Page 138 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

Epilogue—Alexandra

The Cycle Burns Eternal

T he blistering wind screams around us, clawing at my hair like a thousand horny Dracoth fingers.

His arms wrap tight—molten stone and hunger—pouring heat into me until I feel like a lava cake mid-eruption.

Todd clings onto my shoulder, wee booties gripped tight, clackers clacking with chubby fury.

His Wrapper-Tok streamers flutter behind us like confetti from a sugar-fueled apocalypse.

Dracoth’s boots thud against the open hatch of the sleek Smurf ship, engines thrumming beneath us. Laser fire cracks overhead—scarlet bursts slicing through smoke like the galaxy’s angriest rave.

The planet stretches beneath us—a half-rotten fruit.

One half—wild and feral. Serrated yellow forests.

Rivers of violet crystal slicing across bruised terrain.

The other half? A murder-bot tumor. Towering obsidian factories belch acid-green smoke into a storm-choked sky like the world’s trying to quit a forty-year vape habit.

Mountains weep molten slag, their peaks torn open like a shredded corset.

A swarm of murder-orbs streaks overhead like deranged golf balls. They blot out the blazing blue sun, escorted by a dozen Void-panes—black monoliths that pulse and shudder, vomiting molten blue volleys at our pressing fleet. Air bends. Reality hiccups.

“Fucking murder-bots!” I shriek, teeth grinding so hard I swear a molar cracks. My eyes flash like silver-crimson stars, the scorching air whipping the misty-fury from my face.

I thrust out a hand, summoning a web of divine shields. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. They shimmer into place just as a wave of blue bolts crashes down—splattering harmlessly like neon bugs on a windshield.

My smirk wobbles as the Nib ships return fire—red beams refracting off my shields in a dazzling mess of rainbow chaos.

“Hah!” I bark. “Whoops.”

My face heats like the rest of me. With a flick, I shift the shields to protect our fleet instead, wrapping our vessels in divine warmth.

The fisticuffs? Pure art.

Smurf ships dance like ballerinas on speed, carving through the retreating murder-orbs with crimson precision. Enemy shields flash—brilliant blue-purple pulses—then blink out as their metal bodies split like evil oranges on a butcher’s block.

The Void-panes last longer, their blue fire slamming against my divine barriers or missing entirely.

But one by one, their shields collapse in flashes of violent violet.

Hulls tear open wider than my wallet at a boutique sale.

They stagger with ribbony life, puking more plasma, then fall apart like soggy toast in the rain.

I laugh—raw, euphoric, manic.

This is it.

Dracoth’s fury and ecstasy synced with mine, our bond igniting like twin suns. My eyes stream divine fumes. My blood sings with power. Delicious carnage everywhere. Victory’s burn in my nostrils. Time stretches, honey-thick and golden.

This is what it means to live. Not survive. Not endure.

Burn.

Dracoth—my murder husband—feels it too.

His pervy mask leaks crimson-silver plumes, eyes locked on the battlefield below. No doubt, he’s commanding the bone-through-the-noses with nothing but wrath and his galaxy-sized brain.

The space-knights advance in razor-precise formations. Their new Smurf-tech—red shields and blasters—slice through the metal tide like a cleansing wave tearing through a barf-slick floor.

The Armxians—or whatever they’re called—lurch forward.

Twisted, four-armed cybernetic horrors, like someone duct-taped circuit boards to rotting meat.

They spew blue fire beside the usual creepy, skittering murder-droids.

But they fall just as fast—shredded by laser arcs or ripped apart by blazing crimson claws.

Above, Robo-Nibs clash with swarms of murder-orbs, beams threading neon webs across the sky.

Then the advance stalls—Dreadforges.

Towering war machines emerge—spined backs bristling with cannons.

They stomp through forest and factory alike, every step quaking the land.

Their maws belch rivers of molten blue, claws shoveling metal, flesh—anything—into a glowing core.

And from it... birth. Monstrosities. Wriggling horrors, fresh-screamed and barf-inducing.

Molten death spews in all directions—a tsunami of sputtering sputum that melts everything it touches.

Whole squads vanish. Mostly the desperate freedom-fighting Armxians.

But the bone-through-the-noses hold. Crimson shields locked tight, the inferno breaking against them like waves crashing against a cliff.

Then—Dracoth growls.

It starts low in his chest, rumbling through mine, before it tears free—an animal quake wrapped in wrath. His eyes—silver and crimson—blaze like twin supernovae. And he locks onto the nearest Dreadforges.

“Burn,” he murmurs, and the heat of his breath against my ear sends shivers down my spine.

His free hand rises. The air screams. Reality above the battlefield tears like paper soaked in lightning. A seam opens in the sky. And through it pour living suns.

“Do it, Dracoth!” I shout. The sacred ashes on my forehead burn with exquisite pain. My skin cracks with light, divine energy seeping through like molten silver. The runes on my chest aren’t just glowing—they’re singing, a chorus of gods cheering us on. “Kill them!”

Three miniature stars descend—writhing, shrieking, divine. They fall on the Dreadforges like liquid gold from a vengeful god. Metal screams. Armor blisters and melts like bad mascara in a heatwave. Core plasma detonates—and for one glorious second, the world turns white.

“Yes, my Red Dragon,” I scream. “Scorch them to ash! Melt them with Arawnoth’s love!”

Laughter rips from my throat as shockwaves slam into our ship. The Dreadforges collapse—slag heaps of molten agony. Their final spasms scatter murder-droid-Armxians like scorched roaches.

Dracoth’s grip tightens. Our bond erupts—shared ferocity, shared bliss. “Let them be reborn in strength,” he growls, tearing off his pervy mask.

More suns bloom above the battlefield. Divine judgment made fire. They descend like slow vengeance, turning legions of murder-droids into puddles of wax.

I twist in his arms, back to his chest, grinning up at him. His eyes are wildfires. His teeth, fangs. Skin burns where it touches mine, and the bond between us thrums with divine fury and hunger.

“Burn it all,” I whisper.

And he does.

The air reeks of scorched metal and divine fire.

Dracoth’s suns have reduced the last obsidian monstrosity—a mountainous murder-bot foundry—to a glowing puddle, molten slag hissing as it devours the earth like it’s hungry for absolution.

Silence follows. Not the silence of death—but of awe. Of reverence.

Another planet cleared of murder-bots like we’re divine, industrial-strength hovers. Another notch carved into the Dracie-Lexie-verse .

Most of the systems we’ve liberated were nothing but barren metal husks. Whatever lifeforms that might have existed, thrown into murder-bot inclinators like last season’s fashion. Every scrap of resources stripped bare.

Though some planets, like these Armxians, and not long before that, the Droopy-Laxians, clung to existence like stubborn weeds in poisoned soil.

Most of the inhabitants were twisted, cybernetically fused nightmares that still keep wee Todd croaking in his sleep.

But somehow, survivors emerged, desperate to help, desperate to fight back against the murder-bots.

Azure sunlight pierces the clearing smog, spilling over darting ships and whirling Robo-Nibs overhead. But my breath catches not at the sky—no. It’s what lies before us.

Hundreds of thousands , all eyes raised.

Space-knights from every clan, their plated armor as different as Dracoth’s rapey space hobo aliens.

They stand a jarring tapestry of hairless, scaled, spiky heads, flat insectoid faces, horns or tusks gleaming in dirty, garish garbage bags.

Four-armed Armxian freedom fighters twitch with reverence.

Even a few Smurfs attend this glorious moment, their stubby blue fingers darting over wrist-consoles, recording everything.

The scorched air crackles with tension like hair irons on the fritz—the universe holding its breath. The heat’s radiant as expectant murmurs stoke the fire building in my core. My skin prickles—not from fear, but from the delicious pressure of attention. Like an EDM beat waiting to drop.

Dracoth’s arm tightens around my waist as I raise my hand. A barrier of shimmering force erupts beneath us, lifting us high—until we hover above it all.

Gods on a pedestal.

“Again, the pathetic Scythians wilt before our divine wrath!” Dracoth bellows, his voice like a war drum cracking the sky. “The Gorglaxians. Now the Barlyxians. A wrong, righted. Your conquerors return—not to enslave—but to liberate .”

He turns to the mass of disheveled four-armed aliens, pumping his massive axe— Stormchaser— into the air. “Your freedom earned with fire and blood. Let it carve away the weakness. This is not death. This is tempering. As I was forged—so shall you be.”

The roar that follows is rapturous . A tidal wave of sound, raw and full of yearning, crashes over me—and I inhale it. My breath hitches. My heart stutters.

And then—my Acolytes.

My lovely, ash-drenched faithful. They flow through the crowd like liquid shadow, carrying bloodroot burners raised high.

The intoxicating fumes curl through the air like green-sweet fingers beckoning the crowd into Arawnoth’s domain of flames and fury.

War drums thunder like heartbeats torn from the gods.

Their hands—stained black with the sacred ash of Scarn and the fallen—press blessings onto the bowed heads of the faithful. And through it all—I feel everything .

Their devotion hits me like sunlight. Like pleasure. Like lightning wrapped in silk.