After millions of casualties, the Queen of Blades was finally back.
Having lost all his essence, Ouros has lost the strength to cling onto the platform. Oh, and he also lost his life. His body just laid back and started floating into the endless space.
Unfortunately, no one cared. He wasn’t the protagonist of the day.
Meanwhile, the protagonist of the day floated in the air. Her entire body shined in golden energy. Her zerg carapace and spine wings were gone. Instead, she received a golden wing on the back. Her entire body was void of any materialistic characteristics, like flesh, skin, and bone. She was like a celestial presence with little connection to the human race.
She has become a Xel’naga. After going from human to zerg to human to zerg, the former Queen of Blades has finally reached the ultimate ascension.
Kerrigan’s eyes opened. Her amplified psionic energy scanned through the entire platform.
“20 million void shades on the ground…” The queen’s eyes shined fury when she saw the Swarm was pretty much decapitated. The sight of Zagara being cornered by a dozen zealots didn't help either. As the Queen of Blades, there was nothing Kerrigan could do, but as a Xel’naga…
Kerrigan closed her fists and roared. Suddenly, a halo of golden cosmic energy exploded from her position to all across the platform. Every single void shade that touched the halo simply melted. It didn't matter if you were a thor or a zergling. The cosmic energy just burned through everything that had void energy in it faster than fire burning through a piece of paper.
Xel’naga cosmic energy was the natural predator of void shades.
Within moments, 20 million void shades turned to 0.
In his fortress, Amon was frightened.
The prime opportunity to eliminate the Queen of Blades was lost. Kerrigan was Xel’naga, and a powerful one, it seems. Even he had trouble exterminating 20 million void shades with a single strike.
On the positive side, Amon didn't feel like he, an elder Xel’naga, would lost to someone who just ascended. At least that was what the dark god kept on telling himself. You are older. You are more experienced. You are more prepared. Of course you can take down someone who hasn’t been Xel’naga for more than a day!
Plus, Narud was dead. Kerrigan’s supporters have lost most of their fleet. As a last resort, Amon had six void crystals around his platform. These void crystals constantly extracted void energy from the surrounding and fled them to Amon after turning them into life force. As long as those void crystals stood, he was invincible.
On the negative side, Amon knew his void shade army was gone. His fleet was devastated as well. Out of his 4,000 ships, only about 1,000 remained. The Allied fleet didn't have many ships left either, but Amon knew he was no longer able to flood the field with units. Without the absolute number of ships, he no longer had any chance of dealing with Kerrigan with his minions.
“All ships return to my location.” The dark god ordered. Immediately, his void shade fleet retreated. The Allied fleet made a short pursue and stopped a handful of void shade vessels from fleeing, but they lacked the numbers and the energy to do much.
As the last of the void shades fled, the Allied leader counted their losses.
And it wasn’t a pretty sight.
The Purifier fleet was down to 200 ships. 400 capital vessels were lost in the brutal battle. Five motherships were destroyed. All the reserve shells were used up. All of Delta’s twenty backup shells were spent. Out of two million Purifiers, only fifteen thousand remained. Most of the immortals and colossi have fallen.
The Warden fleet had 30 ships left. Half of them were tougher B-2s. 169 of Jean’s 200 G-1s were gone. The entire nuclear arsenal was gone. Of the two hundred thousand Wardens, eighty thousand remained. Most of her S-3s were gone.
Basically, Jean has lost most of the forces she carefully built up.
As for the Tal’darim...Jean didn't know the exact numbers, but Nyon didn't look too happy.
The Swarm, well, the Swarm was going extinct. Even Zagara herself was heavily wounded. She would live, but just barely.
Finally, Narud and Zeratul gave their lives for the cause.
Jean, Delta, Viper, and Nyon returned to Kerrigan. The new Xel’naga was constantly floating in the air. In fact, it didn't even take Kerrigan any energy to fly. None of the other commanders could even get close to her. After all, she was on a completely different level.
“We will march on Amon’s position at once.” Kerrigan decided. “I can’t wait to hear his screams.”
The former Queen of Blade’s tone made Jean frown a little. In this timeline, without Raynor, Kerrigan was a little more leaning to the dark side. She had less tie with the material world. The only thing powering her forward was the hate of Amon. Jean didn't know if this was a good thing, but as long as Kerrigan could win the fight against Amon, she didn't care.
“Can you defeat Amon?”
“Yes.” Kerrigan said confidently. “You shouldn’t doubt me. My powers...they are more than anything you have seen.”
“Actually,” Suddenly, Nyon spoke up. “the Tal’darim is leaving.”
“What?” Viper frowned. “You’re just going to leave us? We’re in the middle of a war!”
“I have no choice.” Nyon wasn’t looking at Viper or Kerrigan. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Jean. “I have lost four million of my people. The Chain of Ascension is in pieces. My supplicants are in pieces. Both of my top ascendants have refused to fight anymore. The Death Fleet is shattered. I have no choice. I apologize, but we are leaving.”
“How dare you! It’s betrayal!” Viper was less than satisfied. The Tal’darim took heavy losses? Who didn't take heavy losses? The Purifier Fleet was in pieces. The Warden Fleet was almost wiped out. She has been with Jean long enough to see how much time and effort she spent building up those fleets, and no doubt she must be heartbroken that the fleets were torn. The betrayal of the Tal’darim was just pouring salt into the wound.
Nyon didn't bother answering Viper. As the Highlord, he didn't care the opinion of a random spectre, even if the spectre was as powerful as he was.
There was only one person’s opinion who he cares about, and that person was Jean Turner.
Jean was silent as she calculated. If most of the Death Fleet still supported the war and only Nyon wished to leave, she could try to make a deal with the lower ascendants, but if the entire Death Fleet hoped to return to the material world, there was very little she could do. If she had the time, she might try to do some manipulation, but given the situation, manipulation would likely burn her.
It would be to her best interest to just let the Death Fleet go.
“Very well.” She said, to the surprise of almost everyone in the conversation. “Highlord, if leaving is the wish of your people, then it is what you will do.”
Nyon frowned. Honestly, he was touched. Placing himself in her shoes, if an ally of his told him, in the middle of a war, that he wanted to leave, Nyon might just execute that ally on the spot and take over his forces. Through all the time he worked with Jean, Nyon knew the girl wasn’t someone to push over. The fact that she was willing to let him go meant a lot.
Even Nyon, the Highlord of the Tal’darim, felt bad about abandoning Jean.
“In that case, Commander Turner, I will see you back in the sector. We will still be allies. We will still fight together.” The Highlord couldn’t help but say. “I will make sure there is a spot for you in the sector, no matter what happens here.” He promised. Perhaps for the first time, he wasn’t being manipulative or interest seeking. He was actually being a good friend.
“Then you shall have my thanks.” Jean smiled, although she knew this would be the last time she would ever see Nyon. If she won, she would leave this world. If she lost, she would be dead.
Nyon gave Jean one last nod before leaving the meeting.
As the three hundred ships left in the Death Fleet departed from the platform toward the portal back to the sector, what was left of the Allied forces gathered up for a final assault.
The Swarm had 8 leviathans left. The Purifier Fleet had 200 ships. The Wardens had 30. This was nothing compared to the 1,400 ships the Allied forces had when they entered the Void, but this time, they had a Xel’naga on their side.
Tracking down Amon wasn’t the problem. Kerrigan could sense Amon’s presence, just like Amon could sense Kerrigan. On the way, the Allied fleet came past countless platforms, but all of them were abandoned. Amon has pulled all the forces he had back to his personal fortress for a final stand.
Finally, the Allied forces reached their final battlefield.
1,000 ships, the last of Amon’s fleet, stood in the way between the Allied fleet and Amon’s fortress.
“I can take them.” Kerrigan commented casually before walking out of her leviathan. She floated into the air and faced the 1,000 capital ships alone.
It was one against one thousand. It wasn’t a fair fight...for the void shades.
If the 1,000 ships were real, even Kerrigan would have to do things carefully. A volley from a fleet of 1,000 could easily hurt her, and the fleet could almost certainly fire much more than one volley.
But things were different with void shades. Void shades were inherently countered by Xel’naga cosmic energy. Just like a thousand barrels of gasoline couldn’t put out a fire, a thousand ships couldn’t take down Kerrigan either.
Kerrigan knew it. Amon knew it. The dark god was only attempting to waste Kerrigan’s energy.
The void shades opened fire. Countless missiles, lasers, spores, and beams headed for Kerrigan. But all the Xel’naga had to do was form a wall of cosmic energy in front of her, and all the projectiles just melted. They were composed of void energy as well.
Kerrigan kept moving forward. The void shade fleet kept on firing, but it was to no avail. Finally, Kerrigan was close enough to literally push the wall of energy onto the void shade ships. Three battlecruisers melted like butter.
Realizing the problem, Amon tried to get the void shades to retreat. Too late. Kerrigan sent out a chain of cosmic energy, which bounced from one ship to another. Any ship touched by the energy was marked for death. Within moments, like an infection, the golden energy has spread to the entire fleet.
Before long, Amon realized his last capital ships were lost.
Kerrigan didn't return to her leviathan. Instead, she started descending on Amon’s platform. There was still a small army of void shades around, but Kerrigan’s eyes were trained on Amon and Amon along.
“This doesn’t have to end like this.” Amon started. His voice could be heard even by Jean and her fleet. “Sign a truce with me, and you and I can divide the Void. Your supporters can return to their homeworld. I will never set foot into the Korpulu Sector ever again.”
“Getting scared?” Kerrigan smirked. “I don’t recall you being so nice when you had me under your palm. You used me as a tool to expand the Swarm so you can take it over when you feel like so. I will never forgive that.”
“Do you think you can kill me? You still have a lot to learn, young one.” The dark god waved his tentacles. “I have been living on this piece of rock for more time that you can count. See those void crystals? They can transform the void energy around here to life force and feed it into me. As long as they are standing, I’m immortal.”
“Then I will destroy them.” Kerrigan’s smirk grew even wider. “You are falling apart, Amon. If you really think you can defeat me in combat, you wouldn’t tell me what those crystals do. You would engage me and straight up try to wear me down and kill me. The only reason why you told me that is because you want to scare me off...because you know you can’t win.”
Amon suddenly wanted to slap himself. Kerrigan was right. After all the defeats, he was much less confident about himself, especially after the enemies were at his door. He believed the void crystals could keep him alive, but after throwing away an absolute advantage in the counterattack against Kerrigan and losing, he was no longer certain about anything. Much to his dismay, the new Xel’naga was keener than he thought and quickly seized his hesitance.
What happened next made him want to slap himself again.
Kerrigan turned around to Jean.
“Take out those crystals while I take on Amon.”
A while ago, Amon was so shocked by how Kerrigan swiftly slaughtered the 20 billion void shades on her platform that he forgot about the other factors. All he could think of was to weaken Kerrigan for the final battle, and he did so by sending his entire fleet to die. He completely neglected the presence of the small, but potentially devastating, fleet of supporters behind Kerrigan. If he kept even some of his fleet alive, then those ships could keep Kerrigan’s fleet back while the two Xel’naga duel. In that case, Amon still stood a chance with constant reinforcement.
Now that he lost any air control he once had, Kerrigan’s fleet could freely bombard the platform and all the void crystals on it.
As Kerrigan descended onto the platform, the fear in Amon’s eyes was impossible to hide.
