Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Final Boarding Call

"Architect's balls!"

Should have expected that to be Celex's first words upon seeing the incarnation of chaos itself, though Adam had the distinct feeling that the architect's balls were a bit of an understatement when it came to what they were now witnessing.

None of the other Makers looked particularly pleased at the Ex emperor's outburst, but at this point Adam was under the impression there were much bigger fish to fry than Celex's irreverence.

"Black holes." Sunny muttered her voice dragged down with the weight of its own gravity, "Does Anyone else feel incredibly stupid for not putting that together until now." Adam grunted in agreement, he couldn't help but feel the exact same thing she was feeling. Before them, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* spun, shedding escaping light from the very edges of its outer event horizon, where light was still fast enough to escape the pull of incredible gravity.

And all around it, a hazy cloud of red.

At first Adam had thought it an incomprehensible mass, and maybe that was the case, and his human mind was finding patterns where there was none, but looking at the red haze that spilled out and around the blak hole, reaching tendrils into the darkness, he got the sense of a massive creature, with a massive presence to match, the cold and abiding chill that had rooted itself in Adam's chest, not a new fear, but an old fear.

One that had been chewing at his guts since his soul came to fruition.

And it wasn't alone: spattering the darkness that surrounded the black hole, and its massive, reaching creature, there were ships, thousands of them, maker ships, Kree ships, human ships, and other ships Adam did not recognize, an entire armada just for them, and at it's head, a massive spiked beast, almost as big as the empyrean, and radiating the silky orange light of recycled maker souls.

And orbiting it all, the Necratorium, sharp funnel of light reaching its orange glow into the reaches of space, from whence the souls of the damned spilled like a cascade

The shadows on the Empyrean continued to deepen, until it felt like the light was struggling to chase back an impending tide of black tar.

He shivered.

"This is it." He said softly

"This is it." Sunny agreed.

"Fuck me." Ramirez muttered.

At first it was simply them, alone against what seemed to be an enemy tide, but then, one by one other ships came flashing into existence behind them, white and glazed gold with true maker power. First tens than hundreds and then thousands of ships appearing behind them in wave after wave forming up behind them in a grid of ships ready to take on the army that lay before them.

But still Adam felt small

They had Apollyon

"Don't suppose this is an appropriate time to ask where the hell the architect is." Adam wondered

Below him Adham, standing with hands on his hips gazing out the window and towards the field of battle, shook his head, "I don't know where he is."

Ramirez snorted in incredulity, "You lost god?"

Adham frowned at him, "I am not our father's keeper; besides, he has a preference for personal descretion. I rarely know where he is at any given time."

"Don't tell me this is going to be like one of those urban fantasy tv shows where god is totally real, but he's like a really shitty absentee parent." Ramirez muttered

Sunny gave him a look, "That is oddly specific."

"Not really. Movie studios think it's edgy, but when everyone is going edgy, no one is being edgy."