Scene 1: The Descent

  The heavy doors of the deep-level transport hissed shut, sealing them within the crystal cage. Thick obsidian-steel composite walls surrounded them, etched with containment sigils that pulsed with a faint, stressed blue light. A single overhead light panel flickered erratically, strobing their tense faces. Recycled air hissed from vents near the floor, humid and tasting faintly of ozone and burnt filters.

  "Engaging descent vector Tau-Gamma," Scholar Thalia announced, her voice tight but professional as she placed her hands on the control interface. "Brace."

  The floor dropped beneath them. Not a smooth glide, but a brutal, stomach-lurching plummet. No inertial dampeners functioned this deep. The cage rattled violently, shaking bones in their sockets as G-forces crushed them downwards. Vision tunneled. Outside the cage's glowing white lattice, the shaft walls became a sickening blur of raw, dark rock. Deep metallic groans echoed from the stressed elevator frame, mingling with the howl of displaced atmosphere screaming past and the distant, ominous clang of what sounded like failing hydraulics far below.

  On the soldiers’ HUDs, numbers climbed relentlessly. EXTERNAL TEMP: 780°C... 860°C... 935°C... EXTERNAL PRESSURE: 5200x... 6100x... 7000x Surface Normal... Condensation instantly fogged the inside of their helmets from sharp, panting breaths.

  "Core temps critical!" Koib choked out, slamming a fist against his chest plate. With a sharp hiss, internal mist vents opened inside his suit and the others’, momentarily obscuring vision before super-coolant fluid spread in glowing blue lines through capillaries beneath the armor, battling the invasive heat. Even so, sweat trickled freely inside their suits; Asier nervously wiped his fogging visor with a shaking, gauntleted hand, his fingers sticking slightly to the metal from the moisture inside his glove. Their strained heartbeats hammered like trapped birds against the amplified audio feed in their helmets. Thalia, still controlling the lift, had sunk to the floor, eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted, her entire body trembling with the effort. Vorin stood braced against a support strut, grimacing, while Luneir remained rigidly stoic, eyes fixed forward. Adns kept checking his suit seals, muttering under his breath.

  Altos, alone, stood untouched in the center, arms crossed, observing the chaos with detached interest.

  Then the screech tore upwards from the abyss. Multi-layered, horrific, scraping nerve endings.

  Thalia cried out, the elevator bucking violently. Vorin reacted instantly, terror flashing in his eyes but duty overriding it. "Light of the Ancients, shield us!" Blue lightning exploded around his crystal sword, forming a crackling hexagonal shield before him, angled protectively towards Altos.

  Altos merely tilted his head, watching the display.

  Scene 2: Arrival and Exploration

  With a final, bone-jarring CLANG, the elevator shuddered to a halt. External Temp: 950°C. Pressure: 7150x. The doors groaned open onto hell's threshold.

  The air that blasted in felt like a physical blow, superheated, thick with sulfur and the ancient scent of decay. Beyond the elevator's light lay the mouth of a colossal tunnel, swallowed by absolute darkness. Distant, flickering red emergency beacons cast feeble, dancing shadows that seemed to writhe. The tunnel floor radiated heat waves that distorted the air, ancient stone fused smooth in places, cracked and buckled elsewhere, feeling unnervingly dense underfoot. The silence was vast, broken only by the whine of suit coolers, amplified breathing, and deep, groaning rumbles from the planet's core, as if the tunnel itself were breathing.

  "Thalia, maintain position, monitor," Vorin ordered, voice tight.

  "Acknowledged," came the shaky reply from the elevator.

  Vorin drew his lightning sword. "Squad, Formation Delta! Illumination crystals forward! Advance!"

  Three glowing crystals launched, cutting pathetic swaths through the blackness. Luneir, Asier, and Koib formed a tight diamond around Altos, weapons up, moving slowly into the oppressive heat and dark. Every scrape of boot on stone echoed unnaturally. Every shadow seemed to deepen.

  Scene 3: Death & Reveal

  They advanced seventy meters, the heat intensifying near a section where the wall looked oddly smooth, almost glassy, shimmering violently. Suddenly, alarms shrieked inside Adns' helmet, overriding comms. "WARNING! COOLANT SYSTEM CRITICAL FAILURE! CORE TEMP BREACH IMMINENT! EJECT! EJE—!"

  "Adns!" Vorin bellowed.

  Adns stumbled back in blind panic, eyes wide with terror behind his fogging visor, clawing at his helmet. "Can't— It's melting! Get it O—AAAARRRGGGH!" He slammed back against that smooth section of wall.

  His impact shattered a thin, crystalline facade hidden by heat distortion, revealing a dark alcove behind it. Two burning red eyes snapped open within.

  The Kryll lunged. A blur of sickly green and sharp claws.

  Adns, consumed by his suit's failure, never saw it coming. The Kryll's talons tore through the glowing red, compromised chest plate like tissue paper. Its other hand slammed into Adns' helmet just as its maw opened, spraying bio-acid. The visor crazed, melted inward – a flash of boiling eyeballs bursting in a red mist – before the entire helmet ruptured violently outwards from internal pressure and heat. Adns' scream cut off instantly. His body dropped, twitching galvanically for a second within the smoking, melting ruin of his armor, the sickeningly sweet smell of cooked meat briefly overpowering the sulfur before the suit's systems finally died. Adns' severed helmet hit the ground nearby with a hollow clang, its interior now a stew of bone fragments and vaporized brain matter that hissed against the scorched rock.

  Scene 4: Squad Reaction & Kryll Reveal (Enhanced)

  Koib screamed, a raw sound of pure terror, dropping his lance. The unmistakable sound of panicked voiding hissed over his open comm before he choked out, "Gods-Core-no... I don’t wanna fuckin’ die down here!" Asier gasped out fragmented prayers, clutching his cracked token, whispering his daughter's name, "Elara... Elara..." Luneir, though shaking visibly, recovered first, snatching up Koib's dropped lance and shoving it back into his trembling hands, his face a pale mask of horror.

  "FORMATION!" Vorin roared, his voice cracking but laced with command urgency. "HOLD THE LINE!" The three remaining soldiers instinctively tightened their triangle, weapons forward, terror warring with discipline.

  The Kryll stepped fully into the light cast by their crystals and Vorin's sword. Six feet tall, gauntly muscled, sickly green skin glistening wetly over patches of cracked bio-armor. Its joints bent at subtly wrong angles as it moved with fluid, predatory grace. Multiple black secondary eyes blinked randomly across its skull. Its primary red eyes burned with malevolent intelligence. Its shifting face coalesced around that impossibly wide, sharp-toothed smile, which seemed to widen further as it surveyed their terror. It raised one dripping claw, slowly licking Adns' steaming fluids from it.

  Altos observed impassively from within the formation. "The Saiyan noted Vorin's fear-to-fury transformation with clinical interest. Suit failure cascade took 4.7 seconds post-critical warning. Predictable."

  Scene 5: Vorin Fails, Luneir Dies

  "For Aethelgard!" Vorin channeled his terror into fury, battle cry echoing. He surged forward, lightning-charged sword blazing like a falling star, bringing it down in a powerful overhead strike.

  The Kryll didn’t dodge. It met the strike, raising a clawed forearm.

  CLANG—SHATTER!

  The ancient crystal sword, infused with Aethelgardian lightning, exploded into molten shards against the Kryll’s hide. Vorin stared in disbelief at the sparking hilt as the creature’s other claw lashed out, faster than thought.

  "Captain!" Luneir leaped forward, shoving Vorin aside, bringing his own lance up—

  The Kryll’s talons punched through Luneir’s heavy chest plate like wet parchment, bursting out his back in a spray of gore and shattered ribs. The stoic soldier gasped, lance slipping from his fingers as the Kryll yanked him forward, its maw unhinging sickeningly wide—

  —and bit down.

  A wet crunch echoed. Luneir’s head vanished.

  Vorin stumbled back, horror choking him. The Kryll contemptuously tossed Luneir’s headless corpse aside. It landed with a wet thud, blood sizzling on the hot rock. The Kryll’s black eyes locked onto Vorin. It gathered itself and lunged—

  —and its outstretched, gore-slicked arm disappeared mid-strike.

  Scene 6: Altos Steps In (The Saiyan’s Cold Execution)

  The Kryll shrieked, a high-pitched sound of confusion and perhaps pain, staggering back as blackish ichor spurted from the cleanly cauterized stump where its arm had been.

  Nobody had seen Altos move.

  He now stood between Vorin and the Kryll, where empty space had been a nanosecond before. One hand was slightly extended, fingers curled, the air shimmering faintly around them – the ghost of a ki blade. His expression was placid, bored even.

  The Kryll hissed, its remaining claws flexing, red eyes burning with a mixture of rage and sudden, primal fear.

  Altos merely flicked his wrist.

  Another invisible slash. The creature’s legs detached cleanly at the knees, cauterized instantly. It collapsed in a heap, screeching and flailing with its single remaining arm, trying futilely to crawl away through its own pooling ichor.

  Altos tilted his head, observing the writhing creature for a silent second.

  "Disappointing," he murmured.

  He raised a single finger. A tiny orb of dense, white ki, no larger than a pebble, coalesced at its tip, humming with terrifyingly compressed energy.

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  The Kryll’s many eyes widened in what could only be described as absolute terror. It seemed to recognize the energy, the Saiyan wielding it.

  Altos flicked the energy forward.

  The tiny orb shot forward, faster than sight. It didn’t explode. It simply punched a perfectly clean hole through the center of the Kryll’s skull, exited the back, punched another identical hole through the thick tunnel wall behind it, and vanished into the abyss beyond without a sound.

  The Kryll’s body slumped, twitched once, and lay still, its face frozen in that final mask of horrified realization.

  Silence. Heavy. Absolute.

  Then—

  Koib doubled over, vomiting violently inside his helmet again.

  Scene 7: The False Relief & Deeper Threat

  Vorin stared at the hole in the Kryll's head, then at the hole in the wall, then back at Altos who hadn't moved. Asier was still whispering prayers, trembling uncontrollably, his cracked token clutched tight. Koib coughed and sputtered.

  "It’s… over?" Vorin finally whispered, his voice raw, disbelieving. "By the Light... it's dead?"

  Then—

  Altos’ eyes snapped fully open, narrowing slightly, looking past the dead Kryll, deeper into the oppressive darkness of the tunnel. His head tilted, listening to something only he could perceive.

  "No."

  Scene 8: Into the Dark

  Before Vorin could even form a question, Altos moved. Not a blur, but something else – a subtle warping of space, a flicker, and he was simply gone, streaking silently down the tunnel, instantly swallowed by the abyss.

  "Super Elite! WAIT!" Vorin roared, panic overriding his shock.

  Asier and Koib exchanged terrified glances. "Captain... Do we… follow?" Asier stammered.

  "We can’t just—" Koib started, voice trembling.

  "MOVE!" Vorin commanded, already running, activating his helmet's maximum light beam, pounding down the tunnel after the vanished Saiyan.

  Terrified but obedient, Koib and Asier scrambled after him, plunging deeper into the unknown darkness.

  Scene 9: The Chamber of Frozen Nightmares

  The tunnel descended sharply. The oppressive heat strangely began to recede, replaced by an unnatural, biting cold that made their suit temperature gauges plummet. Frost, black and jagged like diseased crystal, coated the walls, glittering evilly in their helmet lights. Their breath fogged their visors despite the internal systems.

  Then— Light.

  Ahead, the tunnel opened into a cavern so vast its dimensions were lost in shadow. Altos stood motionless near the entrance, his back to them, silhouetted against an eerie, pulsating blue luminescence from within.

  When Vorin, Koib, and Asier stumbled breathlessly to a halt beside him, their helmet lamps automatically widened their beams, cutting through the cavern's gloom—

  —and revealed the horror.

  They froze. Air hitched in three throats simultaneously. The cavern stretched onwards endlessly, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, filled with colossal, irregular pillars and jagged structures of translucent blue crystal, pulsing faintly with trapped energy. And frozen within each crystal prison, suspended in grotesque poses like specimens in some demonic museum, were Kryll.

  Hundreds. No, thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe more, rank upon rank disappearing into the icy blue darkness. Some were caught mid-scream, claws outstretched. Others crouched low, faces contorted in frozen snarls, ready to pounce. The air hummed with their dormant, malevolent energy. A graveyard of nightmares, waiting.

  "By... by the Ancients…" Vorin breathed, his voice failing.

  Koib sank to his knees again, dry-heaving. Asier’s prayers became choked whimpers; he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the sight.

  Scene 10: Annihilation

  Altos didn't react to their despair. He simply raised his right arm, palm open, facing the endless ranks of frozen abominations.

  A tiny spark ignited above his palm. Golden light. It flickered, then swelled rapidly – growing from a spark to a marble, a fist, a blazing miniature sun hovering above his hand. It grew larger, brighter, hotter, casting blinding golden light throughout the cavern, making the blue ice prisons sizzle and steam. The heat radiating from it was immense, forcing the Aethelgardians back, their suits screaming temperature warnings again. For a fraction of a second, Altos' eyes seemed to flicker, the pupils glowing with a faint, primal red tinge.

  Vorin’s combat instincts screamed danger beyond comprehension. "ALTOS, WAIT—! THE STASIS! THE ENERGY RELEASE—!"

  The Saiyan didn’t even glance back. His voice was flat, absolute. "Stay down."

  Vorin didn't need telling twice. He grabbed Koib and Asier, shoving them violently behind a thick outcrop of the cavern wall just as Altos thrust his hand forward.

  FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM.

  The world turned white gold. It wasn't an explosion outwards; it was a wave, a tsunami of pure, focused annihilation surging from Altos’ palm. It ripped through the cavern like the wrath of a god. The frozen Kryll, the crystal prisons, the ancient rock walls themselves – everything in the beam's path didn't shatter or melt; it vaporized. Instantly. Utterly. Reduced to constituent atoms. The beam propagated outwards, erasing the nightmare chamber from existence layer by layer in less than a second. A shockwave followed, not of force, but of negation, howling back up the tunnel, slamming into Vorin’s hiding place, rattling their armor and making their audio dampeners overload with static.

  When the blinding light finally, slowly, faded, leaving dancing purple spots in their vision, there was nothing.

  No Kryll. No chamber. No tunnel beyond where they stood. Just a colossal, perfectly smooth, glassy crater stretching into the distance, its edges still glowing molten red like the caldera of a newborn volcano, radiating immense heat. Perhaps, clinging to the very edge, a single, half-vaporized Kryll claw twitched, blackened and barely recognizable. Altos, without looking, brought his boot down on it, grinding it into fine ash.

  Scene 11: Aftermath

  Vorin slowly, unsteadily, pushed himself to his feet, legs trembling almost too much to hold him. He stared into the vast, glowing emptiness where the chamber of horrors had been. He numbly raised his wrist scanner towards the residual energy readings. The display flickered wildly, then flashed a single message: ERROR: YIELD BEYOND CALCULABLE LIMITS.

  Koib was curled on the ground, hyperventilating into his helmet, unable to form words. Asier was rocking back and forth, muttering prayers over and over, eyes wide and unseeing.

  Altos lowered his arm, the faint red tinge gone from his eyes, his expression utterly impassive, perhaps even slightly bored. He surveyed the result of his work for a moment.

  "What..." Vorin finally managed, his voice hoarse, barely a whisper, filled with a terror far deeper than what the Kryll had inspired. "What was that?"

  Altos turned slightly, dusting a microscopic speck of glassy residue from his immaculate glove. "Cleaning up."

  Koib struggled upright, grabbing Vorin's arm frantically. "We—we have to report this! The energy signature! The... the eradication! This changes everything!"

  Altos finally looked directly at them, his gaze cold, dismissive, absolute.

  He turned his back on them and began walking calmly back towards the partially collapsed tunnel entrance leading to the elevator, leaving the three shattered Aethelgardian soldiers standing alone on the edge of oblivion, their entire perception of power, scale, and their own significance in the universe utterly, irrevocably broken.

  Setting

  In King Theron’s private sanctum hummed, a low, resonant pulse emanating from the arrays of resonance crystals embedded within the seamless obsidian walls. The very air felt heavy, chilled, carrying a subtle pressure that seemed to emanate from the King himself. At the chamber's circular heart, Theron sat before a floating chessboard carved from blackened Saiyan warship metal. Its pieces shimmered with captured starlight and enchanted gemstones: jagged obsidian shards for the Kryll rooks, blood-red crystal spires for the Saiyan knights, and dominating the center, a single, dormant Kryptonian Queen piece carved from a flawless, ice-blue diamond that seemed to drink the ambient light.

  A communication crystal levitated beside him, flaring crimson as Thalia’s strained, panicked voice crackled through the opulent silence.

  Thalia’s Report (Crystal Transmission):

  “—confirmed neutralization of Kryll-Tau-One. The primary nest is… gone. But the chamber… Your Grace, scanners detected thousands more before they overloaded. Frozen. Dormant. The Super Elite… Altos… his energy blast was… absolute. The sensors shattered— the very rock liquefied—”

  Theron’s thick, jeweled fingers – incongruously delicate in their movement – plucked a Saiyan knight from the board. His dark, sagging face remained an impassive mask, but his bioluminescent eyes, their pupils flickering with the faint, cold blue of Kryptonian augments, narrowed fractionally. A subtle, almost imperceptible chill radiated from him, sharp enough to frost the air inches from his skin.

  Thalia (Cont’d):

  “—Casualties confirmed: Adns, Luneir. Captain Vorin is… compromised. Shell-shocked. Your Grace, the Saiyan left nothing. No bodies. No chamber structure. Just… a crater of smooth, molten glass. It… it sings, Grace. A wrong note in the silence—”

  Snap. Theron crushed the Saiyan knight. Red crystal dust, fine as blood mist, spilled onto the tactical map of the tunnels etched onto the board below, obscuring a key junction. His voice, when it came, was deep and glacial, cutting through the lingering static.

  King Theron:

  “Return to the Citadel. Maintain silence. Speak of this to no one.”

  He flicked a dismissive finger at the communication crystal. It dimmed instantly, severing Thalia’s transmission mid-breath, cutting off the faint, disturbing echo of singing glass.

  Chessboard Symbolism & Advisor's Arrival

  Close-up: Theron’s meaty hand deliberately moved a Kryll rook (obsidian shard) into the square vacated by the shattered Saiyan knight, securing a new line of attack. His gaze flickered down. Near his foot, almost crushed under the table’s anti-grav field, lay a discarded pawn – crudely scratched with the label ‘Altos’ – cracked and forgotten. An afterthought. Or so it seemed.

  An Advisor entered, robes whispering against the polished floor, bowing low enough for his forehead to nearly touch his knees.

  Advisor:

  “Your Grace, the War Council demands an audience. General Kaelen speaks of… containment protocols. They fear the Saiyan’s unchecked power.”

  Theron:

  “Fear?”

  A slow smile stretched Theron’s lips. It wasn't warm. It revealed teeth capped with brilliantly shining Kryptonian ice-diamond, catching the crystal light with a predatory gleam. The Advisor visibly paled, taking an involuntary step back.

  Theron (Cont’d):

  “The Kryll infestation is cauterized. Tell the generals the Saiyan is a blunt instrument. Effective, yes, but ultimately… disposable. All instruments eventually dull, or break.”

  Internal Monologue (Theron):

  (Relief, cold and sharp) The frozen horde… Altos’ savagery averted a protracted, unpredictable purge. Messy, yes, but efficient. Fewer variables now.

  (Annoyance, a flicker behind the eyes) His brute force methods… crumpled the delicate timing like scrap parchment. Uncouth. Uncontrolled. He underestimates the board.

  (Calculation, gaze drifting to the ice-blue Kryptonian Queen piece) Let the Saiyan hammer crack the vault wide open below… easier to claim the true prize when the dust settles. Let him think this victory is his. (A fleeting image: the discarded Altos pawn, suddenly seeming less insignificant). Does he feel no awe? No fear? That lack of reverence… troublesome.

  The Cryopod Reveal

  As the Advisor bowed shakily and retreated, Theron heaved himself up from the chessboard. A subtle stiffness, a barely perceptible limp originating from his augmented hip joint – perhaps a rejection of the foreign bio-integration, perhaps a sympathetic resonance with something else in the room – marked his passage across the chamber. He approached a section of the obsidian wall that seemed utterly seamless.

  Placing a jeweled hand flat against the cold surface, he murmured a command word. With a low, resonating hum that perfectly matched the thrumming crystals, a section of the wall slid away, revealing a frost-sealed alcove. Frigid mist, colder than any natural winter, billowed out, swirling around his feet. Runes etched around the doorframe flared with potent, contained energy.

  Inside rested a massive cryopod. It wasn't sheathed in ordinary frost, but in jagged, unnatural ice the deep, impossible blue of a star’s core – a cold so absolute it seemed to burn the air, making Theron’s augmented eyes water despite his control. Frost spiraled across its surface in complex, impossible fractal patterns that defied Euclidean geometry.

  Within the glacial prison, a shadowy humanoid form pulsed with a faint, internal light, its slow rhythm perfectly synced to the resonance crystals humming throughout the sanctum.

  As Theron leaned closer, drawn by a force beyond mere curiosity, his reflection shimmered on the cryopod’s frosted surface. For a fraction of a second, it twisted, overlaid by a different face looking out – sharp-featured, regal, radiating an aura of immense, dormant power. The face was undeniably, starkly Kryptonian.

  Theron rested his hand on the star-core ice. It felt like touching absolute zero, a cold that should have shattered bone, yet he didn't flinch. A strange mixture of reverence, possessiveness, and cold, hard strategy warred in his augmented eyes.

  Theron (To the Pod, voice low, intimate, almost a prayer):

  “Patience, my Queen. My hammer. Let the Saiyan brute shatter the anvil below… let him clear the path. Then… then we forge Aethelgard anew. Our Aethelgard.”

  He slammed the alcove shut. The heavy thud echoed, final. The runes flared brilliantly, sealing the impossible cold within, then faded back into the obsidian. The resonance crystals in the room seemed to hum slightly louder, faster, as if anticipating.

  Final Lines

  Outside, somewhere high in the Citadel, ignorant victory bells might soon toll for the averted Kryll threat, celebrating the Saiyan tool. They remained blissfully unaware their King had just mentally sacrificed his knights, disregarded his pawns, all to position himself to finally claim his Queen.

  Deep below, in the smooth, glassy crater where nightmares once slept, now cooling under the alien sky, perhaps a single, overlooked shard of resonance crystal pulsed faintly in the vitrified rock… echoing the cryopod’s silent, waiting, Kryptonian rhythm.