The El'Vertigo court bloomed like a mechanical flower—holo-webbed nobles floating in spheres of light and lineage, every word they spoke twisted with ceremony and suspicion. Sigils spun mid-air, glowing with layers of ancestral code. My own emblem barely shimmered, like even it was ashamed to be here.
Lord Fiji's voice cracked through the chamber like a whip.
"Pablo El'Vertigo," he intoned, his hologram stretched to exaggerated height, swathed in imperial silks woven with flickering black data. His four eyes blinked in perfect intervals—calculated, reptilian.
"You return reeking of ash and gutter blood, speak of voidborn threats, a rogue warrior, and rebel deviance—then dare suggest abandoning your station… to enlist in the Kruger ranks?"
Gasps and jeers rippled through the court. They sounded like children who'd been told the sun might not rise.
I stood unmoving beneath their judgment, hands clasped behind my back, jaw clenched so hard I felt a molar shift.
"I'm not abandoning my duty," I said, my voice low but steady. "I'm re-forging it. The Void didn't care about class or title. It nearly ended us. Kiro held that line alone. I won't let him face it again without me."
A sharp laugh echoed from a matriarch's sphere. "You'd fight beside a relic-bound stray? He reeks of corruption. The kind we quarantine."
"He bleeds for this planet," I shot back, louder now. "While you were busy counting ships and secrets."
That shut them up, if only briefly.
Fiji leaned in, his hologram flickering with icy composure.
"Then by tradition and consequence, you shall renounce your name. Ten years of exile. Ten years of service in the Kruger military. You will earn your sigil back in battle, not politics."
I nodded. "Done."
A few nobles hissed in surprise. Others murmured approval laced with venom.
"And the Dark Leviathan?" one inquired, more concerned with hardware than humanity.
Fiji waved a hand. "Let him keep it. The war machine is bonded to his blood through combat rite. If he dies, so does its threat. Consider it a burden he may fail to bear."
I could've laughed. Leviathan wasn't a burden—it was the only member of my House that had ever protected me.
But then came the real blow.
Fiji's voice lowered to something almost tender.
"There's more."
Of course there was.
"The Empire has authorized Excision Protocol 9E. A World Eater warhead is en route to Velmora. Once Kruger completes extraction of all authorized personnel and assets, the entire planet will be sterilized. No relics. No native resistance. No evidence."
The words landed like bullets.
I didn't feel fear. Just sickness. A hollow unraveling inside my chest.
"You're going to slaughter the Velmoran people."
Fiji didn't blink. "Containment," he corrected, gently. "Not murder. These events—Omega Core activation, relic reanimation, biological mutation—must not contaminate the wider Empire."
I could see it in their eyes. Cold logic. Synthetic morality. No weight to their souls.
Millions would die because it was inconvenient to remember them.
And yet every noble in the chamber nodded. They wore their silence like medals.
"If this is nobility," I muttered, stepping back, "then let it rot. I'll earn something real. Not a name. A legacy."
Fiji chuckled, his hologram dimming. "Spoken like a Kruger already."
[Later – My Quarters]
The hangar smelled like ozone and carbon dust. The Dark Leviathan stood like a knight waiting in shadow, its engine core glowing faintly—a heartbeat of blood and steel. It had followed me through fire and Void. Now it waited again.
On the desk beside me, a single slip of data paper.
Transport Order:
Destination: Kruger Induction Station 17
Location: Moonbase Helix
Departure: T-minus 16 hours
Beneath the stamp, something slipped in under the encryption net.
Coordinates.
A frequency.
Kiro.
Still alive. Somewhere out there.
Still fighting.
And this time, I wouldn't be behind him, watching from ivory towers.
No.
This time, I'd fight beside him—until the end.