The Shattering, Chapter 62

Days away. He was only days away from reaching his destination. By now, Thragg had lost count of how many human planets he had saved. He hovered amid the endless star-strewn void, pausing momentarily to gauge the vast distance he had crossed. Memories of desperate battles fluttered at the edge of his thoughts—each one a world under threat, humans clinging to survival, and him stepping in, crushing the hostile invaders before they could achieve their goals.

He marveled at how far humanity had come since the last time he had encountered them. Before his awakening on Nareena’s world, humans had known only a single home planet. That was how he remembered it: a people bound to one sphere, dreaming of the day they might leave their atmosphere. Here, though, it was a different story. He had seen so many human-settled worlds, all bearing familiar traces of culture and technology, but each shaped by wildly diverging histories. Some shone with advanced machinery, others wallowed in decaying ruins. In each, the evidence of some great collapse seemed to linger: signs of a once-mighty star-faring civilization, broken by an event that legends called the Old Night, its causes never fully explained. The humans he saved told their own versions, each tale hinting at a cataclysm that had shattered their ancestors’ hold on the stars.

Those stories did not match the humanity Thragg had known. The humans in his old life never possessed such an empire. That incongruity only served to remind him that this was an entirely different place—maybe not just a new galaxy, but a new reality. Even the memory of the events that had brought him here carried fragments of impossibility. No Viltrumite should have survived what he had faced. That kind of devastation should have left him permanently broken, or more likely, ended him altogether.

And yet, he remained. Whole. Unscathed. Speeding through the cosmic emptiness faster than light.

Nashara had been silent for a while. Its presence usually lingered in his mind, offering remarks about their surroundings or suggestions on how best to dispatch marauders, but now it let a hush settle. The bond between them still existed, just muted.

They had recently protected yet another human planet, one that fell prey to green-skinned alien creatures. He had tried to communicate with those brutes before unleashing his force, but they refused to stop their assault or acknowledge any parley. Their technology looked cobbled together, crude but effective in raw force. They flung themselves into battle with reckless abandon, ignoring casualty or cost, as though possessed by a hunger to fight. After shattering their warships and scattering whatever ground forces had landed, Thragg departed, leaving the planet’s inhabitants in stunned disbelief.

Nashara remarked later that these aliens behaved more like rabid spawn than a thinking species. Thragg agreed. If they were truly the products of natural evolution, he could not see how they would remain so unrelenting. He suspected someone or something had deliberately made them this way.

This universe, it seemed, thrived on chaos. 

Peace remained distant, a faint dream. Thragg sometimes wondered if he had changed as much as he thought, or if he had merely stifled his old desires for conquest. He tried not to dwell on it.

Then, after days of traveling through the cosmic gulf, Nashara spoke again:

Slow down, Thragg of Viltrum. Turn where I tell you. You will discover something that I believe would be of great importance for the future.

He gave the mental equivalent of a raised brow. You’ve been strangely quiet.

I have been calculating. It offered no further elaboration, but allowed him to skim the Reaper’s recent computations through their shared link.

Within Nashara’s thoughts, he saw pieces of an unsettling pattern: the notion of a large human empire consolidating power, reconquering scattered human worlds. By Nashara’s calculation, Nareena’s home planet—her entire civilization—risked discovery and subjugation. Thragg considered the defenses on that world. They had potent weapons, but if confronted by a massive empire with endless fleets, they would fall. 

His son was a genius without comparison, but one planet could not possibly stand alone against an interstellar empire. 

That was why he had to see for himself. 

If your suspicions prove correct, I need to see for myself, he said.

Nashara directed him across light-years. He adjusted his flight path and surged forward for a short span, then halted near a blue planet around which a fierce naval engagement blazed. From his vantage point, Thragg caught the sight of colossal battleships exchanging violent broadsides. The fleets displayed obvious differences in design and markings. Both sides appeared human. Their weapons and propulsion lagged behind the Rangdan’s standards, or even the technologies he had personally known, but they still inflicted brutal devastation upon one another.

He watched as gargantuan guns fired in thunderous salvos, shells and energy beams pounding at hulls. Some vessels closed for ramming maneuvers, scraping against each other in metal-grinding collisions that unleashed boarding squads. It was a spectacle of desperate action. Turrets sprayed space with light. Bulky ships groaned under the strain of repeated impacts. One fleet had the advantage, albeit slowly grinding the other down. Each blow, each explosion, each scuttling vessel, contributed to a methodical push toward victory for one faction. The other fought on with grim determination, but seemed unable to turn the tide.

Thragg hovered above them, arms folded, gaze unwavering. This was war in its raw form—humans slaughtering humans. He noted that, despite their advanced civilization, they reverted to archaic tactics, launching punishing volleys and boarding actions. They seemed locked in a deadly stalemate, broken only by the slow attrition of one side.

He felt no urge to intervene. The conflict was none of his concern—he had sworn no oath to these people. Still, he tried to understand the bigger picture. If this was part of the empire Nashara suspected, then the empire fought among itself, or fought a breakaway faction. That alone told him how complex human politics might be here.

From his vantage, he saw the battered hulls, the arcs of debris spiraling away, the bodies of the slain floating in vacuum after each hull breach. A slow churn of silent tragedy.

He gazed past the warring fleets toward the planet below. Hints of burning continents flickered in the upper atmosphere, faint ember-glows amidst the darkness. Another world ravaged by war. Another testament to how fractured this human domain had become. Nareena’s world might one day suffer a similar fate if that empire arrived in force.

Nashara’s presence shifted, bringing his attention back to the here and now. It offered no words, just a quiet sense of confirmation that yes, this was indeed the place it had detected. A significant battle among humans. Possibly part of a larger pattern. Possibly connected to the empire. Thragg exhaled slowly, tension coiling in his muscles. He had a choice. He could investigate, or he could move on. But the call of curiosity—and the need to confirm Nashara’s predictions—held him in place.

He watched a moment longer, letting the sight of colliding ships burn into his mind. Then, with a flick of movement, he turned away, deciding to remain a silent observer. 

So this is the shape of war in this galaxy, he thought. A shape that might soon cast its shadow over the place he once called home. Or perhaps a shape that would soon face him if they threatened that world.

Still, for now, he lingered, suspended in the vacuum, letting the chaos unfold below. Another day, another battle, and the promise of more to come. Which of these two fleets is a part of the empire in your calculation? 

The larger one, of course. Nashara answered. The one whose ships bear a golden bird of prey. 

Thragg nodded and figured it was obvious enough. Can you penetrate their systems from here or shall I play the unwanted guest and tear open one of their hulls?

Nashara went silent for a moment before speaking once more. I’m afraid you’ll have to enter one of their ships and make physical contact with some form of data bank to grant me access. Their systems are–ironically–too crude to be accessed remotely. 

Thragg nodded. Very well

He surged forward, far slower than light this time since his objective was not to destroy, merely extract information. His target was the largest of the ships that bore the golden bird of prey. And it certainly was large, its topmost portion covered in massive spires and structures and even statues. It was also gaudy and overdesigned, but it certainly made for an impressive sight. Point me to the direction of their largest data bank. 

Already marked. Something shifted in Thragg’s vision. A moment later, a sort of highlight appeared over a portion of the grand vessel. It was close to the very edge of the vessel, by the thrusters. I would assume it to be the Command Center, but I cannot say for certain. I recommend you do not fly directly into that area as doing so may risk the integrity of their primitive technology. 

Thragg nodded. He flew close to the vessel’s Command Center, before hovering a few hundred meters away. Shrugging, he punched right through the hull beneath him and tore his way into dozens of meters of metal and concrete and some other material that he could not name. Nothing stood in his way. Thragg continued ripping through until he reached a hallway that looked just about large and wide enough for humans to walk on. Above him, some form of sealing gel seeped into the hole he’d created. Not another moment later, gravity and oxygen returned, accompanied by bright red lights. Thragg breathed in. 

He walked forward. And the sealed door at the edge of the hallway hissed open, revealing human warriors who carried rifle weapons. There were easily dozens of them. They wasted no time and began shooting at him. Thragg calmly walked forward, ignoring their attacks. A part of him–that part of him that used to be the conqueror–would’ve loved to splatter them against the wall. But, they were of no threat to him. No amount of bullets and laser beams was going to scratch his skin. So, he walked towards them and ignored them. He did not mind the grenades and whatever else they threw at him. One of them charged him with a cackling saber; Thragg ignored that one too and merely pushed away the soldier. 

He did the same to all of them, lightly pushing them away so they didn’t hurt themselves in their attempts at hurting him. A few even tried to poke out his eyes. Their efforts were valiant and adorable. After a while, they resorted to containment–at first, with chains, but that didn’t work. They tried sealing entire halls and even sacrificing themselves to blow open a hole in the hull, likely hoping that the vacuum would pull him out. It was… all in vain. A part of him felt something close to sorrow at their ineffective sacrifice, but another part of him felt something close to pride at their fearlessness.

Regardless, he continued onward. 

They gave up after a while. Or, at least, the normal humans did. 

Thragg tore open a door and walked into a large, open chamber, filled with… things he did not recognize or understand–some form of machinery, he figured. It likely wasn’t too important since Nashara kept silent. Alongside the odd machines were books–stacks upon stacks of them, piled so high they almost formed pillars. And moving things from one place to another were half-men, encased in wires and devices; one such man turned to regard him for a moment, its eyes were dead and a thin stream of drool spilled from its lips and onto the floor.

One of the many doors in the chamber hissed open and dozens of armored giants marched right through.