A vortex spiralled with Maximus at its the centre, the atmospheric Lu around the entire planet submitting themselves to him as they were greedily absorbed. Horror flashed across the invaders' faces as they quickly tried to unseal their cultivation. Alas, Maximus wouldn't let them.
He started to walk across the sky, each step leaving a spider web of cracks within the space, yet these cracks were not merely cracks in space but in the fabric of the world itself as it gave out, unable to withstand his existence.
And in a second, he disappeared.
In that moment, the world itself seemed unable to move.
DRIP
DRIP DRIP
Suddenly it started raining..
DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP
Yet it wasn't water that was raining.
It was blood.
Maximus reappeared in the middle of it all, his saber as clean as if it had never left its sheath. The world started to move again, like it was permitted to as the bodies of all of his foes slumped in the air, their heads flying off and blood shooting out like a volcano out of the stumps that were their necks. They had died unaware of their end, without an opportunity to scream out, only able to be in the cold embrace of death.
Unfortunately for the four families, the plans of the Orion weren't so easy to halt; too much was at stake. The atmosphere cracked again as the reinforcement arrived. The family heads looked at Maximus; he had far more freedom than the rest of them right now, it was best to trust his judgement.
Diego and Estelle landed next to the group, silently listening to their son with gentle smiles on their faces.
"All out, keep the world intact," Maximus spoke as he closed his eyes.
"Let's buy time son," responded Diego. Maximus turned to his father—this man was the embodiment of victory itself. Why was he so uncharacteristically sombre this time? Unfortunately, Maximus didn't have time to reason anything further as Diego took a step forward, appearing thousands of kilometres above ground, next to the newly arriving ship.
Diego looked through the Orions standing on the deck of the starship, his eyes flashed across them, his spiritual sense deployed in earnest.
A glint of disappointment mixed with relief flashed in his eyes before it completely disappeared, unnoticed by the rest of the world.
The Orions stood in a line as if waiting for orders of deployment; they didn't seem to take Diego or this world seriously. Some were looking at Diego with interest, some seemed to look down on Fluxara with an undisguised disdain, as if disgusted by the air around them.
Diego sighed as he looked down towards the rest of the families and Maximus who was talking to Isadora.
He couldn't blame them.
He looked back towards the Orions; he couldn't blame them either.
It was said that the pinnacle of emotional and psychological intellect was understanding. A person who truly understood everything would find it difficult to feel hatred or rage toward those who opposed or supported them, simply because they knew what shaped their actions, whether moral or immoral. It was the ultimate form of empathy.
Diego had lived too long not to reach this stage.
"Forgive me."
The last vestiges of Diego's somberness vanished as the air around him sharpened. He seemed to be looking through the starships, through the galaxies and the fabric of spacetime, as if the enemies in front of him didn't exist, and then he spoke.
SNAP!
The snap echoed across spacetime, a gentle yet powerful sound, lasting barely a few seconds.
Back on the ground of Fluxara was a middling clan that had many pulled strings to attend tonight's banquet.
The family head and his wife rushed through the endless fields as they ran for the parking spaces where they had been allowed to store their starship. Following the couple were their most trusted associates.
Their 3rd Plane cultivation was used without qualms as they ran with all their might, just as they spotted their starship amongst many others, a snap echoed in their heads.
"What was tha—" The family head stopped speaking as he looked at his associates looking up. "What the hell is wrong with you guys?"
One of the associates stammered over their words as they barely raised a finger to the skies, "Th– T– The starship. It's gone."
The couple couldn't believe their associates as they looked up, and they stood corrected. The starship that the second wave of invaders had come with, the same ship that encompassed the skies, was gone.
Similar scenes took place on the ground as the guests attempted to flee Fluxara. Unfortunately for them, if the four families didn't hold their ground, there wouldn't be a Fluxara left.
Maximus looked up at his father, his back standing tall and straight, as if he could hold up the skies had he wanted to. Alas, even he hadn't been prepared for the sight in front of his dad, the best word to describe it was… cruel, cruel yet efficient. He knew his father had only done so precisely because it was the most efficient method, but these were just pawns of their real enemies. Banishment to the void was nothing short of torture.
Maximus looked through layers of the world and into the void.
The terrifying scene did nothing to Maximus's expression nor emotions.
The ship of the Orion was stranded in the Void; it was an eerie scene. The carefreeness of the Orion had degenerated into panic and fear.
Some of them ran across the disintegrating ship, trying to find something to help them leave. Others abandoned the ship directly, trying to fly off into the infinite expanse of the Void, yet a barrier of black and blue stopped them from moving too far.
They simply rebounded off the barrier; their desperate attempts at destroying it were futile. All of the Orions had set up barriers around them using all of their internal Lu. Unfortunately for them, the Void did not know mercy to those not of its own.
By this point in time, despair had set into the psyches of the Orions.
Their end was inevitable.