THE LAST KEEPER

Behind the High Throne, a heavy iron hatch led straight down into the subterranean belly of the mountain, groaning under thick plumes of scalding steam.

Sagiri, Grand Marshal Senraki, Kaka, and Lady Kiana stepped onto the massive circular freight lift as its heavy iron gears began to turn with a violent shudder.

The lift plunged five hundred feet into the darkness, the freezing mountain air rapidly growing suffocatingly hot and thick with the bitter stench of sulfur, ozone, and necrotic blood.

”This entire mountain is hollowed out like a rotten tooth,” Kaka muttered, gripping the hilt of his battleaxes as the lift rattled against the stone shaft.

”It is where they buried the soul of Lanka sixteen years ago,” Senraki answered, his sharp eyes fixed on the descending darkness below.

At the bottom of the shaft, the iron gates clanged open, revealing a vast subterranean sanctum that made even the veteran warriors freeze in their tracks.

The cavern was five hundred paces wide, dominated at its center by a towering, five-story cylindrical glass reactor vat.

Inside the colossal tank, hundreds of thousands of gallons of pitch-black alchemical fluid bubbled violently, illuminated by eerie violet lightning arcing across the high ceiling.

Suspended within the boiling black liquid was the colossal silhouette of the Alpha Bio-Weapon. A terrifying, fifteen-foot abomination with four muscular arms, armored beast scales, and glowing necrotic veins.

Heavy hydraulic conduits ran from the ceiling into the creature’s spine, pumping stolen life force and volatile alchemical fuel directly into its mutated heart.

A loud crash echoed from the eastern stairwell as Supreme Mandra Taziraka emerged into the chamber, his broad chest covered in black machine grease from the crossroads.

”The crossroads are clear,” Taziraka growled, his golden slit pupils instantly locking onto the massive reactor vat. ”So this is the nest of their abomination.”

On the elevated command platform overlooking the tank stood King Vanka Sevara, trembling violently inside his gilded frost armor.

Beside the king stood Sir Black, aka Taola himself, his body half-mechanized with hiss-venting hydraulic pistons and venomous syringe arrays running along his arms.

”You’re too late, Keeper!” Sir Black shrieked with manic, hysterical laughter, his yellowed eyes bulging as he tapped madly at the master console.

”Sixteen years of research!” Sir Black screamed, his voice echoing off the iron catwalks. ”The flesh of apex beasts! The bones of N’folu martyrs! The ultimate sovereign weapon is complete!”

King Vanka grabbed Sir Black’s shoulder in sheer panic, pointing trembling fingers at the warriors entering the chamber.

”Activate it, Taola!” King Vanka cried out in terror. ”Kill them all! I am the King of Lanka! I will not kneel to southern savages!”

Sagiri stepped forward onto the central catwalk, the twenty Silver-Veined Void Blades hovering behind his back in a lethal, humming ring.

”Your kingdom ends today, Vanka,” Sagiri said, his voice cold and steady as the dark runes on his jaw flared with radiant silver light.

”Kill them!” Sir Black screamed, slamming his palm onto the defense console.

Heavy automated rail cannons mounted to the ceiling rotated downward, unleashing a blistering barrage of explosive frost shells.

At the same time, thirty elite bio-mutated berserkers burst from wall containment tubes, their bodies overgrown with razor-sharp bone spurs as they charged the catwalk.

”Tagan, hunt!” Supreme Mandra Taziraka roared, activating the Art of the Beast.

A massive crimson tiger silhouette erupted around the Mandra, and he launched himself into the air like a streak of red lightning.

Taziraka smashed through the charging berserkers, his bare claws tearing through their mutated bone armor and crushing their skulls against the iron grating.

He vaulted onto the command platform in a single breath, his massive hand closing around King Vanka’s throat like an iron vice.

The Mandra lifted the screaming tyrant clean off his feet, slamming him into the steel railing with bone-shattering force, instantly knocking the king unconscious.

On the lower catwalk, Kaka and Kiuga moved in perfect tactical synchronization.

Kaka’s twin heavy axes spun in devastating, wide cleaves, shattering the legs of charging bio-monsters and sending severed iron pistons flying into the chasms.

Kiuga darted along the flanks with his short-swords, severing the power cables of the ceiling rail cannons and plunging the automated defenses into darkness.

High above the vat, Lady Kiana leaped from a steam pipe, perching in a sleek, low crouch on the narrow rim of the main reactor tank.

One gloved hand balanced lightly on the frosty glass, her dark Sekana leather framing her lithe silhouette as her dust-rose eyes mapped the hydraulic lines.

With blinding speed, she drove four silver void needles into the intake valves, instantly jamming the emergency coolant release.

”The coolant lines are severed, Sagiri!” Kiana called down from her high perch, her voice ringing clear over the steam. ”He cannot vent the tank!”

Sagiri raised his right hand, pointing Nokai’s master hilt directly at Sir Black.

”Nokai, break the core!” Sagiri commanded.

Ten Silver-Veined Void Blades shot across the chamber like silver thunderbolts, obliterating the master control console into a shower of sparks and twisted metal.

Sir Black was thrown backward against the reactor glass, coughing a mouthful of dark, oily blood as his console exploded.

The mad scientist looked at his ruined machinery, then up at Sagiri, his hysterical laughter turning into a deafening, crazed cackle.

”You think you won, Keeper?!” Sir Black shrieked, ripping a massive black syringe filled with concentrated necrotic mutagen from his chest harness.

”If I cannot command the Alpha... then I will become the Alpha!” Sir Black roared in madness.

Before anyone could reach him, Sir Black slammed the massive needle directly into his own beating heart.

His veins turned pitch-black and bulged grotesquely across his face as he laughed with manic, dying ecstasy.

With a final, deranged leap, Sir Black threw himself over the railing, plunging straight into the boiling black fluid of the five-story reactor vat!

The dark alchemical liquid inside the tank suddenly stopped bubbling, turning as still and black as frozen obsidian.

A suffocating, light-consuming killing intent exploded from within the vat, so heavy that the iron catwalks groaned and sagged under the sheer metaphysical pressure.

Inside the black liquid, the colossal fifteen-foot abomination opened four glowing crimson eyes.

Sir Black’s mutated face formed upon the beast’s chest, laughing through the murky fluid as his consciousness fused with the monstrous titan.

Crack!

A hairline fracture appeared on the thick glass of the five-story vat, glowing with blinding violet lightning.

Crack! Crack! Shatter!

With a sound like an exploding mountain, the colossal reactor tank blew apart, sending fifty thousand gallons of black alchemical sludge and jagged glass shards raining across the entire chamber!

Through the boiling black mist, the Alpha Bio-Weapon rose to its full, terrifying height, its four massive arms ending in jagged bone claws.

It unleashed a deafening, ungodly roar that shook the very foundations of the mountain, cracking the stone ceiling and blowing out every remaining light in the fortress.

Sagiri stepped to the front of the catwalk, drawing the radiant silver-veined blade of Nokai as the five absorbed relics within his blood ignited with incandescent power.

”Everyone, fall back!” Sagiri ordered, his eyes burning with absolute, divine authority. ”This one is mine.”