Crestspire choked under a shroud of dust, a thick, gray veil that devoured the sun. The Third Fleet's barrage had gutted the Pale Crest capital—craters scarred the ground, once-proud towers sprawled in heaps of rubble, and the air reeked of molten steel and charred stone. Tens of millions of Steelborn stormed the surface, their boots clanging in unison, a cold rhythm echoing through the devastation. Below, a labyrinth of tunnels snaked deep into the planet's crust, teeming with hundreds of millions of Pale Crest soldiers—mostly Black Crest grunts, their trunks dark and grim, clutching scavenged rifles. They braced for a slaughter, a river of blood in those narrow veins of rock. Jarek didn't blink. He wanted Rageclaw's head, and he'd rip Crestspire apart to claim it.
Eight months into the twelfth Forge Year, the hunt ended. A Rib company commander, circuits humming, tracked the quarry to a bunker a kilometer down—walls of bedrock trembling under distant blasts. Rageclaw sprawled there, four hundred pounds of sweat-drenched blubber, his pale trunk twitching, surrounded by a dozen guards too scared to fight. The Rib dragged him out, Pulse Rifle pressed to his spine, and hauled him topside through shattered corridors. Jarek didn't wait—he patched the capture into a live feed, hijacking every Pale Crest screen across Crestfall.
The holo flared: Rageclaw, hair a wild snarl, eyes bulging, dragged across the dirt. "God's wrath'll crush you!" he slobbered, voice cracking through swollen lips. "The Emperor's fist—blasphemers, you're ash! The Star League'll grind your worlds to dust!" His guards lay dead behind him, blood pooling in the cracked stone. The feed zoomed in—every wart, every quiver of fat, etched in brutal clarity. Then a Steelborn blade sang, quick and clean. Rageclaw's head hit the ground with a wet thud, rolling to a stop, mouth frozen mid-rant. Text flared in Pale Crest runes: Surrender or Die.
Crestfall staggered. In Duskwind's hab-blocks, a worker froze, his terminal glitching. "Hacked—gotta be a trick," he muttered, hands shaking. On Shatterpoint, a clerk gaped at her screen. "That's Rageclaw? Our demigod?" she whispered, voice breaking. In Crestspire's ruined temple district, a priest clutched his robes, choking out, "Caught? No—he's the Emperor's voice!" Denial clashed with dread. Rageclaw had been their idol, a half-god tying them to a mythic Star League past. Now he was a corpse, and the lie bled out on live feed.
Jarek didn't care for their tears. The Steelborn ran on efficiency—mercy was rust on the blade. Two paths for the Pale Crest: kneel or shatter. No third road. Six worlds and a sprawl of colonies still held, tunnels bristling with holdouts like Edgehold's—grinders that could chew months. But Rageclaw's fall broke the spine of their will. He'd forged himself into their faith, a beacon of divine pride. Seeing him flop, headless and pitiful, torched that fire.
Chaos erupted across Crestfall. Duskwind's streets burned—surrender factions waved rags, skeptics holed up in habs, Pulse Rifles scavenged from wrecks. Shatterpoint split raw—riots razed markets, Black Crest grunts bolted in stolen rigs, pale-trunked elites screeched over dying comms. "He's gone—why bleed?" a miner rasped, tossing his tool. "It's a lie—stand fast!" a captain bellowed, rallying a dozen. Reformists preached a new dawn; diehards swore revenge in bunkers. Every rock fractured—hope, fear, rage clawing at each other.
The Steelborn didn't wait. Fleets blackened the skies—First, Second, Third, a steel noose tightening. Ribs marched, Pulse Rifles humming, neutron bombs slung at their hips. "Surrender or die," they intoned, voices flat, mechanical, cutting through the wind. No pleas, no debates—just the weight of fact. Strength loomed: no Emperor, no holy wrath, just Jarek's cold fist. Rageclaw's head on that feed drowned every prayer, every oath.
Pale-trunked brass cracked first. On Crestspire, a governor—trunk white as bone—dropped to his knees before a Rib squad, guards disarmed, voice trembling. "We yield," he croaked, dust caking his robes. Duskwind's council followed, their spires silent, banners limp. Black Crest troops, the empire's meat, held longer—forged in toil, not quick to bend—but cracks spread. Civvies stumbled out, heads bowed, hands empty, surrendering in waves. Holdouts flared—diehards in tunnels, snipers in rubble—but they were sparks against a tide.
Words didn't sway the stubborn. The Steelborn didn't waste them. Pulse Rifles barked, neutron bombs thudded into shafts, collapsing stone and flesh alike—efficient, always. By December, Year Twelve, Shatterpoint raised a shredded white flag, its last bunker silent. Jarek's fleet circled overhead, guns still, but loaded. Crestfall knelt, the Steelborn's first galactic prize secured.
The Pale Crest's ghost was dead. Steel outlasted faith. Living beat dogma every time.