First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 481: All Out Massacre

Xavier closed the distance, blood streaked across his mask, one glove missing, his unseen hand already reaching past the next layer as if the fight hadn’t slowed him down at all.

[EMERGENCY MODE ACTIVATED]

[ALL EXITS LOCKED]

The corridor answered him with escalation. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Panels along the walls split open and spat out compact drones, each the size of a helmet, rotors folding out as they lifted and locked targets. Smart mines rolled from recesses near the floor, skittering on segmented legs, scanning for mass and heat. A guard fired a wrist launcher and a net of energized filament snapped across the space, designed to seize limbs and lock joints in place.

Xavier tore the net apart in midair, the field around his bare hand tightening until the strands snapped and recoiled like cut wire. He stepped through the debris as a drone dipped low and fired a burst of micro-rounds. The rounds stopped an arm’s length from his chest and dropped to the floor, flattened, as if they had hit an invisible wall.

He grabbed the drone with force and slammed it into the ceiling hard enough to cave its casing. It fell in pieces, rotors still twitching.

A mine lunged.

Xavier kicked it sideways, then crushed it against the wall before it could detonate. The blast that followed punched outward and shredded two guards who had been pushing forward behind it, shrapnel tearing through armor and flesh. One screamed once before going quiet. The other dropped and stayed there, blood pooling under him as the corridor lights flickered.

A shock lance crackled to life. Xavier caught the shaft, let the current crawl over his gauntlet, and drove the lance straight through the user’s visor. The weapon discharged inside the helmet, cooking what was left of the man’s face. Xavier yanked it free and threw the body into a cluster of guards trying to regroup, the impact knocking them down in a tangle of limbs and weapons.

Someone triggered a suppression grid.

The air thickened with pressure as gravity plates along the floor surged, trying to pin him. Xavier staggered one step, adjusted, and then pushed back. The plates screamed as their anchors tore loose. The grid collapsed inward, crushing three guards flat against the floor, bones snapping under their own weight before the pressure released.

A heavy unit advanced from the rear, servo-braced armor, shoulder-mounted cannons spooling up. Xavier ripped a fallen rifle from the floor, hurled it end over end, and followed it with force. The rifle punched through the cannon housing and detonated the charge inside. The explosion tore the heavy unit apart, armor plates cartwheeling down the corridor and slamming into anything still standing.

Blood streaked the walls. Smoke crawled along the ceiling. The remaining guards tried to fall back, tripping over bodies, weapons skidding across the floor as panic took over. Xavier moved slowly, using the chaos he created to end resistance efficiently.

He grabbed one guard by the collar and drove him headfirst into a doorframe until the frame bent and the skull split. He pivoted and smashed another against a pillar, holding him there while he twisted until the spine gave, then let the body slide down and join the rest.

A third tried to fire a compact plasma cutter at point-blank range. Xavier knocked the tool aside and shoved the man forward, then cut power to the cutter and rammed the superheated edge through the man’s abdomen anyway, pulling it free with a wet sound that silenced the corridor for a beat.

The last of the drones tried to flee upward.

Xavier crushed them together and flung the wreckage down the hall, clearing the remaining distance in a straight line. He stepped over the fallen without slowing, blood slicking the soles of his boots, his bare hand flexing once as the field settled.

The private doors stood ahead, unmarred, reinforced, sealed behind layers of biometric locks and pressure sensors. Xavier stopped in front of them and pressed his palm to the surface.

The locks failed at once.

Metal screamed as the door buckled inward and slid aside, revealing the threshold beyond. Xavier stepped forward, leaving the ruined corridor behind him, and crossed into Velkhar’s space without breaking stride.

The doors sealed behind Xavier as he stepped into the chamber.

The chamber opened wider than any room had reason to, circular and tiered, its architecture built for spectacle rather than comfort. Platforms climbed the walls in uneven layers, each one reinforced, each one positioned to allow movement and elevation without exposing whoever used them.

The ceiling was dense with suspended machinery and structural ribs, all powered, all quiet, none of it decorative. There was no furniture and no sign of Velkhar, only the sense that this space had been prepared for violence and nothing else.

Xavier stepped forward and stopped near the center, weight balanced, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t read as careless. The first attack didn’t announce itself. A body dropped from above with precision rather than force, impact fracturing tile where it landed as a knee drove toward Xavier’s head.

He caught the leg with both hands and absorbed the weight through his frame, boots sliding back under the pressure as reinforced muscle met reinforced bone. She tore free before he could transition, twisting midair and landing cleanly several meters away, already moving again before he fully reset his stance.

She was engineered, not enhanced. Female, tall, proportions pushed beyond human tolerance, muscle packed dense beneath skin threaded with integrated circuitry rather than external implants. Cyberware followed the lines of her body instead of breaking them, spine and shoulders reinforced internally, joints designed for repeated impact.

Her eyes tracked continuously, adapting to distance and angle as she advanced, expression fixed somewhere between focus and anticipation. She closed the gap fast, fists and elbows chaining together with trained efficiency, forcing Xavier to take the hits through guard and redirection instead of avoidance. The force behind her strikes carried through his arms and shoulders into his core, each impact disrupting balance rather than knocking him away.

Her moves weren’t flashy. Sure, they were fast, but Xavier couldn’t easily see them. The problem was that her attacks were powerful, and blocking them instead of dodging them made more sense to avoid getting hit by a follow-up move Xavier wouldn’t be able to predict.

Xavier countered with control instead of speed, redirecting strikes, breaking grips before they could settle, answering with short-range blows meant to end fights quickly. She adapted immediately. Energy blades extended from her forearms and carved through space with precision, forcing Xavier to give ground while he deflected and repositioned.

When he reached for her with telekinesis, localized countermeasures flared around her body and disrupted his hold just long enough for her to drive him into a pillar hard enough to crack its surface. She stayed close, mixing grapples and strikes, forcing constant engagement, shock emitters flaring along her legs as she tested angles and limits, cutting shallow lines to measure response rather than damage.

Xavier stopped adjusting and stepped into her next attack, accepting the cut as his bare hand came up. The counter-field surged again, built to repel force applied from outside its boundary. Xavier collapsed the space inside it instead, compressing everything within reach into a single point of failure. Reinforced bone folded, cyberware shattered inward, and her motion ended mid-strike as her body lost all structure at once. He released the pressure and stepped back as she dropped straight down, blood spreading beneath her while internal systems failed in uneven bursts.

Xavier waited a few seconds, expecting something or someone else to appear next, but nothing happened.

He straightened, adjusted his stance, and turned his attention toward the exit at the far end of the room, knowing well that Velkhar was no longer hiding and that the path forward had already been cleared.