Devour Vol 2 Ch 28: When the Gods Notice You!

The bridge of the Neralian Vanguard shook as Veyran stared into the main viewing screen. There, amidst the endless void, loomed the face of death itself.

The Darkness Devourer.

She was bigger than anything their scanners could comprehend — her body so vast that the curve of her shoulder alone eclipsed the local star. Her skin shimmered with a cosmic darkness that absorbed light, and her eyes, glowing violet, flickered like twin suns caught in the throes of madness.

Veyran had heard the stories, of course. Every child in the Empire grew up whispering about the Planet Devourers, the sisters who consumed worlds for amusement, who burned galaxies to prove a point. But in all his thirty cycles of service, through every war, every anomaly, every battle against beings that called themselves gods, he never thought he'd earn the attention—let alone the anger—of one.

And yet here she was.

The Vanguard's sensors were screaming. Hundreds of ships surrounded her, the full might of the Neralian Fleet, each one a titan of metal in its own right. Warships with engines that could drag moons, destroyers armed with the kind of firepower that could crack a planet's crust. But against her, they looked like insects swarming around the shadow of a mountain.

She didn't flinch. Didn't even seem concerned.

If anything—she looked amused.

Veyran's scaled hands tightened around the railing. "By the Core..." he whispered under his breath. "We can't win this."

His second officer, Lieutenant Dravik, swallowed hard. "Sir?"

"This isn't strength," Veyran muttered. "It's something beyond strength. This is... inevitability."

Outside, the Devourer tilted her head slightly, her lips curling into an almost playful grin.

"Oh, how noble,"

she said, her voice rolling across the comm frequencies uninvited, vibrating the hull of every ship in the fleet.

"You've come with your little weapons. Your fleets. Your courage."

Her words weren't sound — they were felt, crawling inside their skulls, making even the most battle-hardened captains grip their consoles in terror.

"Then be brave," she said, smiling wider. "Be brave in your final moments before I snuff you out like a small flame."

And then, her tone shifted — sharp, angry, personal.

"But before that... I will have my answer."

The comms flared alive again. "High Marshal Veyran!" came a frantic voice — Captain Solthis from the Ardent Wail. "What's happening out there? Why is she talking like she knows us?"

"I don't know," Veyran replied, forcing his voice steady. "But she's locked onto us. If we're her target, we'll lead her away from the homeworld — away from everything we built."

"Understood," said Solthis grimly. "We'll form a wall and slow her down."

Veyran closed his eyes for half a heartbeat. "Do what you can, Captain."

Outside, the fleet began to move.

Thousands of ships shifted into formation, engines blazing like blue stars. They fired in unison — a storm of Veythar Plasma Lances, Ion Convergents, and Gravitic Disruptors that painted the void in streaks of light. Beams of pure energy, powerful enough to split a continent, slammed into the Devourer's face, chest, and arms.

For a moment, the light was blinding.

And when it faded — she was still there.

Unharmed.

Her body shimmered with ripples of dark energy, the blue beams bending and dissolving against her skin as if the universe itself refused to hurt her.

She tilted her head again, brushing a strand of black hair behind her ear.

"Fools," she said softly, her voice dripping with mockery. "Is that all you're capable of?"

The bridge of the Vanguard went silent. Veyran could feel the despair settling over his crew like dust in a tomb.

Then, the Devourer's gaze shifted — her enormous violet eyes narrowing.

Among the thousands of ships, one darted away from formation — a smaller vessel, barely large enough to register on sensors. The same one she had chased through hyperspace.

Her smile returned, sharp and knowing.

"Ah... there you are."

She ignored the blue plasma bolts crashing against her back and shoulders as she began to move. Her body glided forward effortlessly, her long, bare legs pushing through the vacuum, sending shockwaves across space. Each movement distorted light itself — the stars behind her twisted and warped as her gravitational field consumed them.

"Where are you going?" she laughed, voice echoing through every channel. "Running from me again?"

The Vanguard's bridge shuddered violently as smaller ships were thrown aside by her wake. Hulls cracked. Engines failed. The fleet's formation disintegrated.

"Core's mercy!" Dravik shouted. "She's destabilizing the field! The entire sector's tearing apart!"

"Hold position!" Veyran barked. "Keep firing! Buy us time!"

The air filled with the sound of alarms. The Vanguard's reactor thrummed under stress as every ship in range unleashed their heaviest weapons.

The Oblivion Cannons — designed to pierce dimensional barriers. The Helix Torpedoes — artificial singularities compressed into warheads.

The Solar Flare Arrays — bursts of light hotter than a sun's core.

All of it struck her.

All of it... did nothing.

Each explosion painted her skin in bright fire, but when the light faded, she was untouched. She didn't even slow down.

Veyran's heart sank as he watched the devastation through the viewing screen.

"She's unstoppable," whispered one of the bridge officers.

"She's not a thing," Veyran said softly. "She's a force."

Another voice came through the comm. "Marshal, the fleet is collapsing! She's cutting through the center line—!"

The message cut off in static as another massive ship exploded, torn apart by the gravitational distortion around her body.

Veyran gritted his teeth, feeling the deck vibrate under his feet. The Vanguard's warning sirens blared.

"Status!" he barked.

"Shields collapsing! Weapons overheated! Hull integrity at sixty percent!"

He slammed his fist against the console. "Get us out of here! Engage the hyperspace drives!"

"But sir—"

"Do it! Now!"

The engines roared as the hyperspace drives began to charge. Blue arcs of light surged around the ship's wings. The view outside blurred as space started to fold.

Behind them, the Darkness Devourer reached out a single hand, her enormous fingers stretching through the void, each one large enough to crush a fleet.

"You think you can run from me again?" she whispered, almost playfully.

The ship shook violently as the drives screamed toward activation. Veyran grabbed the railing as the floor tilted. "Push them harder! Tear a hole if you have to!"

"Sir, the reactor can't sustain—"

"Do it!"

The Vanguard's engines exploded with light, bending space-time around them. The stars ahead warped, stretched, and then — with a blinding flash — they were gone.

Only the echo of the Devourer's voice lingered behind them in the dark:

"Run, little sparks. Run while you still can."