Intergalactic conquest with an AI-Chapter 424: War for the Blood. {Prologue}

"Mmm? Have you gone mad now?" the armored man scoffed while watching Rex with a tilted head. His tone was half mocking, half curious. But just as he finished speaking, something strange happened.

The blade of Rex’s massive claymore suddenly shimmered and vanished from his view.

An instant later, it reappeared, not in Rex’s hands but just inches away from the man’s neck, floating silently like a ghost blade ready to strike. The sudden presence made the mercenary whip his head around in shock.

He hadn’t even noticed the space crack forming beside him. And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, Lyra was gone.

"Mmm?" the man muttered, looking down at his hand. Where moments ago he had been gripping her silver hair and limp body, now all that remained were a few strands of silver fluttering through the air.

His brow twitched slightly.

Then he smiled.

"Well, well... it seems things are getting more entertaining."

The space crack was closing rapidly, its swirling edges folding in on themselves like the petals of a dying flower.

Just then, Rex’s voice rang out with mocking amusement.

"Heh... didn’t expect that, did you?" he taunted him while standing tall amidst the cracked earth and glowing embers of their battlefield. His power armor, scorched and damaged from the earlier clash, began to repair itself the moment living metal flowed over his body like mercury, guided by millions of nanomachines.

As the final piece clicked into place, a golden halo formed behind him but this time, it wasn’t alone. Six sharp spikes of radiant energy rotated around the halo, glowing like miniature suns. The pressure they emitted made the air feel heavy and the sky darker.

The man’s smile didn’t fade. If anything, it grew sharper.

"I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting you to have Tier 6 backup hiding in your sleeves. That was a neat trick. But if that’s all you’ve got..." he paused, raising one hand into the air.

"...Then this is going to be disappointing."

In a flash of light, three other figures appeared beside him; those were his elite soldiers, each one Tier 6, their armor humming with power and exotic energy signatures. These were not ordinary soldiers; they were seasoned monsters who had clawed their way to the top of the galactic food chain.

"So," he said casually, "how about you hand over the Blood Clan assassin, and we call it a day? No need for anyone else to die over this. Think of the credits, my friend."

His voice had a sleazy charm to it, like a salesman trying to close a deal. But Rex wasn’t buying it. Rex didn’t respond with words right away. He simply raised his massive claymore with one hand and pointed it straight at the enemy.

His next word echoed with command.

"Come."

The air around Rex rippled, and three crimson rifts tore open in space... silent, sharp, and burning with energy. From the portals stepped three more figures.

Two of them were towering Tier 6 Blood Clan assassins, their presence cold and regal. The third was Little Red, whose smile alone could unsettle entire squads.

All three wore customized power armor, forged by Cleo. The armor shimmered with adaptive plating, integrated blood-channeling systems, and the latest stellar energy regulators; they were real pieces of art of cutting-edge tech that multiplied their already monstrous power.

Rex’s voice came again, low and full of murderous intention. "Kill the other three. Leave this one to me."

His words struck harder than a sword.

Even his allies glanced at him in surprise, for Rex to speak with such cold fury was rarer than a solar eclipse. It was the kind of voice reserved for execution, not battle.

The Blood Clan warriors activated their weapons with synchronized precision. Blades, whips, and energy constructs unfolded like wings of death. The enemy soldiers did the same, and for a moment, the battlefield stood still. Two elite squads, evenly matched, stared each other down, the tension thick as steel.

Then they moved. The explosion of power that followed shattered the air.

All at once, they clashed with such force that it sounded like thousands of glass panes breaking at once. Every blow cracked the very fabric of space. Dimensional ripples spread like shockwaves across the battlefield, warping gravity and ripping through matter like paper.

It was the sound of gods fighting.

The ground itself warped under the weight of their blows, trees in the distance were uprooted, and the sky pulsed as if reality were struggling to hold itself together.

Only two figures remained still, Rex and the man who still held strands of Lyra’s hair. The enemy commander sighed and shook his head in mock frustration.

"So pointless," he muttered while brushing the hair strands off his gauntlet. "I swear, I’m a businessman, not some brainless brawler. All this destruction... the credits we’re losing... it’s just bad economics."

He looked at Rex and smirked.

"Why don’t we make a deal? Just give me the girl, and I promise we’ll disappear. No more fighting. No more mess. You can go play hero somewhere else."

But despite his casual tone, his stance had shifted slightly.

He hadn’t moved on from Rex yet but his posture screamed readiness. His body was coiled like a predator watching for an opening, and the dangerous glint in his eyes said he was very much ready to kill.

Rex simply scoffed, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he activated the plasma edges of his massive claymore. The weapon hummed with lethal energy, glowing with a sharp, golden hue.

"Your sins are too many," Rex said, his voice calm but heavy, each word like a hammer hitting steel. "And I don’t forgive monsters who touch what’s mine. There’s no escape for you. You die here by my hand."

Those words struck the Tier 6 commander like a slap to the face. The arrogant grin he wore twisted into something darker thanks to his offended pride and simmering rage.

He lost it.

With a sharp snarl, the mercenary ignited his laser sword once again. A brilliant arc of red light flared into existence. In less than a blink, he vanished with instant movement, a privilege granted only to the most elite Tier 6 powerhouses.

He reappeared directly behind Rex, aiming to end the battle in a single, effortless strike. His sword slashed down lazily toward Rex’s head, expecting blood and triumph.

But what happened next... wasn’t in his calculations. From the center of Rex’s golden halo, a hidden mechanism flickered to life.

With a burst of electromagnetic pulses, a concealed cannon emerged from the halo, its barrel aimed point-blank at the attacker.

The cannon fired, the shot exploding like thunder, slamming into the mercenary with full force and sending him hurtling kilometers away, crashing through rock and steel like a meteor.

"Got you, bitch!" Rex shouted with a smirk on his face while his wings ignited with gold and crimson flame as he launched himself through the sky like a war god reborn.

The enemy commander coughed violently, buried under debris. His body shimmered as he released a wave of stellar energy, clearing the rubble in a sudden storm of force.

He stood with his armor cracked and his face twisted with hate.

"Now you’ve done it, you miserable peasant!" he snarled, and charged toward Rex with a burst of murderous intent.

The two warriors collided midair, their weapons clashing with a noise that echoed like a chorus of thunder. What followed was less a fight and more a deadly, beautiful dance of a violent ballet between two titans.

Their swords blurred as they moved, each strike strong enough to cleave a tank in two, each impact cracking the air and warping space around them.

But it was clear to any observer that Rex was at a disadvantage.

The mercenary was a mature Tier 6, nearing the threshold of Tier 7. Rex, in contrast, was a new Tier 5, his body still fluctuating between that and Tier 4 due to the chaotic evolution of his bloodline and Cleo’s modifications.

Every strike the enemy landed sent tremors through Rex’s armor, and though his armor healed rapidly and patched together by nanomachines and living metal, it was a game of survival, not dominance.

Even so, Rex stood his ground. He refused to fall.

"Go!" he commanded.

At his call, the six spikes orbiting his halo broke formation, flying outward like golden arrows. They circled the enemy and began to fire concentrated beams of golden light, hounding the mercenary from every direction.

"You damn buzzing flies!" the enemy shouted out, his shield flaring as he swatted the spikes aside with contempt. The beams didn’t break through his defenses, but they bought Rex the moment he needed to press the assault.

Steel rang against plasma again as the battle continued. And what was supposed to be a short duel... stretched on.

Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then another.

Even Cleo, watching from her massive fortress, the Cleopatra, which was currently locked in battle with an enemy fleet in orbit, was surprised Rex hadn’t fallen yet.

They fought across ruined plains, shattered bunkers, and molten steel. Neither man gave an inch. But then the battlefield changed again.

They were no longer alone.

From the horizon, a swarm of infected descended. Millions of them... mutated horrors of all shapes and sizes poured from the skies and cliffs, screaming like banshees.

Their grotesque bodies twisted and pulsed with rot, some flying, some crawling, and others galloping like beasts. Each time they landed, they pounced, hungry for blood and biomass.

Rex and the mercenary were forced to fend them off between their own deadly exchanges. Blades and fists cut down dozens at a time, but the invasion didn’t stop.

Then came the end of their duel.

After a final, colossal clash, their blades met with a roar of power, both weapons exploding in an overload of energy.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l