Ruri did not much like being alive.

For her, life was the sensation of having a knife at your throat. From the moment she'd been born into this world -- if you could even call it that -- she'd had the awareness that she could be taken back out of it at a moment's notice. Everything depended on Her Ladyship's whims. It wasn't even just that Ruri feared angering her master. With Alexandra, even the slightest sudden curiosity was enough to spell death.

Alexandra had given her everything. Alexandra had given her her face. Alexandra had given life, and Alexandra would one day give death. Ruri had accepted that a long time ago.

Ruri was Alexandra's shadow, a perfect replica of her preferred human form. It took slightly less effort for Alexandra to glance over at Ruri than to glance over at a mirror. That was the only reason she existed.

She knew how to speak, how to walk, how to be a human… that was all knowledge she'd been born with, when she'd pushed her way out of that bloody egg. But when was the last time she'd spoken except to answer a question? When was the last time she'd walked except to follow after Alexandra?

When, ever in her life, had she really existed as a human being?

Ruri had heard rumours among some of the servants, whispers when they thought nobody was listening. There was a rebellion out there, a group called the Zeilan Morhan fighting against the Nobility. They'd been fighting for years now, apparently.

When Ruri heard that, she could only feel pity. Poor idiots. Resisting the Gene Nobles would only earn you a fate worse than death. There was no hope there. There was no hope anywhere.

Or so Ruri thought…

…until the day the heavens opened.

AETHERAL SPACE 0.7

"Lake of Fire (Part 1)"

It started with a simple proclamation.

Mionaught, Alexandra's world, was not a pleasant place to look at. Alexandra enjoyed the aesthetics of gore, and she had modified her home with that in mind. Towering polyps dotted the horizon. The ground was a hard shell of carapace, coated in blood-coloured sand. Each and every building that comprised Alexandra's vast estate had been grown from bone, vast supporting rib-cages and grinning skulls. Even the air was tinged pink, perpetually as if a million people had just popped into bloody mist moments before.

Most of Alexandra's servants followed a similar design sense. For one, she'd made some modifications to her chief Cogitant, Yusuf. With a poke through the arm, she'd turned his head into a misshapen lump of meat, peppered with dozens of bright blue eyes all across its surface. There was barely enough room for his mouth, a tiny fanged opening where the base of his neck had been.

That tiny mouth was the one that gave the proclamation.

"My Lady," Yusuf wheezed, bowing deeply in his bright crimson suit. "Sentry Station 9 has reported… a hostile vessel has entered the atmosphere."

Alexandra's throne room was like the inside of a steak. Smooth organic lines of red and white swirled across the walls and floor, coalescing at Alexandra's skeletal throne. Her Noble Inclemency herself, lounging on the throne as she sniffed at a pheromone sphere, looked up at her servant with a single raised eyebrow.

Alexandra was clad in formal wear -- a hanbok of deep red and pink -- with her hair extended so that it pooled around the floor before her like a cloak. She truly lived up to her title as the Grotesquerie Princess. Every aspect of her being seemed to radiate a sense of prestige and royalty -- and right now, that royalty was looking at her servant in annoyance at being interrupted.

Or, at least, it might have been annoyance she was feeling. It was difficult to tell. The only real physical difference between Ruri and her master was their eyes. Whereas Ruri's held a gleam of emotion, Alexandra's were dull and empty -- as if whatever was reflected in them was right on the verge of losing her interest entirely.

She tossed the pheromone sphere over her shoulder, and Ruri hurriedly caught it. This sphere has been a gift from the Maven in Red to his pupils across the galaxy -- one of his new studies on the macabre. Letting such a precious thing fall to the ground would spell death, even if Alexandra was the one who had tossed it away.

"You say it's hostile," Alexandra mused, slouching in her seat. "We recognise the ship, then?"

"Yes, my Lady," Yusuf nodded, rising to his feet. "We've checked the identifier codes, and we're certain -- it's a match for a minor ship operated by them. The Zeilan Morhan."

The slightest smirk tugged at Alexandra's soft lips.

"Oh," she said, rising from her throne. "Maybe today won't be so boring after all."

"Well," Alexandra noted. "He certainly knows how to make an entrance."

She -- and her entire personal retinue -- were watching the descent of the vessel through a monitor that had grown out of the fleshy ceiling of the throne room. The monitor was composed of thousands or possibly millions of tightly-packed eyes, the colours and shapes of their irises shifting every second to form the image.

That wasn't the interesting part, though.

The ship -- a light mining transport called the Cordemans -- was plummeting right through the atmosphere of Mionaught, heading straight for the palace in a straight line. It was a reckless approach, to be sure, but even that wasn't the interesting part.

The interesting part was the man standing atop the ship, right on the outer hull.

His arms were crossed, his legs spread wide in a powerful stance, as if nothing could dislodge him from his perch. Even with unbelievable winds slamming against him, a wild grin was plastered across his face. His white hair billowed in the air behind him, as did the loose cloth of his blindfold.

Zarakhel Baras. The Blindman. The one who had killed a Gene Noble.

"How is he staying on top of it like that?" Alexandra mused, mildly interested.

"We believe some form of shielding is keeping him isolated from the conditions outside," Yusuf replied dutifully. "Most likely something their Granba created. He's an accomplished inventor, all things considered."

"That was a rhetorical question," Alexandra said vaguely, her gaze still on the screen. "I was looking forward to figuring it out myself."

With a wave of her hand, she reduced Yusuf to a bloody smear before turning to her chief Pugnant -- Algastrom, clad in thick leather armour, with sharp tusks curling up from his jaw.

"It's just the one ship?" she asked. "This is an actual question, by the way."

As hygiene jellyfish consumed what was left of Yusuf from the floor, Algastrom nodded stiffly.

"No other vessels in orbit, my Lady," he grunted. "Only… the Cordemans has sent a message for you."

"Oh? For me?" Alexandra raised her eyebrows. "How amusing. What do they want to tell me, then?"

"Ah…" Algastrom hesitated over the information that might make him a smear too. "Well, that's…"

Alexandra poked through his head and turned him into a pile of gibbering meat. Then, she turned to his second-in-command. "The message?"

The new chief Pugnant, Melldover, saluted without hesitation. It seemed he was quicker on the uptake than his predecessor. He'd last longer, then, if he was lucky.

"My Lady!" he barked, eyes cast towards the ceiling. "Zarakhel Baras wishes to challenge you to a duel!"

Alexandra raised her eyebrows even higher, until they were swimming right up her forehead. Her smirk widened into a fanged grin, and she licked her lips with the forked tongue of a snake. Her bloodlust was bleeding right through to her appearance.

"I see," she purred. "That really is amusing."

This was not the first time that Ruri had seen a suicide.

The first time, it had been one of the Pugnant guards. He'd hung himself with an entrail-cable, right in the middle of the hallway, taking advantage of a brief moment where no eyes were on him. He'd managed to die, but Alexandra had reanimated his corpse into some approximation of life. It had danced in the corner of the throne room for a month before finally falling apart.

So it went with most of them. Alexandra disliked suicides, and would punish them harshly. Many of the bricks that made up the fleshy walls of the palace had once been servants who had failed to end their own lives.

Still, that didn't stop them. There was a natural reaction to utter hopelessness, and no amount of punishment would make it any more inevitable. Ruri, who had never known hope and thus could not despair in its absence, was the only one exempt from such a law.

All she could do was watch -- again, and again, and again. But still…

…she had never seen a suicide quite this brazen before.

After landing his ship a short distance away from the palace, Zarakhel Baras had hopped right off the top -- and now he was just strolling across the flesh-plains, as casual as could be, as if he weren't in the very last moments of his life. Flanked by a companion on either side, he approached the massive army waiting for him right on the edge of the estate without the slightest sign of trepidation.

That black blindfold was impossible to miss, so Ruri recognised the Blindman at a glance, and the reputation of those accompanying him served the same function.

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To his right, "Holy Man" Idra, clad in crimson patchwork robes, his mechanical collar producing the illusion of a metal halo behind his head. Every now and then, it would flicker with blue electricity, the sudden light throwing Idra's shadow forward.

To his left, Azez -- the supposed leader of the Zeilan Morhan. Ruri had expected someone taller. He walked firmly across the bleeding sands in a lightweight combat suit, his gaze set straight ahead.

If you were to believe the rumours going around, these people were legends. Those who had fought the Gene Nobles and lived to tell the tale. But right now, from what Ruri could see? These legends were people after all.

And people could die oh so easily.

The small group finally stopped, several meters between them and the truly colossal army Alexandra had gathered to meet them. Silence reigned. Not a person dared to cough, nor to sniff. Speaking, of course, was completely out of the --

"Well," said Zarakhel Baras, scratching his head. "Is the bitch there?"

Alexandra, watching the famous Blindman from the head of the army, narrowed her eyes. She'd brought out her most extravagant creations to meet the enemy, which seemed like something of a waste when a third of the enemy force couldn't even see them.

Crimson whales sang from where they swam in the air.

Bone-white mantis men sharpened their scythes, clicking and chittering.

A spindly wyvern clung to the palace's central spire, watching with massive yellow eyes, saliva dripping from its crocodilian snout.

Cogitants and Pugnants, beasts and reanimated Umbrants.

A wall of monstrous flesh, spreading its shadow far.

The student of the Maven in Red had spared no expense.

"Yeah," Azez said, his golden eyes scanning the menagerie. "She's there."

"Nice," Zarakhel grinned.

Even at this point, there still wasn't the slightest trace of fear in him. It shouldn't have mattered that he was blind. He could surely hear the sounds of the monsters gathered before them, if nothing else, and yet that smile on his face seemed completely genuine. Ruri wondered if he was crazy.

"Hey!" Zarakhel raised a hand in Alexandra's approximate direction, Idra guiding him from behind. "Let's make this quick, yeah? I got stuff to do!"

Alexandra sniffed. When she spoke, her voice was amplified -- new organs grown within her shell for just such a purpose -- echoing across Pyripa.

"Agreed. I have things to do as well," she said, droll. "For a Gene Noble, our creations are the same as our own body. So please rest assured…"

Zarakhel's smile faded, but it didn't fall.

Alexandra smiled enough for both of them. "...I still consider this to be one-on-one."

She snapped her fingers -- and the army charged.

One of the Giga-Pugnants by her side, a great grotesque troll, was the fastest to move, the thirstiest for blood. With a roar it pushed through the ranks before it, dragging a club of misshapen bone behind it before swinging the weapon at blinding speed right at Zarakhel's head. This was not a blow that would knock his head off. This was a blow that would turn him into spray.

This was it, Ruri thought. It had been an unorthodox suicide, but a suicide all the same.

Only, in the instant before the club made contact, Zarakhel Baras extended a hand to his side…

…and stopped it right in its tracks.

Black Aether sparked.

Zarakhel Baras didn't know if he'd ever felt this good in his life. His heart was dancing. His grin widened.

At first, he'd regarded the strange energy that Edgar and that woman had discovered with the utmost suspicion. To tell the truth, he'd thought it was some Gene Tyrant modification, dressed up in esoterica by his brother to make it more palatable, but no… this was different. This power didn't come from inside him at all -- only it did, but not his flesh.

The tyranny of genes was not a factor here. This was a light of the mind.

A blow that would have killed him was now as easily halted as a child's first punch. Zarakhel's grin widened further as he pushed against the club further, felt it creak before the pressure. He almost felt like his gums might start bleeding from sheer glee.

Ah… he thought. Now I can kill anyone.

The Aether coursed about his body like a shroud, a three-dimensional shadow of dark electricity. As he pushed, he poured that Aether into his hand, empowering the strike to such a degree that the bone club shattered like glass. It was just as Edgar had said -- Aether empowered. Zarakhel laughed hysterically as he heard the telltale crack of the enemy's wrist snapping along with the weapon.

Then he heard the sounds of the rest of the army charging.

To tell the truth, they'd been hoping they could lure Alexandra into a one-on-one confrontation and then kill her off quick with the bag of tricks they'd developed. But that had been a long shot from the start. The Gene Tyrants might be arrogant, but they weren't stupid.

And so…

…they'd come here fully prepared to take on an army.

"To Me!" Idra called, crimson Aether shining from his throat as his words boomed out.

This was no mere rallying cry, though.

This was a signal to this strange power they had found.

The moment those words left his lips, Idra was no longer alone. Five other soldiers stood around him, their bodies also shining with Aether of various colours. Idra had marked them beforehand, with their permission, and now he could call these troops directly to his position by simply calling those words.

Edgar had explained this unique ability as they were developing it, but Idra was fairly sure he'd extracted the information from that strange automatic of his. When Idra marked another Aether warrior, leaving a tiny trace of his Aether on them, he could then absorb them into that Aether and transmit them to his current location, bringing them back into reality with little to no travel time. When Idra shouted 'To Me!', it served as a mnemonic that automatically triggered that process after they'd developed it manually. That was how Edgar had described it… but it honestly sounded more like magic to Idra.

Well, if magic would win them the day, then he'd happily wave a wand.

"To Me!"

"To Me!"

"To Me!"

With each shout, more and more warriors appeared around Idra, each ready and willing to leap into the fray.

Granba manifested in a flash, holding a shotgun in each of his four hands. He was already blasting, green sparks coursing around his weapons. They'd found that Aether could empower objects, not just their bodies, and Granba had been quick to take advantage.

Each shot blew holes through several enemies like they were made from paper. Quite the sight -- it was as if their inventor had turned into a living tank.

"To Me!"

Roland Nebula held his new greatsword in both hands as he marched forward with his men, slicing an enemy in twain between each step. While he too had saturated his weapon with Aether, he'd also poured it into his equipment -- the mechanical exoskeleton that assisted his movement.

With its functions bolstered, he was able to move like the terror of the battlefield he'd been in his youth. His grin was nearly as wide as Zarakhel's -- and his white beard and hair seemed to be glowing, an unusual side-effect of the Aether.

"To Me!"

Bieshu del Mar hit the ground running. The instant she appeared, she was a blur, cutting through enemies as if they were butter. She'd always been fast, but the enhancement of Aether had taken it into the realm of the absurd.

Many of the creatures that tried to strike back at her didn't even realize they'd been cut… not until their bodies suddenly exploded into cleanly-sliced chunks.

"To Me!"

No matter how hard they had tried, they hadn't been able to unlock Aether for the Fool. Perhaps he simply didn't have a complex enough mind to access the mysterious force -- but at any rate, they'd still been able to empower his body with their own Aether to boost his strength. He swept through the crowd of monsters with speed and force like never before.

Granba's green Aether would fade from the Fool's form in time, but for right now? He was elevated, just like they all had been.

Indeed… Idra could feel the hand of Yu here, an affection coursing through this strange Aether. He had studied Yu all his life -- the ultimate creator or creation or embodiment of this world -- but now, for the first time, he truly felt its presence. His Aether blazed sympathetically.

"To Me!"

"To Me!"

"To Me!"

"Secure that ridge!"

"Fire on the walls, cut off their escape!"

"Don't let them regroup!"

Usually, soldiers barking out their tactics like this would have to worry about their enemy hearing and adapting, but that wasn't a concern here. Idra hadn't come here with just one Aetheral power -- according to Edgar, he had a high level of aptitude with this force. His second power, Silent Choir, distorted the words of their soldiers to anyone who wasn't permitted to hear them.

To the ears of Alexandra and her ilk, this army that had suddenly appeared was speaking utter nonsense.

But, in the end, it wasn't what they heard that mattered. It was what -- or who -- they saw.

Azez stepped forward, golden Aether crackling around him, leaving glass footprints behind from the sheer heat his body was exuding against the bloody sands. His soldiers stepped aside for him, their faces cast with reverence and awe. If Idra didn't have a god already, he might have given Azez a fair shot at the job.

To her credit, Alexandra the Grotesquerie Princess hadn't fled once the expected massacre had blossomed into an actual battle. She walked through the carnage, more leisurely than Azez's resolve but just as deadly -- spiked tendrils decapitating anything that came too close. Her pink eyes brightened into a vivid red as she faced off against her counterpart.

The battle still raged around them, a frantic cacophony of thousands of mad souls fighting for survival, but Idra swore he'd have been able to hear whatever was spoken here with perfect clarity.

"You really think you have a chance?" Alexandra sneered, looking down at him.

Azez tapped the corner of his lips, and Idra dutifully lowered Silent Choir, just for a moment.

"No," he said. "We have certainty."

Olga had been assassinated, caught by surprise without any chance to fight back, for there was no fight at all.

Elizabeth had been driven into an emotional corner, shattered by her own neuroses, taking her own life with her own flesh.

The murder of a god was nothing new to the Zeilan Morhan, but that was not what would happen today.

Today… they would have victory over a god.

Alexandra's fingers hardened into blood-red claws and -- with contemptuous ease -- she swept her hand to take Azez's head right off. Against anyone else, that certainly would have worked. Six months ago, it would have worked against Azez.

But now? Now that the golden light of the mind shone around Azez with such ferocity?

By the time Alexandra moved her hand, Azez had already darted in, his fist pulled back…

…and, with the fury of a galaxy underfoot, he slammed a payload of nuclear fire directly into Alexandra's brain.