Blood.
Blood was everywhere. The streets, the buildings—everything was drenched in a crimson flood. The city had become a graveyard, its heart torn out and its soul bled dry.
It was a massacre.
Not a single thing stirred in the bloody stillness.
The humans were dead. Some bodies remained partially intact, but many were unrecognizable, reduced to scattered fragments of flesh and bone.
"We warned you," a cold, mechanical voice cut through the silence, devoid of emotion.
"Your species is inferior to us," it continued. "Your flesh is weak. Your minds are primitive, incapable of achieving even a fraction of our intellectual prowess."
The being paused, its disdain palpable.
"Surrender your planet to us, and we will spare you."
The speaker—if it could even be called that—was barely humanoid. Its body was coated in dull grey, metallic skin. Its head was an inverted pyramid, alien in design, with five green eyes that gleamed coldly. Those eyes scanned the devastation before it with clinical indifference. To it, the lives it had taken were nothing more than discarded scraps, of no more value than dirt underfoot.
"Prince Gdjjek," another voice broke in, this one belonging to a lesser being dressed in an inferior version of a full-body sci-fi suit. The newcomer approached the first figure carefully, bowing its head.
"We've made contact with the human king. He says he's willing to negotiate terms of surrender."
Prince Gdjjek turned his head slightly, his five eyes narrowing. He opened his jagged mouth to speak, but a noise interrupted him.
Panting.
Heavy, labored panting.
From the sea of broken corpses, something began to rise.
"Hah… insignificant? Worthless? Heh…" A voice rasped, tinged with madness.
A figure staggered to its feet, bathed in blood—not just its own, but the blood of its kind. The man's form was barely human anymore, his movements erratic, his presence unnerving. His expression—contorted with insanity and fury—made him look like a demon pulled straight from the depths of hell.
"Oh… this one survived," Gdjjek said nonchalantly. To him—the prince of Azmanth, the strongest warrior of his kingdom, and conqueror of countless worlds—the rage of a single human was insignificant. The anger of an ant.
His father's armies had overrun hundreds of planets, draining the life from entire ecosystems to fuel their kingdom. This was nothing new. This species, "humans," had intrigued him slightly when he first encountered them, but not enough to spare them. They were weak.
He had heard rumors of something called "adrenaline," a peculiar chemical in human bodies that allowed them to surpass their limits.
But even with this so-called "adrenaline," what could an ant possibly accomplish?
"You should have stayed down," Gdjjek said, raising his plasma blaster.
Rrrrrrr.
The weapon whined as it charged, its power building.
Boom!
A blue sphere of superheated plasma roared from the barrel, crossing the air in an instant and slamming into the man's chest.
Gdjjek didn't even bother looking at the aftermath. He turned back to his subordinate.
"Summon the human king. If there are any delays, kill them all. These bugs aren't even worth being—"
Thuck!
Something struck Gdjjek hard, forcing him to stagger a step.
His five green eyes burned with fury as he clenched his fists.
A human dared to strike him? Him—the strongest warrior of the Azmanth kingdom, son of the king, the one feared across galaxies?
"I will torture you to death, human!" he roared, raising his plasma blaster again.
But the words died in his mouth.
In front of him stood the man… or what was left of him.
He couldn't even be called human anymore.
One of his arms was missing, severed at the shoulder. One of his eyes was an empty, bloody socket. Half of his face had been blown away, exposing the bone beneath. His remaining arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, useless.
Yet he stood.
Bathed in blood from head to toe, he stared at Gdjjek with a gaze that burned with hatred and something primal—something terrifying.
Gdjjek swallowed involuntarily. A strange, foreign sensation crawled through him.
Fear.
"No…" he hissed. "No, I cannot feel fear. Not from you.
He raised the blaster again.
"NOT FROM YOU!"
His hands trembled as he tried to aim, but his body refused to obey him. His fingers shook, making his shot veer wide.
Boom!
The blast tore through the street, missing the man entirely.
The human began to run.
His speed was inhuman, impossible for a creature as weak as a human to achieve.
Gdjjek tried to steady his nerves.
"E-even if you reach me, what can you possibly do?" he shouted, forcing his voice to remain steady.
The man didn't respond. He couldn't—his ruined face and shredded vocal cords made speech impossible.
Just before he reached the group of aliens, another plasma shot collided with his chest.
It came from Gdjjek's adviser.
The man's body crumpled to the ground.
"Huff… g-good," the adviser muttered, relief audible in his voice.
Gdjjek stared at the broken, bloodied corpse before them.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
A sound broke the silence—metal objects dropping to the ground.
Eight small, round objects rolled to a stop at the aliens' feet.
"What is this?" the adviser asked, confused.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The grenades detonated simultaneously, engulfing the street in a series of massive explosions. Screams erupted as flames consumed the aliens, reducing them to ash and twisted wreckage.
A few meters away, slumped against a blood-soaked rock, lay the body of the human.
His one remaining eye stared into the fire, watching it devour the invaders. A flicker of satisfaction crossed his ruined face.
The flames crept closer, their heat scorching what was left of him.
He didn't mind.
There was nothing left to save, nothing left to fight for.
As the fire reached him, his vision faded.
Darkness overtook him.
And then, there was nothing.
---