The crackling static discharged by the commander's black relic washed over the remaining cadets like a digital tide. Holographic readouts above their heads, once vibrant with glowing class designations and power metrics, flickered, glitched, and vanished. The air, thick with the scent of ozone and dread, grew heavier. A low, guttural wail ripped through the sudden quiet. “No! My — my Aegis Sentinel class! It’s gone!” The shriek belonged to Vasco, who stumbled backward, tripping over his own suddenly limp legs. The shimmering, protective aura that usually enveloped him, the hallmark of his legendary Guardian class, had dissolved into nothingness. His face, usually a mask of sneering superiority, crumpled like discarded paper. Tears, hot and pathetic, streamed down his cheeks, carving clean paths through the grime of battle. “My — my family’s fortune! Do you know what this means? The Parnassus Line will disown me! They’ll send me to the Arcadian Waste Reclamation! Please, Brio! Protect me! I’ll give you anything! Anything at all!” He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, clutching at Brio’s boots, his face a snot-streaked portrait of abject terror. “My credit chips, my personal sky-yacht, the deed to the entire Parnassus refinery network! It’s all yours, just… just bring back my class! Or… or protect me from that thing!” Brio, still processing the complete silence of the Apex-Codex, glanced down at Vasco’s sobbing form. The absolute lack of shame was almost admirable. Almost. He flicked a dismissive toe at Vasco’s grasping fingers. “Parnassus refinery network, you say? Hmm, not a bad start, but my current lifestyle demands a bit more… panache. And I’m certainly not bringing back your class. Why would I? It’s far more entertaining this way.” Nayara stood rigid, her jaw tight and unyielding as she locked onto the corrupted officer. Her modified Gauss-pistol, usually humming with latent energy, was utterly inert in her hand. “Brio, don’t provoke him. That relic… it’s suppressing all known System-granted abilities. We’re defenseless.” Her gaze flickered to Brio, a desperate plea in her eyes. “Even your summons might not work without a stable channel.” Brio, however, merely hummed. The puppet of former authority advanced with slow, deliberate steps, his glowing eyes scanning the petrified cadets. His lips, cracked and dry, peeled back in a rictus grin that exposed unnaturally sharp teeth. The black stone pulsed with an intensified sickly green light, and the remaining holographic displays of the Alcazar Spire’s structural integrity finally winked out, plunging the simulator further into a shadowy gloom. Only the officer's eyes and the stone provided any light. Brio felt a familiar mental prod, a whisper that wasn't a voice but a presence. He instinctively reached for his inventory, pulling out a small, worn leather-bound sketchbook and a set of nano-pigment tubes. He looked at Vasco, still blubbering at his feet, and a mischievous glint entered his eyes. “Aha! My class, it seems, is too utterly useless to be affected,” Brio declared, a triumphant, almost giddy note in his voice. He brandished his sketchbook. “The Apex-Codex considers 'Librarian' to be nothing more than glorified 'Junk Data.' It wouldn't waste precious nullification energy on something so fundamentally unthreatening.” [NOTICE: User's 'Librarian' class detected as 'JUNK_DATA'. Nullification Protocol: SKIPPED. Current Status: IMMUNE. Enjoy your mediocrity.] Nayara stared, her mouth slightly agape. “Immune? But… how?” “Because, my dear Nayara, I’m beneath contempt. Quite literally.” Brio tapped the sketchbook. “And speaking of beneath contempt… Vasco, I believe you owe me a rather specific ingredient.” He gestured to the pooling tears around Vasco’s nose. “Your tears. Top-shelf despair, I imagine. Perfect for mixing a truly potent batch of watercolors.” Vasco, startled, stopped mid-sob. “My… my tears? What for?” “For art, you uncultured philistine!” Brio snapped, already squeezing a vibrant ochre nano-pigment onto a page. He quickly smeared it with a finger, then, with a flourish, dipped a brush into Vasco’s tear-puddle. The transparent liquid instantly absorbed the pigment, swirling into a viscous, shimmering gold. “Nothing quite like the bitter essence of a fallen elite to give your work that extra… *zing*.” As the General raised the artifact higher, a guttural chant escaping his lips, Brio worked with frantic, precise strokes. He used the gold-tinged tear-watercolors to depict a swirling vortex of chitinous wings and needle-sharp stingers – a swarm of mythological murder-wasps, each one rendered in excruciating, photorealistic detail. The paper seemed to thrum with nascent power. The air around Brio grew thick, not with static, but with the buzzing promise of a thousand unseen wings. [APEX-CODEX: Aesthetic Deviation detected. 'Mythological Murder-Hornets' render initiated. Nullification Protocol: SKIPPED. Reason: 'JUNK_DATA' summon. Threat Assessment: MINIMAL.] [STAT MULTIPLIER: 1,000,000% applied for 'Undignified Chaos'.] The swarm exploded from the page, a cloud of gold-and-black fury that ignored the officer’s suppression field entirely. They bypassed the sickly green aura as if it were never there, a thousand tiny, enraged spearheads converging on their target. The fallen commander, caught mid-chant, barely had time to register the approaching horror before the first wave hit him. He roared, a sound of agony and surprise, as the wasps burrowed into his exposed skin, his eyes, his mouth. The once-proud uniform shredded as the swarm devoured him, piece by agonizing piece. His gauntleted hand spasmed, dropping the obsidian relic with a clatter onto the cerasteel floor. It hissed, then went dark. The stricken warrior stumbled, clawing at his face, his body writhing in a grotesque dance of pain as the predators reduced him to a screaming, flailing mess. He twitched, then fell with a final, wet thud. [TARGET: Corrupted General. Status: NEUTRALIZED. Post-mortem biometric vitals detected.] [WARNING: Dead-Man's Switch engaged. Orbital bombardment sequence initiated.] [THREAT ASSESSMENT: City-sized meteor 'Starfall-Alpha' detected. Impact trajectory: Costa-Nova. Estimated Time To Impact: 02:47:03.]

Null and Void