DESOLATION

“If only the lights were signs of salvation instead of destruction.”

I stood looking out over a vast expanse of an Alien landscape. The city below was under attack. There were drop ships coming in, dropping off the zombie-like Reaper troops. They swarmed out and towards the city in massive groups of undead flesh. The drop ship would then elevate and hover above the battlefield. The necromancer controller had to be in the ship, guiding the platoons of Reapers to stream forth like the bursting of a festering boil into the beleaguered city. I could see there was still resistance from the living.

Explosive bolts of fire, black swirls of shadow and sizzling streams of lightning issued forth from various places along the surrounding walls into the attacking undead. Sadly it made hardly a dent and already in several places the Reapers swarmed over the walls, overcoming the barrier with hardly a stall in their progress. As I watched, the defending magical blasts lessened, and the fight began to move to within the city. Flashes of light from between the buildings and explosions slowed the zombie advance. As the Reapers consumed their enemy, the dead and dying became part of the Reaper army. It was a terrible tragedy. Most of those people being killed and consumed were everyday Scalar. A race who had been fighting these Reapers for over a hundred years. The four armed, three-eyed people were strong physically and yet could not fight this kind of onslaught.

The Reapers had been holding back before, I knew that now. I didn't know why, but for sure they were toying with this world. They made the city burn within half a day and literally doubled their fighting force in the process. It was little wonder that the Absinthe who had recruited me were afraid of this foe. The twelve drop-ships hovering above the city were under no threat as they guided their minions wreaking havoc below. It was truly an unfair fight, and it left me feeling frustrated and bereft.

It had taken me five days to get here from my grave back in a science facility. A place I had killed a Reaper Officer with a great deal of luck, and in the process had destroyed the research facility. Buried underground, protected only by an epic item I had been gifted. The pure force of activating my protection shield had opened my magical ways to enable me to use up to Tier 8 magic, something I was still coming to terms with. The explosion and subsequent collapse had killed me outright, but because of an upgrade feature that allowed nanobots within my body to restore my life even after death had rendered my internal organs useless, I could revive. The restoration was within certain limits, so, fortunately, my death had not been the kind where my body was vaporized, although the shock wave produced by the explosives had made a lot of my body useless. These nanobots, powered from tachyon space could restore me to a living condition once the carnage of the explosion and subsequent collapse of the complex had settled. Somehow they had prevented my spirit from leaving and I had awakened to pain, confusion, and abilities I could never have dreamed of just two months previous. How things had changed.

It all started when I had been abducted from Earth and conscripted into the Absinthe secret military force. A new recruit of Earth Special Forces operatives, or commonly called ASS (Abductees Special Service) by us recruits. I had been introduced to nanotech and magic. Thanks to the exceptional abilities I had built up over a career of 30 years in various armed forces.

The Aliens had discovered I was one of a select few who had Prodigy abilities. I used the upgrades in ways that others could not. And now, before me lay the ruins of the nearest city on an alien planet called Scalaron. The very place I was heading towards to find refuge from the Reaper scourge. There would be no refuge there. This attack was most likely a response from the Reapers as punishment for killing one of their Necromancers whom I had called ‘Bruce”. His death had definitely stirred the hornets nest.

It was a grim thought and the Grim Reaper himself was having his fill. I was responsible for this, and as these thoughts settled on me, I felt a complete sense of helplessness. I had so many plans, so many thoughts on how to confront the Elf King for his betrayal, how to narrow down on the traitor within the Absinthe ship, and they all lay like pearls before swine as the undead army streamed into this soon-to-be ruin of a city.

Time past and the undead reaped all life from that strange and idyllic city. Medieval in its appearance, with hints of different advancements in architecture and technology that I was unfamiliar with. The spires and curves of taller buildings combining with the shabby shacks of the less wealthy, all blurry in the distance. All these accoutrements of the living were useless now. They held no refuge, no place to hide.

The Reapers had come to town and they were ripping it to shreds. The hopes and dreams of all those people lay in the dust where the dead became undead and the drop-ships swooped in and collected their now augmented ranks. I turned away, Despair filling my heart as I wondered what more I could do, rather than just spectate.

That’s when I felt it. It was the barest tremble. The ground was shaking. A slight unbalancing, then the shuddering as during an earthquake. That woozy feeling as the ground beneath your feet betrays you. I turned back to look at the city from my vantage point to pinpoint the disturbance.

Overlooking the entire scene and from within the center of the city a large column began to rise. It appeared to be an obelisk and it parted the earth as it rose, throwing buildings aside. Plumes of dust and debris the only witness while it inexorably stretched out of the earth towards the sky in what appeared to be a last ditch effort of pleading to the God’s for salvation. On its pinnacle was a radiant pulsating light. It was a weird light, seeming to be eternally bright and yet at its very center there was a void that beckoned. A darkness that swallowed all the light. This contrast was misleading. Perhaps the light was so intense that not even my eyes could comprehend it. It appeared like a blacker than black gem, yet exuded such luminance that you wanted to shield your eyes.

The light grew in intensity and the drop-ships above the city began to retreat. The ones on the ground were still open and receiving the streams of zombie passengers. They lit their respective thrusters and tried to take off. But by then it was far, far too late.

The radiant light, ever brighter and painful to look at, sent out a spherical blast of energy. The pulse a veritable wave of searing destruction. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and it sped out in a massive ever-expanding sphere. I saw the ships closest, poised like vultures in the sky, lose all power. Like falling rotting fruit. They simply fell from the sky, crashing and exploding as they met the unforgiving earth. The impacts the result of the unstoppable force of gravity meeting the immovable object of the ground. The long lines of Reaper troops streaming out of the city all fell where they were. Their undead animation ended. The strings of the puppet master’s cut so suddenly and so soundly that the world seemed to be on pause. That time itself held its breath and refused to witness this travesty.

I stood in amazement, watching this all play out. Of the twelve Reaper drop-ships, only one had escaped the blast radius and it accelerated away and up as fast as it could go, slightly ahead of the ever expanding sphere. Was it an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) blast? I didn’t know, but I could see the blast force crashing like a ripple across the landscape. Heading out in every direction as it ate up the kilometres in an ever-expanding sphere. The city was at the epicentre and as it grew, I knew it was heading outwards towards me. What should I do? I had no idea what it was. Did it effect only the undead?

The ground rippled as it drew ever closer. Buckling the ground before it, and spreading towards me. Trees, shrubs, dust and stone all swallowed, pushed down and away. The kilometres of distance eaten up in a consistent and outward-bound force of incredible power and destruction. The shock wave spreading ever outward, ever nearer to my position. There was no way I could evade it. No way I could escape, no matter how fast I ran.

Settling the thought in my mind, accepting it, I created a force field around me and braced myself against a rock, hoping beyond hope that it would have some ability to protect me. I didn’t have huge reserves of magical power to tap into. Not like before when I had the magical sword's mana reserves to augment me. I only had what was within me. Within my core mana pool. It would have to do. I steeled my will and braced for impact. After all that I had been through, this would be a shitty way to die.

I was just an observer, just passing by. Excuse me, Don’t mind me. I’m not even from here.

None of that mattered. It arrived like an avenging angel and it swallowed my world in bright and all-pervading light, tinged with the darkest places, and then it seemed to rip me asunder and my mana bar drained so completely and so suddenly that I might as well have never had one. My vision blurred, and I fell unconscious. Dark ominous red lights blinking abstractly behind my fluttering lids as they seemed to close for the last time.