The chitinous horde poured down the ribbed vaults like a wave of boiling tar.
Hundreds of Gorgorath Skitter-Stalkers—eight-legged horrors with needle-sharp mandibles and bloated, violet-veined abdomens—screeched in dissonant unison, their talons clicking against the ancient star-metal arches. From the gaping shadows ahead, the stench of sour venom and rotting marrow hit the vanguard like a physical blow.
"Colossi, hold fire!" Aurelia commanded, her voice ringing clear over the chittering swarm. "Do not risk collapsing the vault roof with thermal cannons! Vanguard, defensive testudo!"
The front ranks of the Praetorian Legion snapped into motion with terrifying mechanical precision. Five hundred silver shields slammed together with a deafening metallic report, locking into an impenetrable wall of celestial alloy. Behind the shield-wall, the second rank leveled their twelve-foot halberds, the tip of each star-metal blade crackling with dormant dawn-fire.
"Let the dogs break against the wall," Malakor growled, swinging down from his battle-strider with lethal grace.
His boots struck the stone, Void-Reaver trailing ribbons of ravenous black smoke that licked at the flagstones. His nether-aura expanded violently, rolling past the Praetorian lines like a wall of living shadow. The sheer gravitational pressure of his presence made the lead wave of Skitter-Stalkers hesitate, their multifaceted eyes burning with primal fear.
"They brought brood-spitters," Aurelia warned, dismounting beside him.
She unsheathed her rapier. The blade erupted into an incandescent corona of silver-blue frost, answering the steady thrum of the Six Shards. Above her head, the six-pointed sovereign crown flared to life, illuminating the darkness of the subterranean highway with radiant, daylight clarity.
From the rear of the swarm, four hulking Brood-Spitters—massive, quadrupedal abominations with maw-like throats lined with acidic pustules—heaved backward, preparing to unleash torrents of corrosive green bile over the legion's shields.
"I have the spitters," Malakor rasped, his eyes flashing with feral bloodlust.
"I have the ceiling," Aurelia replied, stepping in lockstep with him.
Malakor exploded forward.
He didn't merely run; he blurred through the air, tearing through the gap in the Praetorian ranks like a dark comet. When he hit the swarm, the impact pulverized the front rank into ichor and shattered carapace. Void-Reaver cleaved through the air in wide, brutal arcs, each swing shearing through multiple beasts, black-iron blades tearing flesh and soul alike.
A Brood-Spitter unleashed a torrent of acid directly at him; Malakor didn't even sidestep. Raising his left gauntlet, he channeled a localized singularity. The corrosive bile was sucked into the swirling void-shield, compressed into a dense orb of dark energy, and hurled straight back into the spitter's open throat. The beast detonated from within in a shower of steaming, acidic gore.
Simultaneously, Aurelia went airborne.
With a beat of her crystalline astral wings, she soared into the upper vault of the highway. Her hazel eyes burned with celestial authority as she locked onto the hundreds of stalkers clinging to the ceiling ribs.
She drew upon the Second and Sixth Shards—the Torrent and the Astral Catalyst. Thrusting her rapier toward the cavern apex, she whispered a singular decree:
"Glacial Stasis."
A ripple of blinding, sapphire-white cold radiated outward from the tip of her blade. It did not strike like a blunt hammer; it moved like liquid starlight, racing along the star-metal ribs of the highway with the speed of thought.
Every Skitter-Stalker touching the metal was flash-frozen in a fraction of a heartbeat. Their bio-luminescent fluids turned to solid ice, their limbs crystallized, and their screeches died in their throats.
With a sweep of her arm, Aurelia inverted the gravity along the ceiling.
Thousands of frozen horrors detached from the stone, plunging downward like a lethal hail of ice.
Below, the Praetorian Legion stepped forward as one. "Thrust!" Legate Vael-Thur roared. Five hundred halberds punched upward in unison, shattering the falling, frozen beasts into harmless diamond powder before they could touch the floor.
Within two minutes, the chittering horde had ceased to exist.
Aurelia descended slowly, her wings dissolving into shimmering motes of starlight as her boots clicked softly on the frost-dusted flagstones. The air was frigid, thick with the scent of frozen ichor and ozone.
Malakor walked back toward her, wiping a smear of black blood from his cheek with the back of his heavy gauntlet. His chest heaved with slow, rhythmic power, his crimson gaze burning with unmasked, possessive triumph as he looked upon his empress.
He stepped directly into her space, his towering frame cutting off the view of the marching ranks. Without a word, his hand rose, his fingers curling gently around the nape of her neck, pulling her close until her breath brushed his collar.
"Flawless, little star," he murmured, his gravelly voice thick with raw battle-heat. "You froze the roof before they could drop a single drop of bile on my back."
Aurelia smiled against his chest, her hands resting flat against the cold steel of his cuirass. "I told you, Malakor. You don't have to watch your back when I am in the air."
Malakor’s crimson eyes darkened, and he pressed a fierce, lingering kiss to the crown of her head.
"The Lake of Glass lies just beyond this arch," he said, turning her toward the massive obsidian vault doors at the end of the road. "Let us go crack the ice."