The Chitinous Prompt’s text flickered with an agitated orange. Eneko ignored it. Hostile? Good. He liked his pets with an edge. Maite, however, tugged at his sleeve, her brow furrowed. “Eneko, the system says hostile. That sounds bad. Maybe we shouldn’t put…” Before she could finish, a metallic shriek tore through the air, vibrating the very floorboards. It wasn't the groan of collapsing concrete, but something sharper, more invasive. A section of the Citadel’s outer wall, already weakened, peeled away like rind, revealing a smooth, crystalline tunnel of light. Through the tunnel marched the Vanguard of the Silver Worlds. They were too many to count, their forms a shimmering kaleidoscope of iridescent chitin and hardened plasma armor. Leading them was a towering figure, perhaps three meters tall, encased in sleek, obsidian-colored plating that seemed to absorb the light. His helmet, faceted like a gem, gave no hint of a face, only a single, glowing azure slit where eyes should be. His voice, a modulated baritone that echoed with an artificial timbre, boomed through the suddenly silent ward. “Inhabitants of this realm. Your world is a nexus point. A staging ground for our evacuation.” He swept a gauntleted hand across the ruined ward, dismissing the carnage. “Surrender your facilities. Resist, and be purged.” Eneko merely blinked, a vein throbbing in his temple. “Purged? I just wanted to die in peace. Is that too much to ask?” He turned to Maite, who was now clutching his sleeve. “This is why we can’t have nice things, Maite. Always some bastard interrupting.” The alien leader’s visor narrowed, fixing on Maite. “The female. Untainted. A valuable specimen.” Before Eneko could swing, a ripple of silvery light flared from the commander's hand, lashing out. Maite gasped as the sheet enveloped her. She froze, mid-breath, a perfect, shimmering statue suspended in an invisible field, her optimistic smile locked in place. Her dreadlocks, usually so vibrant, were now rigid, like spun glass. “No!” Nerea barked, a shard of ice already forming in her hand, but it was too slow. The buzzing of the Chitinous Prompt, the foreign gibberish, the groaning of the wards—all sank beneath static. All Eneko saw was Maite, frozen. Every tendon in his neck locked. Peaceful death be damned. Peaceful *life* be damned. If they touched his sister, he would burn down every dimension they crawled out of. “You. Fucking. BASTARD!” The words ripped from his throat, raw and guttural. He pointed a rigid finger at the commander. “You think you can put my sister on ice? You think you can waltz in here and dictate terms?” He didn’t wait for an answer. With a roar that shook the remaining glass in the ward, Eneko slammed his hand onto the Minotaur Grunt’s back. “Get in there, you fat bull! Get bigger! Get meaner! And then *kill them all!*” The violet rift tore open, sucking the Minotaur Grunt inside with a guttural bellow. Then, Eneko pointed at Patella. “Patella! Go! Leave nothing standing!” Patella didn’t need a second command. With a shriek that was half bone-grind, half pure predator, it launched itself across the ward. Its new scythe-claws flashed, carving through the first rank of iridescent shock troops like paper. Armor rent, chitin shattered, and the aliens didn’t even have time to shout before Patella’s mutating form was a blur of emerald eyes and jagged bone. The horned terror, already emerging twice its previous bulk, its horns crackling with violet sparks, stomped through the second wave, pulverizing them into crimson mist. “Incoming! Flank left!” Nerea shouted, unleashing a volley of ice spikes that pinned three aliens to the crumbling wall, but her voice was lost in the grinding impacts and alien plasma fire. [ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SIBLING RIVALRY. REWARD: NECROTIC REJUVENATION (MINOR).] Eneko ignored the notification. He was already striding forward, his palms crackling with black voltage. He saw a dying alien conscript attempting to crawl away, its leg mangled by Patella. Eneko didn’t hesitate. He stomped down, caving its skull in, then slammed his palm onto the carcass. The alien twitched, inflating grotesquely, then burst apart into a dozen scuttling chitin-spiders that immediately swarmed the nearest Vanguard infantry. The commander showed a tremor of panic behind his blank mask. “Unacceptable! This primitive is corrupting the bio-matter!” He extended a hand, and a field of crackling force erupted to contain Patella, but the death knight roared, shrugging off the restraint and leaving crystalline scorch marks on the floor. “Reinforce! Bring in Oskur-Zar!” the commander barked. From deeper within the crystalline tunnel, a new tremor ran through the ground, far more powerful than anything before. The air itself seemed to compress, growing heavy with an ancient, terrifying might. A figure emerged, even taller than Vael, a titan of bronze and blackened steel. It had no helmet, its head a block of scarred, weathered stone with eyes that burned like forge fires. Its massive, clawed hands were sheathed in gauntlets that pulsed with raw, destructive power. This was no ordinary combatant. This was a god. “That presence...” Nerea muttered, frost cracking across her fingers as she backed up. Oskur-Zar didn’t speak. The war titan cast its gaze over the burgeoning horde of splices, the mangled alien corpses, and the frozen Maite. Then, without a word, it raised massive gauntlets toward the ceiling. The air above the Citadel groaned. A swirling vortex of dark mass materialized in the sky, condensing into a rift that dragged down debris and chunks of cloud. Then, it dropped. Not a beam, not a bolt, but a solid, house-sized chunk of compressed, burning rock, wreathed in violet flame. A localized meteor, aimed squarely at Eneko. “Move!” Nerea yelled, lunging forward, but Eneko held his footing, his attention locked on the frozen statue of Maite. He refused to abandon her. He unleashed a torrent of black power, hoisting a barricade of fused alien carcasses between himself and the falling mass. The impact was an unmaking. The entire Citadel buckled. Concrete groaned, rebar snapped, and an eruption of flame and raw shockwave consumed the ward. Half the compound disintegrated into superheated rubble and molten metal. The shockwave knocked Nerea violently off her feet, sending her skidding across the shattered floor, her head cracking against a support beam. The alien commander watched, impassive once more, as dust settled. “Problem solved.” But the Chitinous Prompt, still hovering in the air where Eneko had been, pulsed with a frantic, agitated rhythm. Its text flickered, then stabilized. And from the smoking, smoldering epicenter of the crater, amidst the crumbling remains of the ward, a figure slowly rose. One arm was gone, ripped clean from the shoulder, leaving a cauterized stump that smoked faintly. Blood, black and viscous, dripped from his jaw where a shard of concrete had scored him. His eyes, however, burned with an infernal, incandescent fury. He had survived. Barely. [SUB-SPACE ECOSYSTEM CRITICAL. STABILITY AT 0.01%. ENTITIES ARE ATTEMPTING SELF-FUSION. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED.] [IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE: SACRIFICE SUB-SPACE STABILITY TO INSTANTLY FUSE 1,000 MINIONS INTO ONE WEAPON? YES / NO]

The God of War Demands an Apology