[Oliver's PoV]

  “Stay close. Don’t fall behind,” Oliver warned, his voice low but firm as his boots crunched against the blackened earth.

  The Hoplites followed in tight formation. Each of them carried fragments of burning wreckage as makeshift torches. The parasites that lurked in the shadows recoiled from the heat, retreating into the darkness.

  Ahead, the rhythmic beep… beep… beep of the locator grew faster, echoing faintly through the desolate landscape.

  The signal was getting stronger.

  They were heading north, toward where most of the other ships had fallen. The fires from their wrecks still burned in the distance. But it wasn’t clear whether the beacon they were following came from one of those ships or from something far older.

  'Was it already here?' Oliver wondered. 'Or did one of the nobles bring it with them?'

  The thought unsettled him. The Unique Crystals weren’t supposed to be found by accident. If the sensor was picking up a signal strong enough to trigger an alert, that meant it wasn’t just a fragment. It was a core.

  And that meant trouble.

  Oliver took point, using Energy to scan the terrain. Even without light, he could feel the Energy around him, ripples in the air that marked life, movement, and danger.

  Still, they kept their emergency lights on, sweeping the beams across the ruins in search of anything useful.

  The landscape had changed as they moved.

  At first, it was barren, flat plains of ash and stone, broken only by the occasional crater or jagged ridge. However, now, the shapes around them were changing. Structures began to rise from the darkness: ruined walls, skeletal towers, the remnants of a city that had once been.

  The buildings were massive, their architecture alien yet hauntingly familiar. Wide streets, cracked and buried beneath centuries of dust. Some of the structures still stood tall, defying time and decay, while others had collapsed.

  To the north, the skyline was broken by a single, towering shape. A hexagonal spire rose impossibly high, vanishing into the black clouds above.

  Oliver stared at it, while the question continued to pop into his mind. 'Which one?'

  There were still five Unique Crystals unaccounted for. Six sources of unimaginable power scattered across the galaxy.

  'White, Green, Purple, Orange, Silver, and Gold.'

  The Green was in the hands of the Elves. The Purple and White were believed to be within Human territory, though no one could confirm their exact location. The Orange remained a mystery, its existence whispered about but never proven.

  As for the Silver and Gold, they had found fragments, but never the source. The roots of those Crystals were still missing.

  Oliver’s soldiers were scattered across the galaxy, chasing rumors. 'One was after the Silver. Three was tracking the Orange. Neither had reported anything that connected to this planet.'

  So what was drawing them here?

  The faint beep of the locator broke through his thoughts.

  Before them was a light.

  At first, it was faint, barely visible through the swirling dust and darkness. Yet as they advanced, it grew brighter.

  “Sir,” one of the Hoplites said, his voice low. “There's something ahead.”

  Oliver nodded once, motioning for them to move. The four soldiers crept through the ruins.

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  They rounded a corner and stopped.

  The source of the light came into view.

  An enormous ship lay half-buried in the ruins of what had once been a city block. Its hull was scorched and torn open, the blackened metal glowing with heat. Even from a distance, Oliver recognized the unmistakable silhouette and size of a Dreadnought.

  The crater stretched before them like a wound carved into the planet itself. It was vast. So deep and wide that it seemed as though a meteor or a bomb had struck, tearing the black earth apart and hurling fragments of it for miles. The ground sloped sharply downward, and the soil cracked and scorched.

  “Did the parasites do this?” one of the Hoplites asked.

  “Yes,” Oliver replied grimly, scanning the perimeter. He could feel it, their Energy. “They’re still here. They’re keeping to the shadows, avoiding the burning wreckage. Stay sharp and keep moving.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The four of them moved carefully down the slope, sliding through loose soil and debris. The heat intensified as they descended, the fires below painting their armor in hues of red and orange.

  “Whose ship do you think it was?” one of the Hoplites asked.

  “Hard to say,” another answered, crouching near a bent piece of hull plating. “No clear insignia.”

  “From the structure…” Oliver paused mid-stride, scanning the twisted remains of the hull. He focused, trying to summon the memory of his past [Insight]'s. “It looks like Lot’s engineering or maybe something from the Republic of Enceladus.”

  One of the Hoplites behind him muttered, his voice low and uneasy. “Then they crashed too.”

  “Yes… and they might still be close,” Oliver replied.

  While the group pressed forward, one of the Hoplites stopped.

  He froze mid-step, his head turning slightly. “Did you hear that?” he asked quietly.

  Oliver halted, turning back toward him. “Hear what?”

  The silence that followed was oppressive. The only sounds were the faint hum of their armor and the distant hiss of cooling metal.

  Oliver’s instincts prickled. He couldn’t see movement in the darkness beyond their lights, but something felt wrong.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and reached out with his senses, expanding his awareness.

  And then he heard it.

  Not one sound, but two.

  The first came from ahead—a sharp, high-pitched crack, followed by a thunderous boom that echoed across the crater. The second came from behind, deeper, muffled, more like a distant explosion beneath the earth.

  The shockwaves rolled through the ground, shaking the debris around them. Dust and ash rose into the air, and for a moment, the faint flicker of the fires vanished.

  When Oliver’s senses recalibrated, he felt it.

  A massive surge of Energy, pulsing like a heartbeat, moving toward them.

  “Run,” Oliver said quietly at first, then louder. “Run! Whatever that is, we don’t want to meet it. Not with the parasites so close. Move!”

  The Hoplites didn’t hesitate. They broke into a sprint. The ground beneath them trembled again, the vibrations growing stronger, closer.

  Oliver’s pulse quickened. “Faster!” he shouted.

  The beeping that had guided them was now nearly constant.

  Then came the blast.

  It wasn’t so much a sound as a force. A deep, resonant concussion that rolled across the crater like thunder.

  “Move!” Oliver shouted, raising an arm to shield his visor as the shockwave slammed into them. The blast hit like a physical wall, throwing dust and ash into the air.

  The others stumbled as they fought to stay upright.

  “Don’t stop! Keep moving!” Oliver barked, his voice cutting through the chaos.

  They pushed forward, half-blind, running through the haze as the echoes of the blast faded into the distance.

  “What the hell was that?” one of the Hoplites called out.

  Oliver didn’t answer immediately. He could feel more Energy sources ahead of them. They weren't parasites; it was something else.

  “Stay sharp,” he said finally. “Whatever’s ahead, it’s not the slimes.”

  They crested the edge of the crater and emerged onto what had once been a street. The ruins here were different, less destroyed, almost preserved. The path sloped upward, lined with the remains of ancient buildings, leading to a single structure dominating the horizon.

  The tower.

  It loomed before them, impossibly tall and geometric, its hexagonal shape cutting into the clouds above.

  As they reached the end of the ruined street, the terrain opened up into what might once have been a park. Cracked pavement gave way to patches of black soil, and the remnants of trees long turned to stone. At the center of it all stood the tower’s entrance, a massive archway framed by broken statues and the faint glow of energy lines running along the ground.

  “There.” One of the Hoplites pointed ahead. “That’s got to be it. The signal’s strongest there.”

  Oliver nodded. “Alright. Inside. Move—”

  He didn’t finish.

  The ground shook again, harder this time.

  “Contact!” a Hoplite shouted.

  But it wasn’t an attack. Not on them.

  In the center of the park, two figures collided, their impact sending a visible wave of energy through the air.

  Two entities were locked in combat—one wearing a Black Armor, the other a Green Armor.

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