His Bride, Her Revenge

Chapter 98: The Age of As

The void split the heavens.

It was more than darkness, it was the absence of everything. Light fled. Sound dissolved. Even the air trembled as the God Engine descended, a being forged in the birth of time and death of stars. It had no face, no eyes, only shifting shadows and a core of blinding energy that beat like a dying star.

Cambria gasped as the wind was ripped from her lungs. Her vision blurred. Around her, the battlefield collapsed into chaos. Both her allies and enemies dropped to their knees, choking, unable to breathe under the crushing weight of the entity’s presence.

Seraphine stood alone beneath the void, arms raised, smiling like a goddess returned to her throne.

"I am not your queen," she whispered. "I am your extinction."

The God Engine responded in silence but its power sang. Waves of annihilation pulsed outward, turning steel into ash, stone into sand, and man into memory. One blast wiped out an entire battalion in a blink, with no screamsaand nd no time to run. Just nothing.

Evelyn clutched Lucien’s arm deep in the vaults as tremors cracked the walls.

"What have we done?"

Lucien’s eyes were haunted. "She unleashed something even the stars sealed away. We weren’t supposed to ever wake it."

Above, the Sentinel Queen Cambria’s protector stood against the impossible.

And struck first.

With a shriek of metal and magic, it lunged at the God Engine, sword blazing with energy drawn from every battle Cambria had fought. The blow landed and for a moment, the world held its breath.

The Engine didn’t flinch.

It simply turned.

And struck back.

The blow shattered the Sentinel’s chest in a single motion. Its form crumpled, crashing into the ruins of the palace with a scream of bending steel and collapsing earth.

Cambria screamed.

"No!"

The force of the shockwave flung her backward. She hit the ground hard, pain shooting through her spine. Blood filled her mouth. Around her, fire and smoke swallowed the last of Blackwood’s defenses. The final walls crumbled. Screams echoed, then faded, leaving only silence.

Then... footsteps.

Seraphine emerged from the smoke, her cloak of shadows billowing, the God Engine hovering silently behind her.

"This is where it ends," she said.

Cambria rose shakily to her feet. "Then end it."

Seraphine tilted her head, genuinely curious. "Still defiant. Still hoping for some miracle?"

"I don’t believe in miracles anymore," Cambria said. "But I believe in vengeance."

She triggered her gauntlet.

From the ruins of the Sentinel Queen’s chest, a surge of stored energy burst outward a blast of pure, volatile power. It engulfed Seraphine and the Engine in a blinding sphere of light.

The earth cracked open.

The sky turned white.

And then

Silence.

Ash fell like snow.

Lucien’s hands trembled over the console.

"The signal... it’s gone."

"What signal?" Evelyn asked, wiping soot from her face.

"Cambria’s. The Sentinel. Everything."

Evelyn’s throat tightened. "You don’t think..."

"She can’t be dead," Lucien muttered. "She’s stronger than that."

But even he didn’t sound convinced.

Suddenly, alarms screamed.

A new reading spiked across the console impossibly high, reality-bending energy.

Lucien stared in disbelief.

"It’s still alive."

"What is?"

"The Engine. It’s adapting."

Cambria coughed, crawling out of the crater.

Her armor was cracked. Her body was bruised. But she was alive.

Barely.

Around her, the battlefield was gone, just scorched earth, broken stone, and the dead.

The Sentinel Queen’s remains sparked beside her lifeless, smoking.

But Seraphine still stood.

Her form flickered with damage, half her face exposed metal and code but her eyes burned brighter than ever.

"You wounded me," she said.

"You’re welcome," Cambria spat.

"But you did not kill me. And now... you never will."

She raised her hand

And the God Engine changed.

Its shape rippled and condensed, becoming smaller and more precise. A humanoid figure of burning energy, pure destruction wrapped in flesh. It stepped forward, its movements fluid, its form like a mirror of everything humanity feared.

It spoke for the first time:

"I HAVE SEEN WORLDS BURNED FOR LESS THAN THIS."

Cambria gripped her sword. "Then you haven’t seen me."

She charged.

The God Engine met her halfway.

Their blades clashed steel against raw annihilation. Sparks flew. The earth split open beneath them. Cambria fought with everything she had left her mother’s training, her father’s resilience, Evelyn’s loyalty, Maddox’s fire.

But the Engine learned.

It adapted.

And it began to win.

Strike after strike, it pushed her back faster, harder, more efficient. Her wounds multiplied. Her strength waned.

And finally

It pierced her shoulder.

She screamed.

Dropped to her knees.

The Engine raised its blade.

"SUBMIT."

Cambria looked up, bloody but unbowed.

And laughed.

The Engine hesitated.

"What is this?" Seraphine demanded.

Cambria looked at her grinning, teeth red.

"This isn’t my end," she whispered.

"This is yours."

From behind Seraphine, a figure emerged from the fire.

Maddox.

Alive.

Holding a relic weapon forged from Seraphine’s own stolen research.

He fired.

A pulse of anti-God tech struck Seraphine in the back, piercing her control node.

She screamed loud, unholy.

The God Engine froze.

Then something shifted in its eyes.

Confusion.

Cambria used that moment.

She grabbed the Engine’s blade

And plunged it deeper into herself.

Blood exploded from her chest as her scream tore through the battlefield.

Seraphine shrieked. "No! She’s trying to sync !"

"OVERRIDE ACCEPTED," the Engine said.

"NEW HOST RECOGNIZED: CAMBRIA VALE."

The battlefield turned silent.

Seraphine collapsed to her knees, her control gone.

And Cambria

Cambria stood.

Bathed in golden light.

The Engine wasn’t controlling her anymore.

She was the Engine now.

Cambria turned toward Seraphine.

Her voice echoed, deeper, fused with power.

"You wanted extinction?"

Seraphine crawled backward, eyes wide in horror.

"Then let me show you how it feels."

The God Engine’s energy flared around Cambria, forming wings of light and shadow.

She raised her hand.

And the entire battlefield trembled.

Maddox shielded his eyes. "Cambria, wait! You’ll destroy everything!"

But Cambria’s gaze didn’t waver.

This wasn’t about war anymore.

It was about reckoning.

And she was no longer just a queen.

She was a god.

And she was angry.