moved anyway.
Jareth didn’t look back at the destruction behind him. He was already running, thrown clear by a directional shield that detonated and died the moment it did its job. The basin was no longer a battlefield. It was a grave.
Requiem had slammed Reva, knocking her flat behind cover as the world detonated. Stones shattered. Heat rolled over them in choking waves. Rin barely managed to keep his grip on his sword as the ground buckled beneath him, debris raining down hard enough to crack armor and rattle teeth.
They stayed down because there was no other choice.
The strikes kept coming, one after another, turning the basin into a broken crater of fire, smoke, and collapsed earth. Whatever war had been happening there ended in seconds, erased without ceremony.
Then it stopped.
No more impacts or the fire falling from the sky. And all that was left was ruins.
The smoke began to thin, revealing what was left. No formation or crews. Only wreckage and scattered fires licking at twisted metal.
Somewhere in the distance, something heavy shifted.
Reva pushed herself up slowly, eyes scanning through the haze. Her ears rang, her vision blurred at the edges, but she was alive. Rin staggered to his feet nearby, coughing, staring at the devastation with something between awe and horror written across his face.
"That... that was everything," he said.
Requiem didn’t answer. His gaze was locked on the sky, wondering if it was another strike.
Reva also looked up just in time to see it break through the smoke.
There was a pod.
It came down hard, spiraling, its hull scorched and sparking as it punched through the air. It slammed into the ruined basin at an angle that tore a trench through debris and stone before burying itself halfway into the ground with a violent, metallic scream.
The impact threw dust and shrapnel outward in a wide ring.
Then nothing.
The pod sat there, embedded, smoke pouring from ruptured seams. Warning lights flickered once, then died.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then the hull creaked.
A fracture spread along the side of the pod, metal peeling outward under pressure from within. The hatch buckled, twisted, and finally tore free, crashing into the dirt nearby.
Something climbed out.
It was Xavier.
He hauled himself free of the wreckage, boots hitting the ground unevenly as he straightened. His armor was scorched. His body was smeared with blood and ash. His breathing was heavy, unsteady, but he was upright.
"Fuck... I am never getting in a pod again. I had no control over this. All I could do was watch. And why the fuck did it crash instead of landing smoothly?"
He looked around at the shattered basin, the bodies, the fires still burning against the wreckage.
"Oh.. so that’s why. There was no place to land on..."
Then his eyes found Reva, who was staring back at him in disbelief.
"Am I... late to the party?"
The war was over.