TERRA—VALOR TEMPLE
All players who died on Cronos I during the event respawned in the Valor Temple.
Despite its incredible size, the temple was crowded with players. Inside, one could hear alarms ringing due to the assault led by Grand Admiral Azerof's fleet.
It was at this time that the dead Eclipse members respawned after their fight against Regnier. StarLight was the last one to respawn.
She immediately opened the menu and invited the rest of the Eclipse members in the temple into her party. All in all, there were six of them. They didn't know what to do! The public transport shuttle wasn't working because of the planetary blockade, so there was no way to get back to Apophis.
StarLight immediately asked for instructions from Apophis via message, who told her to find and protect a child named Antanria, who would likely be found in the hotel called the Royal Palace of Terra.
Antanria would be easy to identify, said Apophis, because she would have the appearance of the extinct Zetark race!
With this new mission in mind, the group gathered and left the temple.
Outside, the city had fallen into chaos. Landing ships were appearing in the atmosphere while the anti-air defense batteries were thundering at them at full capacity. People ran in panic, and the city-planet seemed to have fallen into complete disarray. In fact, this chaos had spread across almost the entire Federation as Supremacist-backed mutinies destroyed the army from within.
The nation-wide situation was critical, the beginning of a civil war between the Supremacists and the Pragmatists, whose rivalry had finally broken out into an open battle for power.
***
SECRET SERVICE HQ
A transport ship, escorted by four fighters, landed in front of the huge Secret Service building. A man in a senior officer's uniform with a burned face emerged.
He was the man responsible for all these recent events, a legend among men.
It was Grand Admiral Azerof.
Azerof's special forces immediately began a heavy assault upon the reinforced doors of the Secret Service HQ. The Secret Service members themselves tried to fight back, but most of them weren't soldiers, let alone warriors as elite as Azerof's special forces.
After a few hours of fighting, the Secret Service members were almost wiped out, despite their immensely secure position. The few remaining chose to preserve their lives. They surrendered and opened the doors to allow Azerof in.
The grand admiral was delighted! After spending his whole life pursuing this goal, the end was finally in sight. Azerof isolated himself and Souley in a private room and addressed the Chancellor.
"There's no escape for you. Your last remaining forces on the planet are either captured or dead. The Federation will now collapse and give way to the Imperium of Humanity. The disgusting xenos who claim to be our equals will be driven out, and traitors like you will be executed. Humanity will once again stand at the center of the galaxy alongside the great galactic civilizations!"
Souley didn't even look at Azerof. The hatred he felt towards this man was beyond anything he'd ever felt before.
The Chancellor had spent his entire life supporting the Federation's ideals of tolerance and greatness, but now all of those efforts had been ruined by one.
The Federation was on the verge of extinction. Entire planets had been reduced to rubble. Billions of lives had been snuffed out. To Souley, Azerof was the devil himself. The Chancellor regretted not having foreseen the problem, not having more openly resisted the Supremacists in the past instead of trying to make peace with them.
If he'd acted more aggressively in the past, he could have eradicated this weed before it was grown.
Azerof, seeing that Souley was ignoring him, stood up. It was time for him to meet his destiny. "As you wish. I, Azerof, future Emperor of Humanity, sentence you to death, Chancellor Souley."
He drew his laser gun and shot Souley in the head.
