Server 9-Chapter 31: The Sky is Falling (Again)

The sound of the Prometheus hitting the atmosphere was like the sky itself being torn in half.

Inside the cockpit, the vibration was so intense I could feel my teeth rattling in my skull. The God Rod’s energy surged through the Titan’s frame, That the interior monitor started glowing so brightly in blue and white that everything became hard to see clearly. Metal screamed. Bolts groaned. The whole ship felt like it was seconds from shaking apart.

"Altitude: thirty thousand feet and dropping!" Glitch screamed, barely audible. He was strapped into the secondary engineer’s seat. "Elias, the heat shields are overloading! We’re going to melt before we hit the deck!"

"ARES—divert the excess heat into the kinetic batteries!" I roared, fighting the G-force trying to flatten me into the chair. "Eat the friction! Feed the core!"

"Affirmative... Commander..." ARES’s voice was strained, the AI struggling to process the massive data load. "Heat... redirection... initiated. Power levels... exceeding... maximum... threshold."

I looked through the shattered viewport.

An emergency energy field flickered where the glass used to be, barely holding back the superheated air. Below us, the Rust Sea was a dark smudge on the horizon. Ahead, the gleaming circle of Neo-Veridia rushed up to meet us.

From this altitude, the city looked like a circuit board made of diamonds, glowing with cold artificial light that made my eyes ache.

"Target: Sector 4 Central Plaza," Sarah said. Her voice was remarkably calm for a woman falling from the sky in a rusted robot. Her fingers danced across her datapad in precise, rhythmic motions. "I’ve bypassed the local orbital defense grid. But the moment we drop below the cloud layer, the automated turrets will have a clear shot."

She looked up.

"We have a ten-second window before they lock on."

"Ten seconds is all I need," I muttered.

I felt the Devourer’s hunger clawing at the back of my throat. It wasn’t just my energy surging now—it was the Titan’s. We were a single entity. A falling star made of rage and iron.

BOOM.

We broke the cloud layer.

The toxic smog of the lower levels vanished, replaced by crisp, filtered air of the upper level. Below us, the skyscrapers of Sector 4 rose like needles reaching for heaven.

And in the plazas at their feet— was people.

Real people. Citizens dressed in flowing silks and glowing fabrics, walking through pristine gardens. They looked up as our shadow fell over them, faces pale in the sudden artificial dawn of our descent.

"Impact in five... four..."

"Brace yourself!" I yelled.

I didn’t use the thrusters to slow down.

I used them to accelerate.

I wanted the impact to send a message.

CRASH.

The Prometheus slammed into the center of the plaza.

The shockwave was cataclysmic.

Marble flooring shattered into millions of white shards. Every window in a three-block radius blew out simultaneously. The massive fountain in the center—a golden statue of Malachi holding a glowing globe—was pulverized into dust.

The tyrant’s image was our first casualty.

Silence.

It lasted exactly three seconds.

Then the alarms started. Thousands of them. A discordant chorus of high-pitched shrieks filled the air.

[ALERT: UNSCHEDULED LANDING]

[SECTOR 4 BREACHED]

[SECURITY TEAMS DISPATCHED]

The dust began to settle.

The Titan stood in the center of a fresh crater, smoke rising from its joints. Behind us, the God Rod—still wired into our back—glowig with a dull red.

"Everyone alive?" I asked. My head was spinning.

"I think my stomach is still at twenty thousand feet," Glitch groaned, unbuckling his harness. "But yeah. I’m here."

"Good to go," Maya said. She was already at the side hatch, Enforcer rifle raised and ready. She kicked the door open. "Move, move, move!"

I rose from the throne.

But Something was different.

The energy density in Sector 4 was ten times higher than the Rust Sea. I could feel the city’s power grid thrumming beneath my feet—a massive, delicious river of electricity flowing through buried cables. Miles of it. Millions of volts. Just waiting to be consumed.

We stepped out onto the broken marble of the plaza.

The people of Sector 4 stared at us.

These weren’t the desperate scavengers of the slums. These weren’t the hardened survivors of the scrap heaps. These were Citizens. Soft skin. Perfect hair. Expensive neural-links glittering at their temples. They looked at us like we were monsters crawled out of an old nightmare.

"Look at them," Maya whispered, rifle scanning the frozen crowd. "They have no idea what’s happening. They’re just... shopping."

"Not for long," Sarah said.

She stepped to the front of our group, face set in cold determination. She raised her hand.

The holographic projectors mounted on the Titan’s shoulders flared to life.

Across every billboard in the plaza—across every personal device held by every Citizen—the images changed.

Beautiful advertisements for the Aether vanished.

In their place: the footage from the Server Farm.

Blue sludge, thick and toxic.

With Naked, emaciated bodies being flushed down through disposal tubes like garbage.

The screaming face of the sleeper in Pod 815 as his mind was harvested.

"PEOPLE OF NEO-VERIDIA!"

Sarah’s voice boomed through the Titan’s external speakers, amplified to a deafening volume.

"YOUR PARADISE IS A GRAVEYARD! YOUR IMMORTALITY IS BOUGHT WITH THE BLOOD OF THE POOR! LOOK AT THE TRUTH!"

The crowd gasped.

Some turned away, covering their eyes. Some fell to their knees. Others simply stared, mouths open, as the horrific images played on every surface around them.

A low murmur of horror rippled through the square.

"They won’t believe it," I said, watching the crowd. "Not all of them."

"They don’t have to believe it," Sarah replied. Her eyes were cold. "They just have to be distracted." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

WHIRRR.

From the surrounding skyscrapers, the response arrived.

Dozens of sleek drones descended from the rooftops. White and gold, gleaming like angels of death. These weren’t the rusted hunters of the Rust Sea—these were Paladins. Corporate elite units. Armed with high-frequency sonic cannons and paralyzing net-launchers.

They moved in perfect formation, surrounding the plaza.

"Asset identified," the drones chirped in unison. Their voices were cold. "Lethal force authorized. Surrender the Queen."

I froze.

The Queen?

I glanced at Maya. She had gone pale

"Elias," she said, taking cover behind the Titan’s massive foot. Her voice was tight. "We have company."

I stepped forward.

I didn’t reach for a gun. Instead i spread my arms wide, feeling the massive power lines running just feet beneath the broken marble.

[Skill: Network Sense]

The grid lit up in my mind’s eye.

I could see everything. The lights. The drones. The security locks. The transport tubes. It was a giant, glowing spiderweb stretching across the entire sector.

And I was the spider.

"You want the Queen?" I asked.

The shadows at my feet seemed to deepen.

"Come and take her."

I slammed my palms onto the ground.

[Skill: Energy Siphon — Maximum Range]

I didn’t just take power.

I reached into the city’s heart—and I pulled.

The lights across the entire sector flickered. The massive holographic billboards dimmed. Emergency alerts began blaring from distant towers as power fluctuated across the grid.

I felt fifty thousand volts surge up my arms, through my chest, and into my soul.

It was too much.

And It was also glorious.

[XP GAINED: +100... +100... +500...]

[WARNING: ENERGY ABSORPTION EXCEEDING SAFE LIMITS]

"I’m still hungry," I snarled.

[Skill: Disrupt]

I released the energy.

A massive dome of electromagnetic FORCE (EMP) exploded outward from my body. Blue lightning crackled across the plaza, arcing between lampposts and benches.

The Paladin drones didn’t just fall.

They exploded.

Their high-tech batteries couldn’t handle the raw, dirty energy I’d just force-fed them with. They detonated in mid-air, raining down across the plaza in a shower of white and gold sparks.

The crowd screamed. Citizens scattered like frightened birds, running for the transport tubes.

"Glitch!" I yelled. "Where’s the Harvester Hub?"

"Three blocks north!" Glitch shouted back, fingers flying across his portable deck. "The tall building with black glass! But security is tightening fast—Malachi is waking up the Iron Legion in this sector!"

"How many?"

"Hundreds! Maybe thousands!"

Good. I was still hungry.

"Maya, Sarah—on me!" I barked. "Glitch, stay with the Titan. Keep the broadcast running. If they try to shut it down, fry their servers."

"You got it, Boss!" Glitch slid into the Titan’s maintenance bay, already pulling up defensive protocols. "Go give ’em hell!"

We ran.

The Prometheus stood silent behind us—a smoking monument in the center of the ruined plaza. A testament to our arrival.

We sprinted through the pristine streets of Sector 4. We Past gleaming storefronts. Past cowering Citizens. Past security cameras that sparked and died as I passed it.

The city of lies was finally showing its teeth.

Above us, the sky began to glow red.

Not from the sunset.

From the activation of the city’s internal defense grid.

I looked up at the crimson light spreading across the artificial heavens.

Malachi was awake.

And he wasn’t going to let us take his fuel without a fight.