Almesis burst into laughter, and the sound rolled across Atlantis like the collapse of worlds. Ancient towers cracked apart from the vibration alone. Oceans of crimson sand burst upward around the colossal ruler of the desert, and its skeletal wings spread wider and wider until they blotted whole sections of the sky from view.
"Finally," Almesis growled, its voice hollow and distorted, as though countless beings were speaking at once from within an endless abyss. "Finally something crosses my path." Its clawed fingers dragged across the ground beneath it, and the moment those black talons touched the stone streets of Atlantis, whole structures vanished — not destroyed, not shattered, but gone. The buildings nearest its claws simply ceased to exist, erased from reality as though they had never been there; one moment tall walls stood proudly against time, and the next, nothing remained.
Youri's eyes went wide. "What the hell…"
Lea stepped back by instinct. "That's his Aura of Erasure," she whispered. "Don't let him touch you."
Almesis tilted its skeletal head down toward them. "I have no recollection of the last time I saw living things in my city." Its grin widened. "But I think…" The ground exploded beneath its feet. "…I am going to enjoy this."
In an instant Almesis lunged forward, and the sheer force of its movement warped Atlantis itself; whole avenues caved inward while waves of invisible gravitational pressure burst outward from its body. Youri felt his body grow impossibly heavy, the street beneath him cracked violently, and the towers around Tartarusios began to drag toward Almesis as though an invisible star had formed inside it. Infinite Mass. Even standing still, the creature bent gravity itself. Lea dropped at once to one knee, and Youri barely kept his feet.
Then darkness exploded between them. A colossal wave of black anti-matter swept across the city as Altopereh appeared directly in front of Almesis, and the impact alone split the streets of Atlantis apart for kilometers. Almesis stopped dead, and the two monsters stood face to face.
Altopereh had fully absorbed its Orbiton vessel now, and its true form towered over Atlantis in all its monstrous glory: a gigantic body of anti-matter rippling endlessly with black, liquid-like energy, crimson lines pulsing beneath its armored hide like glowing veins, massive curved horns sweeping back from its skull, and countless streams of dark matter flowing around it like living smoke. The crimson sky itself darkened around it.
Almesis stared at it in silence for several moments, and then laughed again. "You," it hissed, flexing its skeletal claws slowly. "I know you."
Altopereh grinned. "You should."
Almesis tilted its head. "You kept running through my domain, over and over again. What did they call you?" Its grin widened. "I don't remember." Its laughter deepened. "After all, you lost to mere mortals."
The air over Atlantis trembled violently — but Altopereh laughed too, a deep, monstrous laugh full of pure hatred. "Look who's talking. The mighty Almesis." Black anti-matter began to spiral violently around its claws. "The one who let the Sacros walk straight into his home, forge chains for gods, and leave without a scratch."
Almesis stopped laughing, and the whole city fell silent. Altopereh pointed one claw at Atlantis itself. "And you dare mock me?"
The instant those words fell, both monsters vanished, and their collision shattered half the district around Tartarusios. Almesis and Altopereh slammed into each other with enough force to send shockwaves tearing through the whole city. Towers collapsed instantly, and the ground beneath them imploded into a crater kilometers wide.
Youri grabbed Lea at once. "We move, now!" The two of them ran for Tartarusios while the battle exploded behind them.
Above Atlantis, Almesis swung one enormous skeletal claw downward, and the attack never touched Altopereh directly. Instead, reality itself bent, and the slash existed at several points at once. Altopereh dodged left — and the wound appeared across its chest anyway, dark anti-matter bursting outward as a massive gash tore through its body though the blow had never physically connected.
Altopereh snarled. "So these are your broken abilities!" It struck back at once. Dozens of anti-matter spikes appeared around Almesis and collapsed inward together, micro-singularity rounds, and the city twisted violently as miniature black holes detonated around the ruler of the desert and whole chunks of Atlantis folded inward and vanished. But Almesis simply walked through the destruction, its body ignoring the collapsing space entirely.
Then gravity exploded outward. Youri and Lea were both slammed against the ground in the streets below as whole districts of Atlantis began to drag upward toward Almesis, as though the city itself were being pulled into orbit around it. Great towers tore free of their foundations, stone bridges collapsed upward into the sky, and even Tartarusios groaned loudly as parts of the colossal ship began to shift toward the pull.
In the middle of that chaos, Youri and Lea finally reached a massive entrance half exposed beneath the sand. The opening towered hundreds of meters high, lined on both sides with ancient mechanisms, with great symbols glowing faintly beneath centuries of dust. Behind them, another explosion shook Atlantis as Altopereh roared and anti-matter beams burst from its jaws, cutting across the city in gigantic arcs of black destruction. Almesis answered by spreading its skeletal wings. The space around the beams warped instantly. The attacks curved unnaturally, then turned, and Altopereh's own beams came flying back at it from impossible angles and slammed into its side, sending the colossal ruler crashing through whole sections of the city.
Youri looked back for a moment. "What the hell is that thing?"
Lea grabbed him at once. "Focus!"
They entered Tartarusios, and darkness swallowed them instantly. The inside of the ship felt impossibly vast. Gigantic corridors stretched endlessly into the distance while ancient golden lights flickered weakly along the walls, and great structures that looked like engines lined the interior, many of them broken or half buried by time. The whole vessel felt dead, and yet Youri could feel vibrations running through it, as though it were only sleeping.
Far above them another colossal shockwave burst, and dust rained from the ceiling. Outside, Almesis seized Altopereh by the throat and slammed the anti-matter ruler across Atlantis again and again, every impact erasing parts of the city entirely. Altopereh answered with savage fury, forming gigantic plasma blades around both arms and carving straight through Almesis's wings, sending black skeletal fragments crashing across the desert. But the wounds closed instantly, and Almesis laughed. "You cannot kill the endless one!"
Its jaws opened unnaturally wide, and the city screamed as every loose object in Atlantis suddenly accelerated toward Altopereh at once under Infinite Mass, ruins the size of skyscrapers crashing into the anti-matter ruler from every direction. Altopereh burst outward in black energy and vaporized everything around it. Then it lunged straight at Almesis, and the two monsters tore through the crimson sky above Atlantis like gods at war.
Deep inside Tartarusios, Youri and Lea finally reached what looked like a colossal chamber, at whose center stood a gigantic circular mechanism covered in the same ancient symbols as the hull outside. Lea stared up at it. "This is the core chamber…"
Youri looked around. "So how do we power this thing?"
Lea approached the mechanism slowly, and then she froze. The symbols were glowing, one by one. Something was already waking the ship.
A deep rumble echoed through Tartarusios. Then a voice spoke, ancient, mechanical and alive. "Power sequence… detected."
Youri's eyes went wide as the colossal chamber slowly filled with golden light. Outside, Almesis stopped in the middle of the battle, and its skeletal head turned slowly toward Tartarusios. For the first time, its grin disappeared. And deep within Atlantis, something ancient began to awaken.