My trembling question cut through the ominous silence of the cave.
Every gaze turned to one man.
Vent kept his head down, staring at his trembling steel prosthetic fist.
Soon, his voice, cracked like scraping metal, was heard.
"...Yes."
He admitted it.
"That... was my final mission. 'Disposal of Embers'."
He looked at his shaking steel arm and continued speaking as if seeing a hallucination of that day.
"The purge... they said it was a military operation. To suppress the resistance forces of Arkelos. I... I followed orders. But..."
His voice crumbled for the first time.
"Disposal of Embers... was different. That wasn't an operation. Just... the survivors..."
His gaze turned painfully toward me. His eyes seemed to be looking at the 8-year-old me, crying in the ashes 10 years ago.
"...So, I ran away."
"Crazy..."
Leon tightened his grip on the broken pipe and took a step back from Vent.
It was more than just contempt for a murderer.
Lilia couldn't even look at him due to the terrible waves of guilt radiating from Vent; she just lowered her head and burst into tears.
It was the very moment when internal conflict reached its peak, and the air inside the bridge was about to explode.
Voooooom...
The vibration that had been roughly shaking the entire ship... began to weaken.
The roar of the storm that filled the cave, loud enough to tear our ears, was subsiding.
The only shield hiding us from Adrian's eyes was disappearing.
"No...!"
Lilia looked out the window with a pale face.
"The storm... it's dying down! The air currents outside are stabilizing!"
"Damn it!"
Leon frantically pounded on the smashed console. The radar screen flickered on with static.
"If the storm stops, Adrian will again...!"
He checked the dozens of ominous signals appearing on the radar.
"Jayn! In 5 minutes... no, in 3 minutes, they'll find this cave entrance!"
It was the worst-case scenario.
Before the truth of the 10-year tragedy could even settle, the overwhelming despair of the fleet was about to swallow us again.
"Damn it! 3 minutes left!"
Leon's scream echoed through the bridge, but Vent didn't even flinch at those words.
He just looked down at his trembling steel prosthetic hand in self-resignation.
It seemed that 10 years of guilt and the massive despair named Adrian had finally broken everything in him.
"It's no use..."
He muttered.
"With this broken ship... against that fleet... against Adrian... there is nowhere to run. Is this my... final judgment?"
In his crumbled form, I saw the 8-year-old me left alone in the ashes 10 years ago.
The despair of that day when I lost everything and gave up everything.
But the last bit of fear remaining inside me turned into anger toward him, and then into a cold conviction.
I walked toward Vent.
Leon called me in surprise, but I didn't stop.
I placed my bare hand on top of his trembling steel prosthetic hand.
Creak...
The cold metal spasmed under my palm.
Vent lifted his head in shock.
His shaking eyes turned to me.
"Get up, Vent Steel."
My voice was no longer trembling.
"Adrian called you an ember. I am an ember too. A spark they failed to burn completely."
It wasn't forgiveness. Nor was it pity.
It was a sharing of resolve.
"Then, now it's our turn... to burn everything down."
Vent's eyes shook with shock. The tremor of despair felt from his prosthetic arm was very faintly ceasing.
I left him behind and turned to look at Leon and Lilia.
"There is only one way to escape."
I pointed at the shattered radar screen.
On the edge of the radar where the storm had cleared, a vortex of a much larger and more ominous secondary Aether Storm was approaching.
"Leon, when we escaped Rust Haven... what this ship did inside that storm. We're going to do that again."
I tapped the center of the vortex with my finger.
"This time, intentionally."
"What?"
The blood drained from Leon's face.
"Jayn, are you crazy?!"
He shouted in astonishment.
"Back in Rust Haven! That was just a rampage! We just got lucky! The Lumina Lip was intact back then, but now this ship is half-destroyed with no stabilizer fins!"
Leon's objection wasn't just stubbornness.
He was the only engineer on the bridge who understood the ship's condition through data.
"We don't know anything about why it succeeded back then! No data! Success probability? It's 0%! This is suicide!"
"That's why we're doing it."
I looked straight into Leon's fear-filled eyes and said. My voice had become as cold as ice before I knew it.
"Because it's a tactic that doesn't exist in Adrian's data. He'll think we're running away from the storm. But we are going into the storm."
"This... this isn't a captain's intuition! It's a gamble! Are you planning to kill us all with that crap!"
Leon shouted desperately. The air in the bridge became taut enough to tear.
It was then.
"Leon..."
Lilia spoke in a trembling, yet firm voice.
"No."
She was looking at the Lumina Lip's main crystal, shining faintly on the smashed console.
"I wasn't there back then... but I can tell now. It's different from that artificial storm that hit us earlier! That was the Aether's scream... and pain... but that over there... is different. That is a vortex of natural, pure power!"
She shouted as if possessed, fixing her gaze on the main crystal.
"Right now... this ship... wants that storm. This is... thirst! This ship is alive!"
It was the moment Lilia's attunement added certainty to my intuition.
I didn't avoid Leon's shaking eyes.
"Leon Bright. This isn't a request."
And I declared.
"It's an order. Set the course for the heart of that storm immediately."
Vent was watching this entire scene, this absurd scene, holding his breath.
A method that didn't exist in the Imperial military manual, or any strategy book.
Controlling the power of a storm with a ship that has no stabilizer fins?
This is madness.
...And, it's something absolutely absent from Adrian's data.
"Ha..."
Vent let out a hollow laugh. There was a faint smirk mixed in that sound for the first time.
"It wasn't an ember, but a typhoon."
When he lifted his bowed head, a steel-like light had returned to his eyes.
"I'll help with that madness."
He shouted toward Leon.
"Leon! Open the Aether intake control panels, not the engine output! That ship doesn't fly with engines!"
The very moment Vent shouted at Leon, a massive shadow was cast, blocking the cave entrance.
It was Adrian's flagship, the Fenrir.
Its pitch-black matte armor swallowed the storm's lightning, revealing its overwhelming majesty.
Behind it, dozens of Imperial ships were spreading a perfect fan-shaped encirclement toward the cave entrance.
They had perfectly blocked the Lumina Lip's only exit.
Soon, all main cannons, including Odin's Fangs, began to charge with red light.
Adrian's cold voice echoed in the bridge.
"It's over, embers. There is nowhere to run."
"Now, Leon!"
I shouted, swallowing all the fear inside me.
"Ignite all remaining thrusters!"
"Jayn!!"
Leon screamed, but his hands were already moving according to my command.
Whooosh—!
The Lumina Lip shot out of the cave with its shattered hull.
A ship with destroyed stabilizer fins cannot turn.
It just rushed straight toward the center of the Fenrir and the Imperial fleet waiting to kill them, carried by the inertia spewed from the cave entrance.
"What...?"
Adrian's eyes on the hologram screen shook with bewilderment for the first time.
"Suicide? Well, it doesn't matter. Fire now!"
Along with Adrian's command, dozens of beams of red fire poured toward the Lumina Lip.
But just before that bombardment made contact. The Lumina Lip collided first with the front of the secondary storm rushing in from behind the fleet.
Ka-boom!
The ship screamed as if it were being torn apart. At the same time, everything inside the bridge floated into the air.
"I can't hold it! The hull... the hull is tearing!"
Leon screamed.
I kicked off my seat and threw my body toward the main crystal in the center of the bridge.
Even as my body was crushed by the storm's gravity, I desperately reached out to the crystal.
My palm touched the cold crystal.
"Lumina Lip!"
I shouted as if screaming.
"Just like when we left Rust Haven! Wake up! Devour it, this storm! Show me your power!"
My will, my conviction, my everything flowed in through my palm.
Vrooooooooom—!
The Lumina Lip responded to my will.
The main crystal emitted a brilliant blue light so bright I couldn't keep my eyes open.
That light went beyond the bridge and spread to the entire ship.
The debris of the Aether Sails, destroyed by Adrian's attack, began to suck in the frantic Aether storm like parched earth absorbing water.
It wasn't the accidental rampage from Rust Haven.
This time, the energy absorbed according to my will flowed into the ship's entire Aether core and the entire outer hull instead of the broken stabilizer fins.
"Incredible...!"
Vent gasped in shock as he watched the console frantically flashing the energy intake levels.
"This ship... is taming... the storm."
His eyes witnessed an unbelievable sight.
"The storm's energy is wrapping around the entire ship in place of the destroyed stabilizer fins, creating its own course!"
The roar that was tearing the ship apart turned into a wondrous resonance.
The Lumina Lip was no longer a piece of broken scrap metal.
It became a massive blue comet.
It was just before Adrian's red bombardment, pouring down in succession, covered the ship again.
The Lumina Lip used the storm's power as propulsion to pierce through the center of the fleet's encirclement and soared over their heads.
Soon, at a speed that Adrian's fleet dared not follow, the ship tore through the other side of the storm and escaped.
*
Inside the bridge of Adrian's Fenrir.
Only silence flowed in that place where everything was perfectly controlled.
They just blankly watched the blue trail that had brushed right over the ship.
Red text blinking 'TARGET LOST' on his console.
His adjutant asked in astonishment.
"Co, Colonel... what was that just now...?"
Adrian did not answer.
For the first time, he witnessed a phenomenon that could not be understood with his data.
It wasn't anger. What appeared on that perfect face was pure astonishment.
His orderly world was shattered into pieces by a nameless ember.