The air in the shattered heart of Sector Red-9 *screamed*. Not with sound, but with the sheer, violent pressure of spacetime tearing itself apart. Korvax Khan-Zereth, the Exiled Star, hung suspended before the ruptured reactor core, no longer slumped in feigned weakness, but radiating terrifying power. Boiling chronomatter surged around him like a sentient tide, responding to his will. The temporal fissure yawned wider, offering fleeting, horrifying glimpses of the Eclipse Queens – Vespera's silver wings, Pyra's molten braids, Isara's gravity rings, Myrmyx's prismatic swarm – their collective gaze pouring power *into* him through the thinning veil.
**"HIT HIM! NOW!"** Kael's shout was raw, swallowed by the thundering distortion.
Kairo reacted instantly. **"Tempest Nest!"** He slammed his plasma-pronged staff into the irradiated permacrete. A dome of buzzing, blinding electric current erupted around Korvax, formed by Kairo's unleashed **Hive Sting** micro-drones. Lightning arced, seeking the fractured armor, the flickering crown, the pools of chronomatter. The drones zapped and stung, a storm of disruptive energy.
Simultaneously, Kael pushed his **Cryo-Drift** to its limit. Ice crystals bloomed in the superheated air around him. **"Blizzard Vector!"** A radial wave of absolute cold exploded outwards, aimed at Korvax and the surging chronomatter. Time thickened, slowed. The boiling sludge seemed to hesitate, its furious motion chilling into sluggishness. Kael's Temporal HUD showed Korvax's form flickering – vulnerable, perhaps, within the frozen moment.
Lyra screamed, pointing upwards. Through the temporal fissure, Empress Pyra Seraphine raised a hand wreathed in nuclear plasma. A fraction of her power, channeled through the link, pulsed towards the slowing chronomatter around Korvax. It wasn't an attack; it was *ignition*.
The frozen chronomatter detonated.
Not with heat, but with a shattering wave of *temporal force*. The **Tempest Nest** dome imploded, Kairo's drones dissolving into sparks. Kael's Cryo wave shattered like glass, the backlash sending him sprawling, gasping as Timeburn flashed through him – months of aging compressed into seconds of agony. The explosion ripped through the chamber, hurling Kael, Kairo, and Lyra backwards like ragdolls. Kairo slammed into a twisted girder, his cloak glitching violently. Lyra crumpled, her synthetic body sparking. Kael skidded across the rough ground, Chrono Fang flying from his grasp, his vision blurring with temporal feedback and pain.
Above the maelstrom, Korvax laughed. It was a sound devoid of mirth, echoing with the cold vacuum of the void. The chronomatter explosion hadn't harmed him; it had *fueled* him. His anti-matter crown blazed with renewed, malevolent light. The temporal fissure snapped shut, but the connection remained, a psychic umbilical cord feeding him the combined might of the Eclipse Queens. He raised a hand, not towards the fallen heroes, but towards the city above.
***//NEO-DOJO TEMPLES. PRIMARY SANCTUARIES OF ASTRA.//***
***//CONVERT. ASSIMILATE. SERVE THE CHRONO-SOVEREIGN.//***
His mental command, amplified to godlike intensity, ripped through the Astral Flow, a psychic tsunami washing over Neo-Cosmonopolis.
***
High above the Undercity, within the serene, holographic gardens of the primary **Neo-Dojo Temple of the Azure Crane**, Master Tengu Ryujin paused mid-meditation. His cybernetic ocular implants flared neon blue, not with data, but with sudden, searing pain. A discordant shriek – Korvax's command – tore through the tranquil Astral resonance of the temple.
"Students! Shields!" Ryujin roared, his voice cutting through the rising psychic static. He planted his staff, channeling his Gravity and Plasma-Dragon energy. **"Tengu's Gale!"** A vortex of swirling air and golden plasma erupted around him, a desperate defense.
Too late.
The command wasn't just sound; it was a neural *virus*, woven from Korvax's Chrono-Imperium and amplified by the Queens. It bypassed conventional defenses, targeting the very Astral Gates within the Masters and senior disciples. Across the temple grounds, warriors cried out. Their eyes, moments ago filled with focus and discipline, glazed over. The serene blue light of their Astral Flow flickered, then darkened, replaced by a sickly, pulsating crimson.
Master Ryujin watched in horror as Master Sorin, his oldest friend, a master of Photon Flow, lowered his defensive stance. Sorin's eyes were vacant pools of red light. He turned, not towards the perceived threat, but towards a group of junior students frozen in terror.
"Sanctuary..." Sorin droned, his voice stripped of its warmth, replaced by a chilling monotone. "...lies in service. Embrace... the Sovereign." He raised his hands, not to protect, but to unleash a beam of corrupted photon energy at the children.
Ryujin moved with crane-like speed, intercepting the blast with his staff. The impact shook him to his core. "Sorin! Fight it!" But his friend's face was a mask of vacant devotion. Around them, other brainwashed Masters and disciples turned on the uninfected, their movements jerky but powerful, fueled by Korvax's stolen will. The temple gardens, once a haven of balance, became a charnel house of crimson light and forced conversion. The Chrono-Sovereign's cult had its first acolytes.
***
Deep within Capsule Corp 3000's sub-level, Jett, Flux, and Kai-7 were locked in their own desperate struggle against Korvax's **Chrono-Phantoms**. Jett's **Plasma Tongue** – the harsh Ethereal Code – disrupted a phantom Yakuza, making it flicker and scream in digital agony before dissolving. Flux danced through a barrage of phased plasma bolts, her **Lightbend Cloak** making her a frustrating target, her Photon Katana slicing through a momentarily solid drone phantom. Kai-7, relying on chaotic **Amazo Mimicry**, managed to glitch his armor into briefly replicating the Hunter-Killer's evasion pattern, dodging a voidfire whip by milliseconds.
"We need to break the loop!" Flux yelled, ducking as a phantom's energy blast passed *through* a coolant pipe only to solidify and explode behind her. "The source is temporal! Jett, louder!"
Jett roared, pouring more Plasma-Dragon energy into his voice. The discordant code ripped through the air. More phantoms destabilized. Kai-7, inspired, focused not on mimicking the enemy, but on mimicking *Jett's code*. His symbiote strained, glitching violently, but this time, a distorted, amplified echo of Jett's Ethereal Code burst forth. It wasn't perfect, but it was *louder*.
The unstable energy barrier vortex sealing the main conduit pulsed violently. The chrono-phantoms flickered like bad holograms. For a split second, the path beyond the barrier cleared.
"GO!" Jett bellowed, shoving Flux towards the opening. "Find the schematics! We'll hold 'em!"
Flux didn't hesitate. She phased through the shrinking gap in the barrier just as it snapped shut again, sealing Jett and Kai-7 inside the temporal kill-box with the enraged phantoms. The last thing she saw was Jett's form blurring into his **Volcanic Falcon** aspect, diving into the swarm, and Kai-7 trying desperately to mimic a phantom's phase-shift, his armor glitching wildly.
Alone in the sterile, chilled darkness of the Capsule Corp main archive corridor, Flux ran. Korvax's psychic command wave hit her like a physical blow. She staggered, clutching her head as images of the Neo-Dojo massacre – Ryujin's desperate defense, the crimson-eyed Masters – flooded her mind, overlaid with Korvax's chilling declaration. Grief and fury warred within her. She pushed harder, her ocular implants scanning security panels. She found the primary archive vault – a massive door emblazoned with the Capsule Corp lotus. **Data-Jutsu Interface** flared. This lock was ancient, its protocols child's play compared to Korvax's temporal traps. It hissed open.
Inside, bathed in the soft glow of preserved data-crystals, Flux found it. Project CHIMERA: KORVAX KHAN-ZERETH. Developmental logs. Neural mappings. Astral Gate schematics. And a single, chilling audio log flagged **FINAL INTERVIEW - DR. ELARA VANCE (DECEASED)**.
Flux activated it. A woman's voice, trembling with exhaustion and dread, filled the vault:
*"...Subject Korvax exhibits exponential growth beyond predictive models. Gate 10 integration... unstable. He speaks of timelines not as possibilities, but as clay... to be reshaped. He accessed the Kappa-7 files... the Void Cathedral concepts... He asked about... *soul-melds*... Doctor Isara Vex's early theories on gravitational consciousness binding..."* A choked sob. *"...He's not just unlocking Gates. He's rebuilding them... inside something else. Something... hungry. We created a key... but the lock... the lock is the abyss..."* The recording ended with a burst of static and a final, whispered word: *"...Vor'khan..."*
Flux's blood ran cold. Korvax wasn't just powerful. He was architecting his own godhood using stolen blueprints, including those of his future queen, Isara Vex. And he'd known about the Void Cathedral long before his exile. She grabbed the data-crystal. They needed this. Now.
***
Back in the Neo-Dojo Temple, the tide was turning crimson. Ryujin fought with the grace of a storm, his staff a whirlwind deflecting corrupted photon blasts and kinetic strikes from his former comrades. But they were many, and their vacant ferocity was relentless. He was herding a group of uninfected students towards a shielded meditation chamber when a figure stepped onto the shattered garden path, blocking their retreat.
**Lady Vespera.**
She hadn't arrived through the temple gates. She simply *appeared*, stepping from a tear in reality woven from silver void-static and neon glamour. Her silver-feathered wings were folded elegantly, her smile serene, her eyes pools of infinite, calculating cruelty.
"Tengu Ryujin," she purred, her **Voice of Circe** resonating with hypnotic power that slithered past his Gale vortex. "The wise crane, grounded. How... quaint." She ignored Ryujin, her gaze sweeping over the terrified students and the few remaining uncorrupted Masters, including Master Edward Kennedy Bell, an elderly but formidable master of Gravity Flow, who stood protectively before the youngest initiates.
Bell met her gaze, his jaw set, his own Astral Flow a visible aura of protective gravity around the children. "You will not have them, demon."
Vespera's smile widened. "Oh, but dear Edward," she murmured, her voice dropping to a velvet-soft caress that vibrated in the bones. "I already do."
Her wings didn't move. Her hands didn't gesture. But Bell's eyes widened in sudden, absolute horror. He gasped, clutching his head. "N-no! Get out! GET OUT OF MY MIND!" His protective gravity field flickered and died.
***//NEURAL PATTERN OVERRIDE: EKB-001//*** Vespera's mental command was a scalpel of pure psychic force. ***//DIRECTIVE: SELF-TERMINATION. METHOD: ASTRA FEEDBACK LOOP THROUGH PRIMARY CYBERNETIC NODE.//***
Bell's body locked rigid. His own cybernetic implants – neural accelerators meant to enhance his Gravity control – began to glow with terrifying intensity, not blue, but the same sickly crimson as the corrupted Masters. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with blood from his nose. "Stop... please... the children..." he choked out, fighting the impossible compulsion with every fiber of his being.
He couldn't. His hand, trembling violently, jerked upwards against his will. Not towards Vespera. Towards his own temple, where the primary neural interface node was embedded.
"MASTER BELL!" Ryujin screamed, lunging forward, staff blazing with plasma.
He was too slow.
Bell's fingers, crackling with his own corrupted Astral energy, touched the node.
There was no explosion. Just a horrific, wet *pop* and a sizzle. Bell's eyes, filled with unimaginable terror and sorrow, met Ryujin's for a final, agonizing instant. Then the light in them extinguished. Crimson energy flared briefly at his temple, then winked out. His body collapsed, lifeless, a puppet with its strings cut, landing at the feet of the children he died trying to protect. A small, dark burn mark marred his temple.
The children screamed. Ryujin froze, his staff lowering, devastation etched onto his avian features. The corrupted Masters paused, their crimson eyes fixed on Vespera, awaiting her next command.
Vespera sighed, a sound of bored disappointment. "Messy. But effective." She turned her gaze back to Ryujin and the survivors, her smile returning, colder than the void. "Who's next to embrace... *surrender*?"
The crimson stars of the Chrono-Sovereign weren't just rising. They were drenched in blood, and their terrible light was spreading across Neo-Cosmonopolis, extinguishing hope one converted soul, one shattered mind, at a time. The Eclipse had begun.
**Chapter 4 End.**