CHAPTER 221: CHAPTER 221: THE CHALLENGER

"There are no gods in this void, only survivors. And now, a challenger."

The Chaos Dragon, Mainu, roared, a sound of cosmic fury. The pain from the Mars strike was a burning ember in its side, a constant, irritating reminder of the audacity of these "insects." Its golden eyes, still blazing with rage, swept across the human fleet. They were scattered, but still firing.

Mainu’s vast body began to shimmer. Its psionic shield, instead of expanding to deflect the incoming barrage, compressed. It wrapped tighter around its form, shrinking, becoming denser, almost solid gold. The Dragon itself seemed to shrink slightly, its colossal mass compacting, its power focusing inward. It was a new defensive posture, designed for concentrated attacks rather than wide-area defense.

Then, with a guttural snarl, Mainu unleashed a beam of energy. Not the wide, sweeping blasts from before, but a focused, piercing lance of pure destructive force. It shot towards the firing line of Strike Team Gamma ships, a silver-hot spear of light. The beam tore through the void, hitting the UEDCC Destroyer Valiant-II. Its shields, already weakened from the initial barrage, collapsed in an instant. The ship buckled, then exploded, a silent, expanding fireball. Mainu slowly turned its head, methodically sweeping the beam across the scattered line of battlecruisers and battleships, picking them off one by one, turning them into expanding clouds of superheated debris.

The Paladin mechas, witnessing the brutal efficiency of the Dragon’s attack, weren’t deterred. Their internal comms buzzed with grim acknowledgments of losses, but their mission remained. "Maintain vectors! Keep pushing!!" Captain Mei Lin’s voice crackled, defiant. They continued their relentless charge towards the Dragon, a swarm of black and yellow against the golden behemoth.

As the Chaos Dragon was busy unleashing its devastating beam, a sudden, sharp explosion occurred on its face. Not a direct hit from a ship, but something smaller, faster. Though protected by its compressed shield, the impact still sent a jolt through its mind. The beam stopped. What was that? Mainu’s golden eyes snapped around, scanning the void. It looked everywhere, its senses straining.

Then it spotted them. A few slow-moving missiles, mere specks against the stars, still approaching. They were modified torpedoes from the Pilum-One

, designed for a specific velocity to bypass its phase shield. Mainu snarled, recognizing the distinct energy signature. It unleashed a quick, focused beam, incinerating the approaching projectiles before they could connect.

On the bridge of the UEDCC Battlecruiser Retribution, Fleet Admiral Archembeau shouted, her voice raw. "Fire! Fire! Distract it! Don’t let it find Pilum-One! Full spread! Keep its attention!" Out of the fifty-four ships of Strike Team Gamma, twenty-three ships, battered but still operational, fired back on the Dragon, their weapons spitting defiance. Their attacks were absorbed by Mainu’s shield, but they served their purpose: keeping the Dragon engaged.

Mainu, irritated, its ancient patience wearing thin, snarled. These insects are really starting to piss me off! As it was about to fly towards them, to personally tear them apart, the Dragon felt a sudden, sharp pain. Not from a distant shot, but from something close. Something on its body.

Finally, the one hundred fifty cloaked Paladin mechas decloaked. They had used the Dragon’s focus on the distant ships to close the distance, moving with silent precision. They were now at its rear, a swarm of black and yellow armored giants. Thirty of them, the close-combat specialists, immediately engaged. They were a quarter of its size, but their plasma-blades hummed, tearing at the edges of its compressed shield, seeking any weakness. They swarmed against its legs, its tail, its unprotected joints, a relentless, buzzing assault. The other one hundred twenty Paladins maintained a distance, firing plasma bolts at it from all angles, a continuous, stinging barrage that forced Mainu to keep its shield active, draining its energy.

Mainu roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated fury. "You bastards!!" It was being swarmed by insects. This was it. It unleashed a wave of energy, a concentrated psionic pulse that radiated outward. It wasn’t just an EMP; these psionic energies disrupted natural electronics at a fundamental level, bypassing even advanced anti-EMP modules. It was a single, devastating weakness against all electronics. The thirty mechas engaging in close combat immediately immobilized. Their systems went dark. Their thrusters cut out. Their weapons powered down. They floated, helpless.

Mainu, its golden eyes burning, took its time. It snarled, a predatory satisfaction in its voice. "Now, you die." It tore through the immobilized squadron, its claws ripping through armor, its teeth crushing cockpits. Paladin mechas, once formidable, were now just scrap metal, twisted and broken.

Paladin mechas in the distance, witnessing the brutal slaughter of their comrades, roared with rage. "Reinforce! Rush in! Distract it!" New squadrons of Paladins, ignoring the danger, rushed close in hopes of distracting it, drawing its attention away from the helpless.

Then, another nuclear explosion bloomed in space, directly on Mainu’s back. Then another. And another. The Pilum-One had launched its modified nuclear warheads, timing them to hit the Dragon’s exposed body while it was distracted. Mainu’s shield flickered violently, struggling to re-engage, overwhelmed by the sudden, massive energy spikes. The third explosion hit, a blinding flash. Fortunately, the Dragon moved just in time, a desperate surge of speed carrying it away from the epicenter of the blast. But a searing pain on its back, a massive, smoking crater, marked the damage.

Mainu cursed, its voice a guttural snarl of agony. These... these are not primitives!

Then, the void around Mainu exploded with light. One hundred sixty-seven ships, including the dreadnoughts—the TRC’s flagship Apocalypse and the UEDCC’s USS Da Vinci—came out of warp, surrounding Mainu in a vast, overwhelming circle. Their weapon ports glowed, charged and ready.

Mainu looked around. Its golden eyes, now wide with a mix of pain and dawning realization, scanned the armada. It felt the pain, a constant throb in its shoulder, its back, its torn wing. No matter how he regenerated, the pain still occurred. There was just one thing the Dragon had forgotten, or perhaps, didn’t know about: the cumulative radiation from the early explosions of the Rising Sun and the recent nuclear blasts it had barely avoided. No matter the regeneration, its muscles and tissues were slowly degrading, poisoned by the sheer energy it had absorbed. The amount of energy it had already spent on the shield and constant regeneration was already taking a toll on its ancient reserves.

A strange smile touched its vast maw, a mix of exhilaration and grim acceptance. "For five hundred thousand millennia," Mainu’s voice boomed across the comms, no longer static, but clear, resonant, filled with a newfound respect. "I finally feel the exhilaration of battle. I commend your fighting abilities, humans. Even though you’re all weak individually, for the first time, you are the only race that had managed to injure me and fought me this long. The other races, would’ve ran away like cowards. And that is good. I’m going to take you seriously from now on. I’m going to show you how I defeated your guardian dragon, Terralia. I will show you the true power of Chaos."

The Chaos Dragon began to channel energy. Its crystalline and golden scales, once so brilliant, began to crack, shedding like molten gold. Beneath them, new scales emerged, dark purple, almost black, pulsating with a malicious, hungry energy. Its form began to shift, to grow, to twist into something even more terrifying. The admirals and captains, listening, felt a strange pride on the Dragon’s words, a validation of their struggle, even as they watched the horrifying transformation in fear. The Dragon wasn’t seriously fighting with them before? a captain thought, a cold dread settling in his stomach. The realization was chilling.

Then, in what seemed like an instant, a blinding light burst through the void. It wasn’t from a ship. It was a focused, powerful strike that hit Mainu directly in its chest, right as its transformation was reaching its peak. The Dragon’s transformation was violently halted. Mainu reeled from the sudden damage, a roar of shock and pain ripping from its throat, echoing across the solar system.

Everyone was shocked by what had happened. Their sensors flared, trying to pinpoint the source. Then, they saw it. A blue and silver mecha, impossibly sleek, impossibly fast. Two hundred fifty feet tall, it hovered before the reeling Dragon, its form radiating power.

It was Richard, in the Prometheus X-19. He had arrived.