Chapter 65: The Cradle creature comes out

Praetor Solan stood before the immense, rune-carved gate with his remaining comrades at his back—bloodied, wearied, yet unwavering. The skies thundered with Mahasimu firepower, and all across the horizon, the embers of a dying resistance danced on winds of ash. Vice General Tano's shadow loomed behind a wall of legionnaires. Yet, at the precipice of total surrender, the ancient transmitter Elder Xiran had given Solan flared to life. Its light was pale violet—an ancestral hue.

Solan turned to his companions, his voice low, firm, reverent.

"Drop to the floor. Do not raise your heads. Do not look inside. This… this is not for us to see."

They obeyed, trembling as they knelt. One soldier wept. Another whispered a prayer to gods long buried. Solan alone stood as he pressed his palm to the sigil-plate. The crypt rumbled. A hiss of ancient air escaped like a planetary exhale. From the yawning darkness beyond the threshold came footsteps. Echoes too perfect, too resonant—more like thunder whispered through stone.

A voice followed. Ageless. Male and female and neither. More concept than tone.

"Your ancestors must have taught you well. Locked away from my lustful sisters and brothers… for seven million years… I wonder what has changed."

The footsteps drew closer. The ambient light dimmed as if it recoiled from the being's presence. From the cavernous shadows emerged the creature.

Tall. Slender. Strikingly inhuman.

Its musculature was taut and whipcord-lean, clothed not in armor but strange flowing membranes of matte-black flesh that fluttered like fabric. Its pale, polished skin shimmered faintly, shifting in shade with every movement. Its face was androgynously beautiful and terrifying, with high cheekbones and smooth features so perfect they felt sculpted. Its almond-shaped, ink-dark eyes held no sclera—just depthless voids that drew the gaze like gravity.

Across its limbs were alien enhancements—bands of iridescent circuitry that pulsed faintly in sync with its breath. In one hand it carried nothing but a strand of jagged, metallic thorns coiled like a whip.

It was one of them.

A Silent One.

A member of a race so ancient, so mysterious, that even the Zelith myths only dared mention them in fragmented prophecy. A race that had vanished before the first stars of the modern era were born. And now, one stood before them.

Even Vaelora—cold, commanding, unreadable Vaelora—sat stunned in the viewing chamber aboard her flagship. For the first time, the twin attendants Tamun and Je'ka saw her reaction: lips slightly parted, one eye twitching as if to confirm she wasn't hallucinating.

Admiral Kia froze mid-command aboard the Virex Dominatus, while Vice General Tano, hardened by lifetimes of warfare, stood rigid, his hand twitching near his plasma glaive. All three had received the live feed from a tactical drone hovering just above the crypt entrance.

From Vaelora's private balcony chamber, she whispered only two words to herself:

"It lives."

Behind her, Tamun and Je'ka knelt in silence. Neither dared speak.

Above Venter, the Mahasimu fleet held its fire. Shadowscourge and scourgehounds paused mid-march. The Thal'karn legionnaire leaders tilted their heads, catching something strange in the psionic ether—some ripple that tasted like divinity.

Down below, the Silent One stepped into the light of the twin suns, eyes narrowing as it scanned the broken skyline of Venter's capital. It flexed its whip and whispered to Solan, not needing sound.

"You've done well to remember your oaths. But now… your time ends. Mine begins."

Solan, still kneeling, dared not look up. He only muttered:

"Then may the gods forgive us."