With the Pearl of the Void-Siren woven into their neural network, the armada moved through the Outer Rift as a flawless, single organism.
Five million light-years melted away beneath the synchronized pulse of their fold-drives.
When the two hundred star-dreadnoughts tore back into real-space, the velvet darkness was choked by a sickly, luminous emerald fog.
Before them hung the Smaragdine Grave.
At its center burned a dying green star—a bloated celestial corpse that had long since exhausted its hydrogen, now bleeding rivers of liquid beryllium and radioactive emerald plasma into the surrounding void.
Encircling this poisoned sun was a planetary-scale ring-system of petrified bone.
They were not asteroids.
They were the fossilized vertebrae, skulls, and ribcages of ancient cosmic drakes, thousands of leagues across, strung together by hardened marrow like a macabre necklace around the dying star.
And deep within the coronal mantle of that green sun, coiled around its glowing iron heart, slept the fifth horror:
Nidhogg-Prime, the Devourer of Roots.
On the bridge of the Sol-Invictus, the sensor telemetry scrolled with catastrophic radiation readings.
"The coronal atmosphere is saturated with radioactive jade plasma," General Aurelius reported, his knuckles white against the rail.
"The radiation is decaying at a molecular level. Conventional energy shields will lose structural integrity within twelve minutes of atmospheric insertion."
"Twelve minutes is an eternity in an emergency room," Seraphina replied, stepping to the forward console.
Her Astral Empress Armor gleamed, reflecting the emerald glare in soft white-gold hues.
Her golden crescent mark burned at the base of her throat, thrumming with intense, diagnostic clarity.
"The green plasma isn't natural stellar fusion. It's a localized cytotoxic reaction. Nidhogg-Prime is an apex cellular parasite; he's using the dying star as a necrotic tumor, siphoning its heavy elements into his scales to build an adamantine carapace."
"Then we lance the tumor," Kaelen Vance rumbled darkly at her side.
He stood close, his broad, armored shoulder pressing against hers, his scent of midnight smoke and cedar cutting through the ozone tang of the bridge.
His large hand slid over her lower back, his fingers tracing the curve of her waist through her battle-corset in a slow, reassuring stroke that sent a spark of warmth straight into her blood.
His molten silver eyes burned with lethal calculation as he surveyed the bone-ring.
"Nidhogg-Prime cannot maintain his armor without the star's magnetic feeding conduits," Kaelen noted.
"If the fleet bombards the four primary bone-nodes in the ring with Hearth-Core plasma lances, we sever the siphon. His carapace will destabilize, dropping his armor integrity by half."
"And while the armada shatters the bone-ring," Seraphina added, her lips curving into a fierce smile as she turned to meet his silver gaze, "we dive into the corona and drive a stake through his heart."
"A surgical strike into the belly of a poisoned sun," Kaelen purred huskily, his eyes darkening with raw, intoxicating admiration.
He bent his head, closing the distance between them until his mouth hovered a breath away from hers.
"You are reckless, my Queen. Utterly, magnificently reckless."
"I learned it from you, Vance," she whispered back, her breath mingling with his.
Kaelen’s mouth crashed down upon hers in a fierce, breathless, deeply possessive kiss that tasted of iron, ozone, and eternal promise.
His arm clamped around her hips, pulling her flush against his hard frame, chasing away the dread of the green radiation before the eyes of the entire bridge crew.
He broke the kiss with a wicked, predatory grin, his gaze snapping to General Aurelius.
"Aurelius, all one hundred and fifty Gilded Wing dreadnoughts form a firing arc! Target the four bone-nodes simultaneously! Maximum fire from the Hearth-Core lances!"
"Firing now, Grand Marshal!" Aurelius roared.
Across the Smaragdine Grave, the armada unleashed a catastrophic volley of crimson-gold plasma.
The lances struck the massive bone-nodes with planet-cracking force, shattering the ancient vertebrae into millions of burning fragments and severing the magnetic conduits feeding the poisoned star.
Down inside the coronal mantle, a deafening, reality-splitting roar tore through the void.
The dying green star churned as a titanic shape uncoiled from its heart.
Ten leagues of emerald-scaled horror, crowned with six curved dragon horns and eyes like pools of radioactive fire, rose into the corona:
Nidhogg-Prime was awake.