The Colossus was running.
This was no longer the slow, lumbering march from the temple. This was an earth-shattering sprint. Each colossal stride carved deep trenches into the soil, cracking the bedrock and launching great gouts of earth and shattered stone high into the air.
The ruined kingdom and ancient trees blurred past beneath its immense shadow like discarded toys as it tore through the fog.
Cradled tightly against the stone construct’s chest, the three brothers were packed in like fragile cargo. Max let the rushing wind tear at his face, his eyes watering, his lips pulled back in a grimace that held an undeniable, reckless spark of exhilaration.
"I knew it was holding back!"
Max shouted over the roar of the gale and grinding granite.
He turned his head, expecting to find a matching, wild grin on his brother’s face.
Instead, Ash wore a mask of cold, hollow emptiness. His eyes were locked on the receding horizon, but he wasn’t really seeing it...
No matter how desperately Ash wished for death, it refused to come. And the tighter fate clamped its jaws around him, the more it dragged everyone he cared about into the storm.
Tyrin’s raspy voice cut through the rushing air.
"So... what’s the deal with that giant geezer calling you ’young lord’? You inherit a kingdom without telling us?"
Ash didn’t respond to the joke. He merely stared down at the desolate landscape below. He had run through these shattered ruins before. The last time, he had been running in sheer desperation. This time, he was lifted far above it, moving faster than ever, yet feeling no less helpless.
’Please... let there be a ship.’
The Colossus crossed the ruined settlement in a handful of leaps. The stray chaos beasts lingering in the district scattered in terror, driven off by the crushing, oppressive aura radiating from the construct.
Ash forced his gaze forward toward their destination.
Then he saw it. It was the encampment.
His eyes widened. It wasn’t a rendezvous. It was pure devastation. The massive metal transport cart sat crushed and twisted like scrap metal, and there wasn’t a single person alive in sight.
Max gritted his teeth, his fleeting thrill vanishing in an instant.
"Damn it..."
The Colossus barreled down into the deep mouth of the mine, where motionless bodies lay scattered across the mud. It halted and lowered its hand, gently setting the brothers onto the earth.
Max covered his face with both hands.
"Argh... this is it..."
Tyrin ground his bloodied teeth.
"I wonder... since I’m fated, do I still get to die right here?"
Max looked over at him, his voice subdued.
"That... I can’t say. From where I’m standing, we have no way out. But..."
A faint, sad smile touched Max’s lips as he looked at his brothers.
"...if you two somehow manage to walk away from this... that’s good enough for me."
Tyrin’s jaw clenched hard.
"Dammit... Dammit! If I wasn’t this broken... Dad would have flown up there and torn that thing out of the sky! I—"
Ash suddenly looked up, cutting Tyrin off without a word.
The orbital dreadnought hovered directly above them, blotting out the heavens. Its central ventral cannon pulsed with a sick, gathering radiance. purple and electric blue energy twisted together within the firing chamber. One glance was enough to tell them the weapon was fully charged.
Ash looked at his brothers.
Max, the mind of their group, the one who always had an answer, was completely out of options.
Tyrin, an elite Ascended and Tier 6 Surging Human, was broken, spent, and bleeding out.
Something deep inside Ash shattered completely, and words tore from his throat as hot tears filled his eyes.
"I’m sorry! This is my fault! It’s because of my damned Roots! You’re both going to die here, and somehow... I know I’m going to survive it! Again!"
Max reached out toward him, his expression softening.
"Hey... Ash, stop. Listen to me, it’s not—"
Ash slapped Max’s hand away with a harsh crack.
"Don’t! Don’t tell me it’s not me! It’s clearly me! My Root explicitly says I’ll lose everyone I love! Why do you think I ran away?! Max, why do you keep chasing after me?! There is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop fate! I accepted it! I chose to live this wretched existence alone... why couldn’t you just be content with your own life?!"
A few broken sobs escaped him.
"Why didn’t I see this coming? It was just like the last time I saw Mom... That damn crow. I saw it, and I knew something was wrong. I should’ve known. Every time that thing appears, something terrible happens... And now it’s happening again. I’m going to lose you two, too. I don’t want to lose you... I can’t lose you, too..."
Max stared at him, stunned into silence.
"Ash... I—"
"Dammit!"
A furious scream erupted from the treeline to their left. The three brothers turned simultaneously to see a man clad in a shredded Apex uniform glaring up at the sky.
"What the hell are they thinking?!"
The man shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria.
"Is this target worth incinerating the whole planet?!"
Ash recognized him instantly. It was Kelvin, the arrogant Manifested Human serving under Apex. The fact that Apex had casually abandoned a Manifested Human of Kelvin’s caliber showed just how ruthlessly the organization treated its own soldiers.
Kelvin whipped his head toward the brothers, but he froze mid-stride, his eyes widening in sheer terror at the sight of the Colossus towering behind them.
"What... what the hell is that thing?!"
Max’s eyes narrowed.
"So... the rest of your unit are dead?"
Kelvin faltered beneath Max’s cold glare.
"Aren’t you... aren’t you that new recruit? What is happening here?! I heard those damn Ascended from Headquarters infiltrated the ship... but why are they—"
His gaze shifted, locking squarely onto Ash.
"You... You’re still alive after all of this?!"
Ash stared back in confusion, but Kelvin pressed forward, his face twisting with rage.
"This... All of this is your fault! Why did you open that chest?!"
Before Ash could utter a word, Tyrin spat a mouthful of blood onto the dirt.
"Look at you... pathetic. Blaming a kid because you’re scared. Maybe it is our fault, but you’re the idiot who signed up with an organization that treats its soldiers like disposable trash."
Kelvin’s jaw tightened, his veins bulging.
"Who the hell are you to talk to me like—"
Before Kelvin could finish, the sky itself seemed to split open. A shrill, agonizing shriek followed, far too violent for human ears to comprehend. It announced the coming destruction of the planet.
Everyone turned toward the sky as the main battery discharged.
Light fell from the upper atmosphere like divine judgment, a pillar of pure destruction that tore through the cloud deck and swallowed the horizon. They watched, paralyzed and hypnotized by the sheer scale of it, as the beam struck the earth near the ancient temple far behind them.
Kelvin collapsed to his knees in the dirt, his spirit broken.
"No... It can’t end like this... Why do I have to die in a dump like this...?"
For a single heartbeat, the blinding flash was terrifyingly majestic. The explosion bloomed against the horizon like a malignant, blinding sunrise. Then the shockwave came, a towering wall of incinerating heat and compressed air roaring toward them.
Ash raised a trembling hand to shield his eyes against the searing glare. He squeezed them shut and gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to stand there and watch another person he loved die. Not again.
In one final, desperate act of defiance, Ash moved.
He threw his body directly in front of his brothers, turning his back to the incoming blast, spreading his arms wide like a frail human shield.
Ash closed his eyes, bracing for the end he’d fought so hard to avoid, yet somehow felt he deserved.
Then, the world shifted.
A massive shadow fell over them. The Colossus pivoted, its massive body of ancient, reinforced granite curling around the three brothers and placing itself directly between them and the annihilating light.
Max stared up at the giant construct in disbelief.
"That won’t hold... There’s no way it can withstand a direct orbital—"
The shockwave hit.
Incinerating light and roaring kinetic force washed over the world, tearing reality down to a blinding, deafening white.