A portal split the sky.
Not a small opening. Not the tight efficient circle Noah used for standard domain travel. This one tore, purple energy bleeding outward from the edges in threads that reached across the cloud layer, and the roar that came through it before anything else did reached the battlefield before the sound of the portal opening had finished traveling.
Every Harbinger on the ground stopped moving.
Not tactically. Not by choice. Their bodies just stopped, the instinct older than decision-making firing before the brain could override it, and in that half second of collective stillness every Eclipse member and Ares soldier and task force fighter on the battlefield felt the same thing, a pressure in the chest that wasn't fear but lived in the same neighborhood.
Red mist began to pour out of the portal, creating its own dense cloud.
Then Nyx came through.
