Chapter 16 — World Breaker Rising
Cold Open — A Shadow Over the Stars
Xavier could still feel the ghost of battle in his bones. The clash with the Tribunal Six and the Titan King had lasted eight relentless hours, but it was over now. His reward: an Endurance surge unlike anything he'd known, and the strange, thrumming pulse of the Iron Will Engine burning inside him.
But victory had no time to settle.
The Tribunal Master's last order had echoed through the void like a death sentence: "Release the World Breaker."
⸻
The blackness beyond the dropship's viewport was wrong — too solid, too final. Stars winked out in clusters as something vast slid into view. At first Xavier thought it was a drifting planet, but then it moved.
Alive.
The World Breaker was a fortress the size of a moon, its skin a jagged expanse of mountain-sized spines. Mana bled off it in silent waves, enough to make the dropship's HUD stutter and fail.
HUD ALERT:
• Threat Level: Unknown — System Error
• Mass: Comparable to minor planet
• Velocity: 1% sub-light
⸻
Asteroids drifted into its wake and shattered like glass against its armor — no, not armor.
"That's not armor," Kai murmured beside him, voice barely audible. "That's a continent."
The First Sign of Its Power
When they dropped from warp, the battle was already underway. The Tribunal's warfleet stretched across the void, beams capable of cracking planets lancing into the titan's hide.
The World Breaker didn't even flinch.
Across its flank, colossal eyes the size of cities opened, each one burning with impossible light. They pulsed, and gravity itself buckled. Tribunal dreadnoughts were crushed into warped fragments before they could even explode.
"This isn't a beast," Xavier said. His stomach was a cold knot. "It's thinking."
Boarding the Colossus
He didn't wait for permission.
Phantom Step launched him from drifting debris, and in the next breath he was sprinting across a landscape that was the titan's flesh. The "ground" swelled and flexed beneath him, each stride eating hundreds of meters.
Then the skin split. From it rose the World Breaker's guardians — biomechanical sentinels with limbs like living blades, weapons that bent the very pathways of motion. Reality folded around them, making Xavier's speed a liability.
He shifted into Volt Breaker Overdrive, Apex Hunter Mode snapping into place. Lightning danced along his arms as he struck in the micro-moments between warped space.
Evolution Under Pressure
The titan fought back without touching him. Gravity intensified until his bones screamed. His blood vessels burst in burning streaks beneath his skin. Even with the Endurance boost, he was seconds from collapse.
The pain became something else — not breaking, but transforming. His muscles rewove themselves in ways no human frame had known. Nerves fired faster than thought.
HUD UPDATE:
• Strength: +400%
• Agility: +250%
• Gravity Resistance: Complete immunity to environmental effects
⸻
Xavier spat blood and grinned up at the impossible sky.
"Your rules don't apply to me anymore."
The Impossible Strike
The brain-node loomed ahead — a glimmering core buried beneath layers of armored sinew. Xavier drove Apex Fang Sever straight into the titan's body, the ground splitting open with an electric-gold quake that raced for kilometers.
For the first time, the World Breaker recoiled. Not dead, but wounded. It turned away, retreating into the dark depths of space.
The Tribunal fleet limped away as well, broken and burning.
Ending Scene
The medbay lights were too bright. Xavier lay on the biobed, breathing like he'd just climbed a mountain on fire. Kai's eyes flicked over the readouts.
"You fought the biggest thing in the galaxy," Kai said slowly, "and you're smiling. Should I be worried?"
Xavier's grin widened. "I didn't win. That's why I'm smiling."