Chapter 25: Storming the Leviathan

Chapter 25: Storming the Leviathan

Baldur streaked through the void like a golden comet, the sheer force of his acceleration ripping the air apart behind him. The black-market station shrank below, consumed by the chaos he had left in his wake. Warlords, mercenaries, and bounty hunters still fought amidst the ruins, their battle now secondary to the real war that was unfolding above.

The Leviathan loomed ahead, a monstrous warship, its hull lined with planetary-grade cannons and an array of anti-air defenses. It was built for dominance, a command vessel meant to subjugate entire sectors.

And now, it had one single target.

The ship's AI registered his approach instantly. A chorus of alarms blared throughout the fleet. Defense turrets rotated, locking onto his form, their barrels glowing as they prepared to unleash destruction. A swarm of hunter-class droids launched from its hangars, hundreds of them—an impenetrable wall of metal and energy, designed to overwhelm even the strongest of warriors.

Baldur didn't slow down.

The first barrage came, a rain of plasma fire, missiles, and concussive photon bursts. It would have been enough to obliterate entire squadrons. But light moved faster.

Baldur vanished, dissolving into photons, his body dispersing into golden streaks. The attacks passed harmlessly through him, detonating in empty space. He rematerialized above the swarm, his form flickering into existence like a star reborn.

The droids adjusted instantly, turning and recalibrating their targeting systems. They adapted fast—faster than most—but not faster than him.

Baldur extended his hands, manipulating the very photons around them, bending the light to his will. For a moment, everything froze in time—the droids, the fire, the battlefield itself—caught in the brilliance of what he was about to unleash.

Then the world exploded.

Blades of solid light sliced through the swarm, moving at impossible angles, cleaving through metal like paper. The drones barely had time to process what was happening before their bodies were reduced to molten slag, their circuits fried by a surge of concentrated radiance.

Baldur blinked forward, phasing through what remained of the debris, his speed shattering the laws of physics. In the space of a breath, he had crossed half the distance to the Leviathan.

The warship adjusted its strategy. Its main cannon hummed to life, the energy core surging as it prepared a city-killing blast. The barrel extended outward, its stabilizers engaging, plasma flaring at its center.

A single shot from this weapon could wipe out an entire fleet.

Baldur moved before it could fire.

He phased into light, his body stretching, twisting, moving along the very wavelengths of existence itself. In an instant, he was no longer outside the ship.

He was inside.

The corridors were dark, illuminated only by the dull glow of red emergency lights. Soldiers were already scrambling, yelling commands, grabbing weapons, setting up defensive perimeters. They had never expected an enemy to breach the ship so effortlessly.

Baldur didn't slow down.

The first group of guards barely had time to react. He moved past them in a blur of radiance, his fingers tracing the air in rapid, fluid motions. Light warped at his command—beams of golden energy extended from his fingertips, striking each soldier in precise, calculated points. Their weapons overheated, their armor short-circuited, their visors flared blindingly.

By the time they collapsed, unconscious, he was already down the next hallway.

More defenses activated. Automated turrets whirred to life, tracking his motion, firing streams of high-intensity laser fire. Baldur weaved between them, each step perfectly timed, each movement calculated to the nanosecond.

A squad of elite guards stood at the next intersection, clad in exo-suits built for high-speed combat. Their weapons pulsed with anti-energy field stabilizers—designed specifically to counter beings like him.

They moved in unison, fast, precise, well-trained.

Baldur grinned.

"Finally, someone interesting."

They attacked at once. Blades of condensed plasma, each vibrating at the frequency of light itself, swung toward him. They weren't just hacking wildly—they were predicting his speed, his possible movements, adjusting in real time.

He was faster.

He didn't dodge. He flowed.

Baldur shifted, his form stretching into a golden silhouette of motion, his body phasing through the blades like a mirage. Before they could recalibrate, he reformed behind them, raising his hand. A pulse of concentrated photons erupted outward.

Their armor shattered instantly.

Their weapons melted in their hands.

They dropped before they even realized they had lost.

He continued deeper into the ship.

Ahead, the blast doors to the command center sealed shut, reinforced with layers of unbreakable metal and quantum-locked barriers. The kind of doors that not even an army could break through.

Baldur didn't even slow down.

He raised his hand, and the light around the door warped, folding in on itself.

Metal wasn't unbreakable. It was just matter. And matter could be rewritten.

A single push.

The door collapsed inward, reduced to glowing particles of dust.

He stepped through.

The bridge was silent. Officers stood frozen in place, staring at him in abject horror. Consoles flickered with alarms, warning of their impending doom. The captain, a grizzled war veteran with half his body replaced by cybernetic enhancements, slowly turned to face him.

He didn't beg. He didn't order an attack.

He just exhaled, resigned.

"You're not a god," the captain said, voice quiet. "You're something else, aren't you?"

Baldur smiled, his body glowing faintly, energy humming in his fingertips.

"Yeah," he said. "I get that a lot."

With a snap of his fingers, the ship's entire power grid overloaded.

The Leviathan trembled violently. Systems failed instantly, emergency lights flickered, weapons went offline. Baldur had shut it down with a single command of light.

Outside, the war in the marketplace ground to a halt as the great warship began to descend, its engines failing, its might undone in mere minutes.

Baldur stepped past the frozen officers, his presence illuminating the darkened room.

"You've lost," he said simply. "Tell your people to stand down before this gets worse."

The captain, eyes still locked on him, nodded slowly.

The war was over.

Baldur walked to the nearest console, activating the ship's communications. His voice carried across the battlefield, across the station, across the hundreds of mercenaries who had tried to take him down.

"This place belongs to me now."

And with that, the Black Market was his.