Kael stood beneath the vast black canopy of the Rhaegus V sky, a dark titan surveying the new world he'd claimed. The ash from orbital strikes still drifted in the upper atmosphere, casting a dull silver veil over the ravaged planet. The winds here whispered of finality, of ends rewritten and beginnings forcibly born. Obsidian Reach Prime—that was its name now. Not by vote, not by legacy, but by proclamation. By domination.
A hologram shimmered before him, projected from the gauntlet on his left arm. It displayed systems beyond the Rhaegus Cluster—untamed stars, scattered colonies, and unclaimed hyperspace drift zones. Kael's eyes moved with deliberate slowness, studying patterns even his AIs hadn't predicted yet.
"The Mantle expands," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "And I will wear it alone."
He turned and walked through the newly built Spire of Continuity, a towering citadel constructed in just three days from prefabricated feronite alloys. The tower hummed with thought—AI nodes, indoctrination beams, neural interfaces. Every floor pulsed with work: training regimens for Ascendant commanders, data absorption for child-soldiers, population behavior simulations. Loyalty wasn't demanded. It was engineered.
Down in the subterranean vaults, Kael oversaw a new project—Obsidian Mantle Directive: Phase I. The first successful hybrid Ascendant had just awoken from his incubation pod. Grown from a blend of native genetics, offworld DNA, and combat-trained neural overlays, the child was already walking within an hour.
"What's your designation?" Kael asked as he approached.
The boy, no older than eight in appearance, saluted without hesitation. "Echo Prime."
There was no fear in the child's eyes. No hesitation. Only purpose.
"Good. You will lead your kind soon."
Outside, the remaining resistance pockets on the northern continent crumbled. Entire militias surrendered after receiving glimpses of Echo Prime units during raids. Word spread quickly: something inhuman now walked among the people, silent and swift. Ghosts with eyes that glowed like volcanic glass.
Kael returned to the Sovereign Abyss that night. The stars greeted him like old conspirators. He moved through his ship without ceremony, letting his command presence seep into every corridor. Every officer nodded with the reverence of priests. Every AI acknowledged his gaze as divine code.
He sat in his private chamber, where no surveillance intruded. There, finally, Kael closed his eyes. Not in exhaustion, but in focus. Meditation—not in the Jedi sense, but in the cold, calculating stillness of the mind. He reached out with something deeper than thought, extending his awareness not through the Force, but through the systems he had built. Through sensors, processors, signals, and reports.
He felt the galaxy ripple. Not with opposition, but with the sensation of shifting inevitability. Worlds were watching. Others were preparing.
And yet, they had no idea how far he'd already reached.
Kael whispered into the dark, "Let them scramble. Let them beg for their outdated orders. While they debate... I ascend."
Tomorrow, a new system would fall. The Mantle had only begun to tighten.