First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess

Chapter 532 532: Golden Authority (ii)

The reptile shook off its initial shock, the ingrained arrogance of the Demonic Society overriding its terror. It glared at Xavier, assessing the human frame standing amidst the blood and broken bodies.

"You are just a mortal," the beast sneered, its massive chest heaving. "A frail human wrapped in a stolen relic. Do you think a scrap of ancient fabric will save you? I just broke a vampire in her true form. I snapped her wrist like a twig. You are nothing."

Xavier glanced at Reva's battered form against the wall, then looked back at the monster. "Where is Klatos?"

The reptile let out a grating, metallic laugh that rattled the bulkheads.

"Dead," the beast said. "Or dying in a gutter somewhere. I have worn different faces. My society runs the AIL from the shadows. When that idiot Bull ruined our operations and got himself locked up on Earth, I shifted my form and followed him into the prison to slit his throat. That is where I found Klatos. He was already on my kill list. When he was transferred to Jupiter, I arranged my own transfer. I have been walking in your shadow ever since, waiting for the perfect moment to butcher the lot of you."

The beast lunged. It threw its entire massive weight forward, bringing a plated, clawed fist down to crush Xavier into the deck.

Xavier didn't even draw a weapon or shift his stance to dodge the attack. He simply raised his left hand.

The monster's fist slammed into his palm. The kinetic impact sent a shockwave through the corridor, shattering the glass of the nearby observation deck and cratering the metal floor beneath Xavier's boots.

Xavier stood perfectly still. His arm did not buckle. He held the towering monstrosity in place with terrifying physical superiority or so it seemed but Xavier was wearing the gloves.

The reptile's yellow eyes widened in horror. It tried to pull its fist back, but Xavier's fingers dug into the thick scales, locking the beast in place.

"My turn," Xavier said.

"Huh?"

"Golden… Authority."

The divine authority ignited. The red in his eyes bled out, replaced by a deep, layered gold that illuminated the ruined corridor. The black pigment drained from his hair, turning it blinding white.

The ambient light in the ship warped around him. It felt as though a supreme, ancient entity had physically descended into the mortal plane, bending reality just by existing.

The golden butterflies resting on the bulkheads took flight. They swarmed the massive reptile.

They were not illusions. They were concentrated divine destruction. The moment a butterfly landed on the beast's scales, the demonic flesh began to disintegrate.

"AAARGH!" The monster shrieked, a sound of absolute agony.

It thrashed violently, tearing at its own body as the golden swarm ate through its armor, devouring the violet magic and the muscle underneath.

"You cannot do this!" the beast screamed, its body smoking and dissolving under the blinding light. "The Demonic Society will know! The Vanguard Fleet will burn this entire sector to ash! They will hunt you to the edge of the cosmos!"

"Tell them I am waiting," Xavier said.

He drove his right hand straight into the monster's chest. The golden energy coated his arm, searing through the thick bone plating and diving deep into the creature's chest cavity. Xavier's fingers wrapped around the pulsing, dark mass of the demonic core.

"When you meet them in hell…" He ripped it out.

The beast gasped, its yellow eyes rolling back into its head. Without the core to sustain its form, the golden butterflies consumed the rest of the body in seconds.

The towering monstrosity crumbled into a pile of gray ash that scattered across the metal deck.

Xavier stood over the remains. His hair faded back to black, and the gold in his eyes receded into a familiar, violent red. He looked down at the dark, beating core in his hand, the blood dripping from his fingers onto the floor.

Kylus coughed. He dragged his head up, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused, staring at the man standing amidst the ash.

"What..." Kylus wheezed, clutching his fractured ribs. "Who the hell are you?"

Xavier didn't answer. A digital prompt flickered at the edge of his vision. The demonic core vanished from his grip, stored safely inside the System's inventory.

The heavy blast doors at the end of the corridor finally forced themselves open. The reptile's domain had kept the rest of the ship's crew locked out, pounding uselessly against sealed metal. A dozen armed mercenaries and medical personnel flooded the ruined hallway. They froze for a fraction of a second at the sight of the carnage, then rushed forward.

Paramedics deployed anti-trauma stretchers. They loaded Kylus, Rin, Requiem, Arlen, and Reva onto the hovering platforms, pushing them rapidly toward the primary infirmary.

Xavier followed the trail of blood down the hall.

The infirmary was a chaos of blaring monitors and deploying surgical rigs. Auto-docs clamped over shattered bones, injecting coagulants and synthetic marrow directly into the wounded. Xavier walked past a med-tech frantically working on Rin's crushed chest and stopped beside Reva's cot.

Her clothes were torn and soaked. She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes. Her pale lips curved upward in a weak, pained smile. She raised a shaking, bloody hand toward him.

Xavier caught her fingers in his. He leaned down and pressed his lips against her cold forehead.

Then, he stood up and locked eyes with Drake, the ship's chief medical officer.

"Get over here," Xavier commanded, his voice cutting through the noise of the trauma ward.

Drake abandoned a diagnostic terminal and stepped over.

Xavier pulled a sterilized glass flask from a nearby surgical tray. He drew a combat knife from his tactical belt and dragged the steel deeply across his own palm as the dark crimson blood spilled over the rim, filling the glass in seconds.

Drake frowned, watching the self-inflicted injury. Her cybernetic eye whirred, zooming in as the deep cut stitched itself together and vanished completely before the last drop hit the glass.

Xavier handed her the filled flask.

"Run it through your centrifuge," Xavier ordered. "Extract the axiom compound from my cells. Synthesize it and inject it into everyone who took a hit from that monster. It will force their biology to rebuild."

Drake stared at the bizarre blood sample, then at his perfectly flawless skin. She nodded once, pivoted on her heel, and walked straight to the synthesis bay.

Xavier turned his back on the ward. He walked out of the infirmary and headed deeper into the ship. He moved straight for the specialized isolation bay where Lyra was kept.