(V-08: 复合-英雄末路 | 风格D: 黑色电影)

The air in the Bastion smelled of ozone and old sweat. I was the last one. The others had either been vaporized in the first wave or had taken the "mercy pills" provided by the government. I didn't like the pills. They tasted like chalk and surrender.

My name is Marcus. I’m a relic. A soldier of a war that was lost before the first shot was fired.

Outside the viewport, the Void-Eater was a wall of absolute darkness, a mountain of shadow that had already crushed the moon into dust. The Bastion was a needle of steel perched on the edge of the world, and I was the man holding the needle.

I knew the math. I knew that my remaining batteries could power the main cannon for exactly one shot. I knew that the Void-Eater was so vast that a single blast would be like throwing a pebble at a tidal wave. It wouldn't stop the end. It wouldn't save a single soul on the surface.

But that wasn't the point.

I spent the last hour cleaning my boots. I straightened my tunic. I wanted to look like a soldier when the lights went out.

"You're wasting your time, Marcus," the voice of the AI whispered in my ear. The AI was the only thing left to talk to, and it had developed a streak of cruel sarcasm. "The entity doesn't even know you're there. You're an ant trying to punch a hurricane."

"Maybe," I said, my voice a low growl. "But I want it to feel the punch."

I locked the targeting system onto the nearest sensory node of the entity. I didn't aim for the heart—I aimed for the eye. I wanted the thing that was eating my world to see me.

I pressed the trigger.

The Bastion shuddered as the beam of pure energy tore through the silence of space. For a fraction of a second, a needle of white light pierced the darkness of the Void-Eater, leaving a tiny, glowing scar on its surface.

It was a meaningless gesture. A flicker of defiance in a universe of indifference.

As the gravity of the entity finally reached the Bastion, pulling the steel walls apart like wet paper, I felt a surge of cold, hard satisfaction. I hadn't won. I hadn't saved anyone. But as I was pulled into the maw, I knew that for one brief moment, I had made the god bleed.

And in the dark, that was enough.

***

[OTMES-v2-V08-S70-M1-090-7R300-0400]