The wrath of God, and the sword of man.
Down, down came the crashing apocalypse, the sky turned a bloody ruby that swirled and churned.
The Thrudgelmir shot up in response, a lone, glittering point of light headed on an inexorable collision course with the artifact of doom.
Not only was the event witnessed by those below, on the smoke-cowled towers of the Great Axion, but all across Hong Kong and Lantao Island. Men and women fled for their lives, or stopped and watched, some knowing all too well there was no way to outrun what was coming... And waited. The star reached its apex, uniting with the burning meteor in a glimmering helix that crested the horizon.
The Zankantou slashed out, carving through the superheated air with the force of a God. The sense of the impact reverberated all through its frame, the searing heat scorching its hide, its sheer destructive force, its inevitability challenging the Machine Cells that stubbornly held their ground, metalflesh mending and binding as quickly as it was seared away, the ironwrought beast unwilling to give way. Two possibilities struggled against one another, each trying to force its way, to assert a new future for those below... or a dramatic finale.
It shook with such terrible fury that Roman must have felt as though his arms were going to be torn free from their sockets as he gripped the controls, as the colossal blade dug deep into the satellite, sending bright blue cracks all along its surface.
A moment passed. Two.
Still, the onslaught did not abate - perhaps, he had been too late?
But then-
A noise, audible over even the screaming of burning ozone. A great rumbling and cracking, like the shattering of a thousand glass windows, reverberating all through the Thrudgelmir.
A brilliant blue light, like thunder cast from the arm of Zeus, shot through the satellite, turning the skies from burning red to frigid cerulean in a split second... and the structure at last shattered.
No gradual collapse was this, no slow work of time's keen edge, but an internal explosion of pure power that sent tiny rockets of steel scattering into the ocean below, a catastrophic thunderstorm turning even the titanic metal plates that had made up its seemingly impenetrable hide being rent and torn asunder above the participants heads. It was like being trapped in the most dynamic, terrible cyclone in all of history, all of it lit by the thundercrack-like explosion of the satellite's core.
Its strange light cast the battlefield in a curious white, as the silent storm roared overhead. Few present could contemplate the significance of what had taken place that day, how it - and they - would be cast in the pages of history thereafter... But for the moment, at least, there was peace.
The battle was won...
But the war for Earth... had only begun.
Down, down came the crashing apocalypse, the sky turned a bloody ruby that swirled and churned.
The Thrudgelmir shot up in response, a lone, glittering point of light headed on an inexorable collision course with the artifact of doom.
Not only was the event witnessed by those below, on the smoke-cowled towers of the Great Axion, but all across Hong Kong and Lantao Island. Men and women fled for their lives, or stopped and watched, some knowing all too well there was no way to outrun what was coming... And waited. The star reached its apex, uniting with the burning meteor in a glimmering helix that crested the horizon.
The Zankantou slashed out, carving through the superheated air with the force of a God. The sense of the impact reverberated all through its frame, the searing heat scorching its hide, its sheer destructive force, its inevitability challenging the Machine Cells that stubbornly held their ground, metalflesh mending and binding as quickly as it was seared away, the ironwrought beast unwilling to give way. Two possibilities struggled against one another, each trying to force its way, to assert a new future for those below... or a dramatic finale.
It shook with such terrible fury that Roman must have felt as though his arms were going to be torn free from their sockets as he gripped the controls, as the colossal blade dug deep into the satellite, sending bright blue cracks all along its surface.
A moment passed. Two.
Still, the onslaught did not abate - perhaps, he had been too late?
But then-
A noise, audible over even the screaming of burning ozone. A great rumbling and cracking, like the shattering of a thousand glass windows, reverberating all through the Thrudgelmir.
A brilliant blue light, like thunder cast from the arm of Zeus, shot through the satellite, turning the skies from burning red to frigid cerulean in a split second... and the structure at last shattered.
No gradual collapse was this, no slow work of time's keen edge, but an internal explosion of pure power that sent tiny rockets of steel scattering into the ocean below, a catastrophic thunderstorm turning even the titanic metal plates that had made up its seemingly impenetrable hide being rent and torn asunder above the participants heads. It was like being trapped in the most dynamic, terrible cyclone in all of history, all of it lit by the thundercrack-like explosion of the satellite's core.
Its strange light cast the battlefield in a curious white, as the silent storm roared overhead. Few present could contemplate the significance of what had taken place that day, how it - and they - would be cast in the pages of history thereafter... But for the moment, at least, there was peace.
The battle was won...
But the war for Earth... had only begun.