The impact crater where the barge hit the marshlands of the Shadow Border was a testament to Isla's miracle-working. She had cushioned the fall with a massive sphere of conjured water, but the vessel still shattered into splinters upon hitting the muck.
They crawled from the wreckage, bruised, wet, and furious. They were miles from the Lacus Mortis, but they could see the sky above the Sunken Cathedral churning with unnatural violet light. The seal was breaking.
They ran.
By the time they reached the rim of the basin, the battle was already a slaughter.
Below, on the shores of the black lake, Squad Iron-Heart was dying. They were a Purple Tier squad—veterans in heavy plate—but they were fighting shadows.
Hundreds of Void-Leeches swarmed from the cracked seal of the cathedral. These weren't the scavengers Aurora had fought before; these were frenzied, drawn by the scent of high-grade mana. They moved like oil slicks, latching onto the heavy armor of the Iron-Heart vanguards and phasing through the metal to drain the souls within.
In the center of the melee stood Garrick the Breaker. He was a mountain of man and steel, wielding a two-handed hammer made of Sköll-Bone. He swung it with earth-shattering force, crushing the leeches, but for every one he killed, three more surged from the void.
"Hold the line!" Garrick roared, his voice cracking. "For the Guild! For the..." He faltered as a leech latched onto his neck, its proboscis sinking deep. His mana flared—a desperate, dying light.
"NOW!" Aurora screamed from the ridge.
She didn't run down the slope; she Lumen-Stepped.
A flash of golden light tore through the gloom. Aurora materialized in the air directly above Garrick. She brought her axe down, not on the veteran, but on the leech attacking him.
CRACK-HISSS.
The Kristal Biru edge of her axe, supercharged with Infusus, didn't just cut the beast; it detonated the mana inside it. The leech evaporated in a scream of burning ozone.
Garrick stumbled back, ripping the dying creature from his gorget. He looked up, eyes wild, hammer raised to strike the new threat. "Traitor!" he bellowed. "You dare—"
"Shut up and hit the squishy ones!" Aurora roared back, parrying his instinctive hammer swing with the haft of her axe. The impact rattled her teeth, but she held. "We aren't enemies, you old fool! Varrick sent you here to die!"
Before Garrick could process this, the ground erupted.
Persya landed like a meteor. He had jumped from the ridge, using his Augmentation to increase his density mid-fall. He slammed into the cluster of leeches flanking Iron-Heart's healer.
" Recomposere! " he snarled, slamming his piston-reinforced hand into the mud.
The swampy earth instantly solidified, turning into jagged spikes of stone that skewered three leeches at once. The piston on his shoulder hissed, venting steam and blood, but he didn't slow down.
"Cover fire!" Roui's voice echoed from the high ground.
Bolts of Ionization screamed from the ridge—Alyia's sniping. She wasn't aiming to kill; she was aiming to disrupt. The lightning arcs jumped between the wet leeches, stunning them, breaking their cohesion.
Roui leaped down, his cloak billowing, landing beside a terrified Iron-Heart rookie. He slammed his Aether-Glaive into the ground.
" Stone-Skin! "
A dome of granite erupted from the earth, shielding the rookie from a barrage of Void-spines. Roui winked at the kid, though sweat was pouring down his face. "First rule of being bait: try not to look so appetizing."
The battlefield descended into chaos. It was a three-way brawl. The Void-Leeches, sensing the massive spike in mana from Squad Aurora's crystal-infused gear, turned their hunger away from the exhausted Iron-Heart and toward the newcomers.
"They want the crystal!" Isla shouted, whipping a tendril of water to decapitate a leech lunging at Persya. "They can smell the Kristal Biru!"
"Good!" Garrick roared. The veteran had recovered his wits. He saw Aurora fighting back-to-back with his own lieutenant. He saw Persya taking a hit meant for his mage.
Garrick was many things—brutal, cynical, violent—but he was not blind.
"Iron-Heart!" Garrick bellowed, his voice cutting through the shrieks of the void. "Shift fire! Support the rookies! Hammer and Anvil formation! CRUSH THEM!"
The tide turned. With Iron-Heart holding the line and Aurora's squad acting as the kinetic spear, they pushed the swarm back toward the cathedral.
Aurora fought like a demon. Her axe was a blur of blue fire. She carved a path to the seal itself—the cracked Void-Glass doors where the leeches were pouring out.
"Alyia!" Aurora screamed into her comms. "The seal! It's a Chrono-Anchor! Can you lock it?"
"Negative!" Alyia's voice came back, strained. "The temporal integrity is at 12%. The Void isn't just leaking; it's consuming the timeline of the local area. If we don't seal it physically, the anchor will implode."
"Physical seal," Persya grunted, smashing a leech into paste. "We need something dense. Something that resists magic."
"Garrick!" Aurora shouted, pointing at the massive Null-Iron statues flanking the cathedral entrance—ancient guardians of the Cǣg cræftes. "Those statues! Knock them down!"
Garrick looked at the statues, then at Aurora. He understood instantly.
"With pleasure," Garrick grunted.
He channeled every ounce of his Purple Tier mana into his Augmentation. His muscles swelled, tearing his uniform. He charged the left statue, shoulder-checking it with the force of a siege ram.
BOOM.
The statue toppled. At the same moment, Persya used Recomposere to weaken the base of the right statue.
The two massive slabs of Null-Iron crashed down across the cathedral doors, crossing in an 'X'. The anti-magic metal slammed against the Void-Glass. The reaction was instantaneous. The Null-Iron dampened the chaotic mana flow. The rift hissed, flickered, and then—silence.
The leeches, cut off from their source, dissolved into grey sludge.
The battlefield fell quiet, save for the heavy breathing of the survivors.
Aurora stood amidst the carnage, leaning on her axe. She was covered in black ichor. She looked up to see Garrick the Breaker looming over her.
The remaining members of Squad Iron-Heart raised their weapons, unsure. They had been told Aurora was a traitor, a thief, a fugitive.
Garrick stared down at her. He looked at the Kristal Biru pulsing in her axe—illegal, dangerous, powerful. He looked at the wreckage of the Void-Leeches.
Then, slowly, he lowered his hammer.
"Varrick said you went rogue," Garrick rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "Said you died in the collapse due to incompetence."
"Varrick says a lot of things," Aurora replied, not backing down. "He sent you here to die, Garrick. You were the battery for that seal."
Garrick looked at the sealed doors, then at his battered squad. He spat a glob of blood onto the ground.
"I see that," Garrick said. "And I see you aren't dead."
He turned to his squad. "Iron-Heart! Form up. We're leaving."
"Sir?" his lieutenant stammered. "But the arrest order... they're fugitives."
"I don't see any fugitives," Garrick said loudly, staring directly at Roui. "I see a pile of dead leeches and a sealed breach. Report says Squad Aurora died three days ago. Ghosts don't bleed."
He looked back at Aurora. A grim, rare smile cracked his scarred face. He tapped his temple with a thick finger.
"He's terrified of you, girl. Make him right."
Garrick turned and marched his squad away, disappearing into the mist.
Roui slumped against a rock, sliding down until he hit the mud. "I think," the noble wheezed, "that went rather well. I didn't even have to bribe him."
"We're exposed," Persya said, clutching his piston-arm. "Garrick won't talk, but Varrick watched that battle. The sensors on the seal... he knows we're here."
Aurora looked at the retreating backs of Iron-Heart, then at the ominous violet sky toward the Port of Brotherhood.
"Good," Aurora said. "Let him know. We aren't hiding anymore."
She turned to her squad. "We have the glass. We have the courier. And now, we have a legend who owes us a favor. We're done fixing leaks."
"What's the plan?" Isla asked, healing a cut on Alyia's arm.
Aurora pointed her axe toward the distant lights of the city, where Varrick sat in his high tower.
"We go to the Glass Garden," she said. "And we shatter it."
"We don't just break his nose," Aurora said, wiping the black ichor of a Void-Leech from her cheek. She looked toward the towering spires of the Guild District, gleaming with a false, pristine light against the violet night. "We break his name."
The decision was made. They wouldn't charge Varrick's fortified biodome blindly. They would strip him of his armor—his reputation—first.
The journey back to Raimei-Gai was a blur of shadow and pain. Persya's piston-brace hissed with every step, the Sera-Vine sutures glowing faintly as they fought to keep his shoulder attached. Roui, usually the picture of elegance, limped in ruined boots, his Null-Plate dented and dull.
They didn't go to the safehouse. They went higher.
The Raimei-Gai Transmission Spire was a rusted skeleton of Old World iron towering over the Ningen slums. It was a pirate signal node, used by the district to bypass the Guild's censorship censors. It smelled of ozone, burning copper, and the damp, earthy scent of Keikō-Goke moss growing in the vents.
"Security is... minimal," Alyia analyzed, stepping over the unconscious body of a localized gang lookout—Persya had handled the 'negotiations' with a single, glare-induced intimidation check. She approached the central console, a mess of crystals and copper wire. "Frequency modulation required. I can hijack the Guild's emergency channel. It will override every Echo-Crystal and public address system in the city."
"Do it," Aurora commanded, shoving the captured Courier toward the microphone. The man was trembling, his robes soaked in canal water and sweat.
"And you," Persya growled, leaning close to the prisoner. His slate-grey skin was pale from blood loss, but his eyes burned with terrifying orange intensity. "You're going to tell them exactly who signs your paychecks. No stuttering."
"We need a face," Roui said, stepping into the light of the mana-projector. He smoothed his torn silk coat and ran a hand through his hair. Despite the filth, the noble bearing returned instantly. "The Guild won't listen to a 'dead' rogue squad. But they will listen to a Mirtout."
Alyia's hands blurred over the console. Sparks flew as she hot-wired the Ionization coils.
"Connection established," she stated, her voice tight. "Broadcasting in 3... 2... 1."
The hum of the spire deepened to a roar. Across Limani tis Adelphótitas, in taverns, guild halls, and market squares, the static cleared.
Roui's face, projected in shimmering blue light, appeared above the city.
"Citizens of Elpis. Brothers and Sisters of the Vanguard," Roui began, his voice dropping an octave, utilizing the 'elocution' he usually reserved for high-stakes poker. "You have been told that Squad Aurora died in the collapse of the Sunken Cathedral. You have been told that Squad Iron-Heart was sent on a routine patrol."
He held up the Black Ledger.
"We are not dead. And you are being farmed."
"Show the data, Alyia," Aurora ordered from the shadows.
The projection shifted. Pages of the ledger scrolled across the sky—lists of "Liquidated Assets," dates of "Feeding Cycles," and the names of hundreds of missing Signifers.
"This is the Black Ledger," Roui's voice narrated over the damning text. "It records the scheduled deaths of Vanguard squads. Authorized by Scribe Varrick. Endorsed by the Asphodel Conclave."
He pulled the Courier into the frame. "Tell them."
"It's true!" the Courier blubbered, looking frantically at the lens. "Varrick sends them to the unstable seals! He uses their souls to charge the Anchors! He calls it the 'Great Cost'! Please, I just carry the messages!".
The city held its breath. The silence was absolute. Then, the roar began. It started in the Raimei-Gai and swept up toward the Guild District—the sound of betrayal turning into rage.
"Signal terminating," Alyia warned, her wand smoking as she maintained the connection. "Guild suppression protocols are activating. Varrick is trying to jam us."
"Let him try," Aurora said, stepping up to the mic. Her face replaced the ledger—scarred, fierce, and glowing with bioluminescent anger.
"Varrick!" she shouted, her voice echoing over the entire port. "We know about the Glass Garden. We know about the Animus. You can't hide behind your desk anymore."
She hefted her axe, the Kristal Biru core pulsing like a dying star.
"We're coming for the review."
Alyia cut the feed. The spire went dark.
Persya slumped against the wall, clutching his piston-arm. "Well," he wheezed, a grim smile touching his lips. "That certainly voids our warranty."
"Look," Isla whispered, pointing through the slats of the tower's shutters.
Below, the city was moving. Vanguard squads were pouring out of the Guild Hall, but they weren't hunting Aurora. They were arguing. Fists were flying. The seed of doubt planted by Garrick and watered by the broadcast was blooming into a riot.
But in the distance, atop the highest spire of the Glazier's Ring, a new light flared. It wasn't the warm gold of the Guild; it was a cold, sterile white.
Varrick's biodome. The Glass Garden.
"He's panicking," Aurora assessed, watching the lights flicker in the distant sanctum. "He's accelerating the cycle. If we don't hit him now, he'll burn everything to cover his tracks."
"Then we don't wait," Roui said, checking his Aether-Glaive. "The propaganda war is won. Now comes the kinetic one."
"My calculations indicate a 94% chance of heavy resistance," Alyia noted, holstering her wand. "Varrick will deploy his personal guard. The Lumen-Constructs."
"I like breaking glass," Persya grunted, pushing himself off the wall.
Aurora looked at her squad. They were broken, tired, and hunted. But they were wolves now.
"Let's go," she commanded.
The decision was made not with a shout, but with a descent into the dark.
While the city of Limani tis Adelphótitas burned with the fires of riot and confusion above, Squad Aurora slipped beneath the streets. They bypassed the main gates of the Glazier's Ring, where Varrick's Lumen-Constructs stood vigil, and instead pried open a rusted service hatch near the chemical outflow of the district.
The smell hit them first—acrid, chemical, and sweet, like rotting flowers soaked in bleach.
"By the Quasars," Roui choked into his sleeve, his eyes watering. "This isn't water. It's liquid death."
"It's the runoff," Isla whispered, her voice tight with concentration. She stood at the edge of the aqueduct, her hands glowing with a fierce, protective azure light. "The alchemical waste from Varrick's experiments. If it touches your skin, it will burn through the Synth-Pels in seconds."
She stepped into the flow. The toxic sludge didn't touch her; it parted. Using her Hydro mastery, she created a tunnel of air within the aqueduct, forcing the poisonous fluid against the walls. The channel was narrow, slick with iridescent slime, and vibrating with the hum of the pumps feeding the Glass Garden above.
"Move," Persya grunted, stepping into the dry path Isla carved. His brass piston-brace hissed—chhh-kunk—echoing loudly in the confined space. He stumbled, his heavy boot slipping on a patch of moss.
Roui was there instantly. He didn't just offer a hand; he jammed his shoulder under Persya's good arm, taking the weight of the hybrid's massive frame.
"I can walk," Persya growled, trying to pull away, but his slate-grey skin was pale, the orange fire in his veins flickering weakly.
"Statistically," Roui mimicked Persya's tone, though his voice lacked its usual mockery, "you are one misstep away from face-planting into acid. Shut up and lean on me."
They trudged forward in the gloom. The only light came from the bioluminescent veins in Aurora's axe and the Glow-Quartz tip of Alyia's wand.
"You hate this," Persya muttered after a hundred yards, the exertion making sweat bead on his forehead. "The smell. The filth. It offends your delicate New Earth sensibilities."
"It offends my olfactory sensibilities, Persya," Roui corrected, adjusting his grip to better support his friend. "But you offend my logic."
Roui looked at the piston jammed into Persya's shoulder, held together by Isla's withering Sera-Vines. The guilt that had been eating at him since the Gnashfang Caverns flared hot in his chest.
"You took a blade for me," Roui whispered, the echo of the tunnel masking his voice from the others. "You threw yourself on a grenade because you think you're expendable. 'The Armor and the Face,' isn't that what you said?"
"It's the job, Roui," Persya wheezed. "You're the diplomat. The noble. You fix the world with words. I just... clear the rocks."
"That deal is void," Roui snapped, a flash of genuine anger cutting through his exhaustion. He stopped, forcing Persya to look at him. In the dim light, the noble's face was smeared with grime, his silk coat ruined, but his eyes were fierce. "I am not just a pretty face for the posters, and you are not a meat-shield. We are partners. If you die protecting me, I will personally resurrect you just to kill you myself. Do you understand?"
Persya blinked, taken aback by the ferocity in the usually laid-back noble. He looked at Roui—really looked at him—and saw not the pampered aristocrat of Paradise, but the man who had stood beside him against a Kryopagon and a Suppression Crawler.
"Understood," Persya grunted, a small, pained smirk touching his lips. "But if I fall in this sludge, you're carrying me. And I am very heavy."
"I lift," Roui lied smoothly, hoisting him up. "Now move. Isla is sweating."
They pushed deeper. The tunnel angled upward, the roar of machinery growing louder. The air grew hot and humid, stripping the moisture from their lungs.
Aurora halted at a junction, signaling for a rest. Isla slumped against the dry section of the wall, her hands trembling as she maintained the Hydro tunnel. Alyia immediately began calculating the structural integrity of the brickwork, her eyes darting like a bird's.
Roui moved to Aurora. She was leaning on her axe, staring into the dark flow of the chemical river. The blue light of the Kristal Biru cast long, jagged shadows across her face.
"You're quiet," Roui said softly, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek. "Usually you're complaining about the lack of room service by now."
"I'm thinking about Varrick," Aurora admitted, leaning into his touch. She didn't close her eyes; she kept them fixed on the dark. "He knows we're coming. The broadcast... it hurt him, but a wounded animal bites harder."
"We aren't animals, Aurora," Roui said, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "And neither is he. He's a calculator. And calculators break when you introduce variables they can't predict."
Aurora looked up at him. "And what variable is that?"
"Us," Roui smiled, though it was a tired, jagged thing. "A Half-Bred commander, a slave-turned-soldier, a desert sniper, a fish-girl, and a traitorous noble. By all the laws of New Earth, we shouldn't exist. We certainly shouldn't be working together."
He took her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers. His skin was warm, a grounding force in the cold damp of the sewer.
"My father would look at this," Roui gestured to the filth, to the squad, "and see chaos. Corruption. But I look at it..." He squeezed her hand. "...and I see the only thing worth fighting for. I'm with you, Aurora. Into the fire. Into the glass. Whatever comes next."
Aurora's hard expression softened. For a second, the 'Warlord' vanished, leaving just the woman who carried the weight of the world. She squeezed his hand back, hard.
"You're too good for the nobility, Roui," she whispered. "If we survive this, I'm buying you the most expensive pair of boots in Elpis."
"Make it two pairs," Roui grinned. "I have delicate arches."
"Contact," Alyia's voice cut through the moment, sharp and clinical.
She pointed her wand up the tunnel. The sludge was bubbling. Not from heat, but from movement.
Emerging from the toxic flow ahead were shapes—sleek, serpentine, and made of glass and light.
Lumen-Serpents. Constructs designed to patrol the pipes. They had no eyes, only vibration sensors. They slithered through the acid as if it were water, their glass fangs glowing with superheated mana.
"Three targets," Alyia whispered. "They are blocking the intake valve. If we engage with high-impact magic, we risk rupturing the aqueduct wall. We will be flooded with acid."
"We need to be quiet," Persya hissed, unlimbering his sword. "And fast."
"I can't drop the tunnel," Isla gasped, sweat pouring down her face. "If I fight, the sludge comes crashing down on us."
Aurora looked at the serpents, then at Roui.
"Your turn, pretty boy," Aurora said, her eyes flashing. "Can you blind them without blowing up the tunnel?"
Roui stepped forward, drawing his Aether-Glaive. The Tenebrae shadows clung to him, eager to serve.
"Blind them?" Roui whispered, the shadows lengthening around his feet. "Darling, I'm going to turn out the lights."
"No," Aurora said, her voice cutting through the humidity of the tunnel. She stepped up beside Roui, the blue veins in her axe flaring with a violent, hungry light. "We don't dim the lights, Roui. We shatter them."
She looked at him, a silent command passing between them—a language forged in the fires of the Titanwood and the ice of the Lacus Mortis. He knew the play. He was the anvil; she was the hammer.
"As you wish, ma chérie," Roui sighed, spinning his Aether-Glaive into a defensive guard. The shadows around him receded, replaced by the grey, heavy solidity of Terrazation. "But try not to get any glass in my hair. I just conditioned it."
"Go!"
Roui charged. He didn't run like a duelist; he moved like a landslide. He slammed his boots into the slick moss, channeling mana into his skin until it took on the dull, granite sheen of Stone-Skin.
The Lumen-Serpents hissed, a sound like steam escaping a valve. They sensed the threat. The lead serpent lunged, its glass fangs glowing white-hot with superheated mana. It aimed for Roui's throat.
Roui didn't dodge. He dropped his shoulder and stepped into the strike.
CLANG-HISSS.
The serpent's fangs struck Roui's hardened pauldron. Sparks showered the tunnel. The heat was intense enough to blister paint, but Roui's Stone-Skin held, absorbing the kinetic impact and the thermal shock. He grunted, the weight of the construct driving his boots inches deep into the muck, but he didn't yield. He was a wall of New Earth obstinacy.
"Now!" Roui roared, grappling the serpent with his free hand, his stone fingers digging into its glass neck.
Aurora vanished.
Lumen-Step.
For a fraction of a second, she was everywhere and nowhere—a golden blur of velocity that bypassed the laws of motion. She materialized in the air directly above the grappled serpent, gravity reasserting itself with brutal prejudice.
Her axe came down. She didn't just swing; she poured Infusus into the blade at the moment of impact.
SHATTER.
The axe cleaved through the glass neck like it was spun sugar. The serpent dissolved into a shower of inert shards and fading light.
The remaining two serpents shrieked, coiling to strike the airborne Aurora.
"Watch your left!" Roui shouted. He didn't wait. He released the shattered corpse of the first beast and swung his glaive in a wide, sweeping arc. He wasn't trying to cut them; he was trying to bat them away from the walls.
The heavy blade caught the second serpent mid-lunge, knocking it sideways into the sludge flow with a heavy splash.
Aurora landed in a crouch, pivoted, and Lumen-Stepped again. This time, she appeared low, driving her axe upward into the underbelly of the third serpent. The Kristal Biru core in her weapon detonated a pulse of blue mana, blowing the construct apart from the inside out.
Silence returned to the tunnel, broken only by the heavy breathing of the squad and the hiss of cooling glass in the water.
Roui dropped to one knee, the granite sheen fading from his skin to reveal a nasty burn on his neck where the Stone-Skin hadn't quite reached. He leaned on his glaive, wiping sweat and grime from his forehead.
"That," Roui wheezed, "was entirely too close to the structural supports. I felt the brickwork groan."
Aurora walked over to him. She didn't check the tunnel; she checked him. She dropped her axe—letting it clang carelessly against the stone—and reached out, her hands cupping his face.
"You blocked a thermal lance with your face," she said softly, her thumbs tracing the soot marks on his cheek. The bioluminescence in her blue eyes was dim, soft, devoid of the warlord's rage.
"It was my shoulder, mostly," Roui corrected, leaning into her touch. He looked up at her, his usual mask of courtly humor slipping to reveal the raw, terrified devotion underneath. "And I'd do it again. You are the blade, Aurora. I'm just the setting."
"You aren't a setting," Aurora whispered, leaning her forehead against his. "You're the only reason the blade doesn't break."
She kissed him—hard, desperate, tasting of ozone and fear. It wasn't a kiss of romance; it was an affirmation of life in the dark. For a moment, the war above and the poison below didn't exist. There was only the warmth of his skin and the steady beat of his heart against her chest.
"Get a room," Persya's voice grumbled from the shadows, though it lacked its usual bite. The hybrid limped forward, supported by Isla, his piston-arm hissing. "Preferably one that isn't a sewer."
Roui pulled back, a breathless, genuine smile breaking through the grime. "Jealousy is an ugly color on you, Persya. Even in the dark."
"I am not jealous," Persya muttered, looking at the shattered glass on the floor. "I am appreciative of the efficiency. But we are losing time."
"Right," Aurora said, stepping back, the command returning to her voice, though her hand lingered on Roui's arm for a second longer than necessary. " Alyia, check the hatch."
Alyia stepped over the remains of the serpents, her amber eyes scanning the mana-flow in the ceiling. "We are directly below the central biodome. The mana density here is... critical. Varrick is drawing power from the entire city grid."
"Then we pull the plug," Aurora said.
They climbed the service ladder. Persya went first, using his good arm to shove the heavy iron grate upward.
It gave way.
They emerged not into a fortress, but into a blinding, crystalline jungle.
The Glass Garden.
The biodome was a colossal structure of Void-Glass and steel, filled with genetically modified flora from every continent—Densen-Kazura vines crackling with electricity , Lumin-Coral casting eerie underwater shadows , and towering Ask-Viðr trees turned to stone.
But in the center of the garden, suspended above a pool of glowing mana, was Varrick.
He stood on a platform of floating light, surrounded by a swirling vortex of stolen souls. He wasn't wearing his scribe's robes. He was wearing armor—a suit made of shifting, screaming faces trapped in Schismite crystal.
The Animus Prime prototype.
He looked down at them, his eyes cold behind his spectacles. He didn't look afraid. He looked disappointed.
"You persist," Varrick's voice boomed, amplified by the dome's acoustics. "Like weeds in a cracks. Do you not see? I am trying to save the world from unraveling, and you are picking at the threads."
He raised a hand. The mana pool beneath him boiled. From the liquid light, shapes began to rise—not constructs, but Simulacra. Copies of the squad, formed from the stolen mana of the dead.
A hulking Earth-Simulacrum that looked like a twisted version of Persya. A flickering Shadow-Simulacrum that moved like Roui. A blazing Fire-Simulacrum that burned with Aurora's rage.
"Let us see," Varrick sneered, "if you can survive yourselves."
"Mine," Aurora snarled, stepping away from Roui. She didn't look at him, but her hand brushed his arm in a silent command to stay back. "That cheap knock-off is mine."
She walked toward the blazing Fire-Simulacrum. The copy mirrored her gait, but its eyes were empty voids of burning mana, lacking the spark of human defiance.
"Logic dictates," Alyia murmured, unholstering her Heafon Wand as a crackling Ionization-Simulacrum formed from the static in the air, "that a copy possesses the same output potential. However, it lacks the capacity for improvisation. It is merely code."
"It's not code," Persya grunted, rolling his injured shoulder. The brass piston hissed. A hulking, slate-grey Earth-Simulacrum rose from the garden soil, its skin flawless, unscarred by years of slavery or the bite of a construct's blade. "It's an insult."
"Take them," Aurora ordered. "Show Varrick the difference between a battery and a soul."
The Glass Garden exploded into five separate duels.
Aurora charged. The Fire-Simulacrum met her halfway, swinging a axe made of pure, condensed flame.
CLANG.
Aurora caught the blow on the haft of her Kristal Biru axe. The heat was instantaneous, singing her eyebrows, but she didn't flinch. She stared into the empty, burning eyes of her doppelganger.
"You have my rage," Aurora whispered, shoving the construct back with a burst of Infusus strength. "But you don't know why I'm angry."
The copy roared, a sound like a furnace draft, and unleashed a torrent of blue fire. Aurora didn't dodge. She Lumen-Stepped through the flames, emerging scorched but moving with terrifying velocity. She didn't swing for the head; she swung for the core.
Impact. Her axe bit into the Simulacrum's chest. She didn't pull back. She poured every ounce of her will into the blade, overloading the copy's mana-lattice. "I burn for them! You just burn!"
The Simulacrum shattered into harmless sparks.
To her left, Roui was dancing with his shadow.
The Shadow-Simulacrum moved with the liquid grace of the New Earth court, feinting with a shadowy glaive, striking from angles that defied geometry. It was Roui as he had been trained to be—perfect, elegant, and hollow.
"Sloppy," the Simulacrum seemed to sneer, though it had no mouth. It slipped past Roui's guard, its blade grazing his ribs.
Roui gritted his teeth against the cold bite of the Tenebrae magic. "I remember being you," Roui panted, dropping his center of gravity. He abandoned the flashy parries of the academy. He planted his feet. "And I was bored to death."
As the shadow lunged again, Roui didn't parry. He slammed his fist into the ground.
"Terrazation!"
The marble floor erupted. A pillar of jagged stone shot up, catching the shadow-copy in the midsection, impaling it. The construct thrashed, losing cohesion.
Roui stepped forward, his Null-Plate glowing. He swung his glaive in a heavy, unrefined arc—a blow learned from watching Persya, not a fencing master. He took the shadow's head off.
"Style," Roui muttered, wiping sweat from his eyes, "is nothing without substance."
Across the garden, Persya was losing.
The Earth-Simulacrum was relentless. It possessed Persya's strength but none of his damage. It hammered against Persya's guard with fists like boulders. Persya blocked with his good arm, but the impact drove him to one knee. His piston-brace whined in protest.
The copy raised both fists for a crushing blow. It targeted the injured shoulder, calculating the weakness perfectly.
"Persya!" Isla screamed, trapping her Water-Simulacrum in a sphere of hydro-pressure.
"I've got it!" Persya roared. He didn't block. He unlocked the safety valve on his piston-brace.
HISSS-CHUNK.
The brass piston extended with explosive force. Persya didn't punch the copy; he drove the jagged, broken blade still embedded in his shoulder into the copy's chest, using the piston to drive his own body like a battering ram.
It was a move no machine would calculate—using one's own impalement as a weapon.
The Recomposere energy in his blood flared orange. He fused the copy's stone skin to his own armor, locking them together.
"Now, Alyia!" Persya bellowed.
Alyia, having dismantled her electrical copy with a precise EMP blast, spun around. She didn't hesitate. She fired a Flamebeam directly at Persya.
The beam missed Persya by inches, striking the Earth-Simulacrum he was grappling. The sudden thermal shock of the beam hitting the stone construct shattered it instantly. Persya was thrown back by the explosion, smoking but triumphant.
The garden fell silent, save for the hum of Varrick's platform. The Simulacra were gone, reduced to drifting motes of mana.
Varrick clapped. It was a slow, dry sound.
"Predictable," Varrick sighed, floating lower. The faces on his Animus Prime armor swirled, moaning in silent agony. "You fight with such... desperation. It is inefficient."
He raised both hands. The air in the dome grew heavy, tasting of copper and death. The mana pool beneath him turned a sickly, violent purple.
"The Play is over," Varrick announced. "I have analyzed your frequencies. I have mapped your souls. Now... I delete them."
The ground beneath them began to glow. The marble floor didn't just heat up; it transmuted. Varrick was warping reality itself. The floor turned to a roiling sea of magma. The air turned to caustic poison gas.
There was no cover. There was no ground to stand on. The Animus Prime armor was projecting a field of absolute dominance.
"Shields failing!" Isla cried, her Hydro barrier sizzling as the acid air ate through it. "He's rewriting the environment! I can't hold it!"
"His shield," Alyia gasped, checking her analyzer. Her face was pale. "The Animus armor... it has no frequency gaps. It is a perfect sphere of Null-Mana. We cannot breach it with standard attacks."
They were backed against the glass wall of the dome. Varrick was preparing a final, erasing blast—a lance of Void energy gathering at his chest.
Alyia looked at her Heafon Wand, then at the Kristal Biru core. She looked at her friends. Her eyes narrowed behind her cracked glasses.
"Correction," Alyia whispered, her voice strangely calm amidst the chaos. "There is one frequency. But the recoil... is fatal."
"Correction," Roui said, his voice devoid of its usual courtly lilt. He reached out, his hand clamping firmly onto Alyia's shoulder, pulling her back from the edge of the magma. "The recoil is unacceptable."
Alyia blinked, her calculations derailed. "The probability of survival without this action is—"
"Zero," Roui interrupted. He stepped past her, placing himself directly in the path of the gathering void energy. "Unless the variable changes."
He slammed the butt of his Aether-Glaive into the transmutation circle Varrick had burned into the floor. He didn't adopt a dueling stance. He stood feet wide, shield raised, anchoring himself like a statue in a storm.
"Isla! Keep them close to me!" he roared, the veins in his neck bulging as he began to channel.
He didn't just cast Stone-Skin. He poured every ounce of his mana, every drop of his noble pride, and the sheer, desperate weight of his love for this mismatched family into the spell. He visualized the earth not just as rock, but as the unyielding pressure of the deep crust.
The grey granite sheen that usually covered his skin shifted. It deepened, compressing, clarifying. It turned translucent.
Diamond.
But he didn't stop at his own skin. For the first time, he reached out with his mana, pushing the Terrazation outward, seeking to cover his friends. It was a clumsy, brute-force awakening of a dormant potential—an Infusus resonance born of necessity.
A jagged dome of diamond-hard crystal erupted from the floor, encasing the squad just as Varrick fired.
ZZZ-CRACK.
The Void-Lance struck.
It was a sound like the world snapping in half. The beam of absolute nothingness hit the diamond barrier. Ordinary stone would have turned to dust. Steel would have evaporated.
But the diamond held. It screamed, fractures spider-webbing across the surface, glowing white-hot with the friction of resisting erasure. Roui screamed with it, his body acting as the keystone, taking the psychic weight of the impact. His Null-Plate flared, dampening the magical feedback that threatened to liquefy his organs.
Then, the laws of optics took over. The Void-Lance didn't penetrate; it refracted.
The beam shattered into a thousand chaotic rays of destructive light, bouncing off the angled facets of Roui's barrier. They tore through the biodome, slicing through the Densen-Kazura vines, shattering the glass walls, and striking Varrick's platform.
"Impossible!" Varrick shrieked as a refracted beam sheared through his levitation matrix.
The platform lurched. The Animus Prime armor flickered, the screaming faces on its surface falling silent for a terrifying heartbeat.
With a roar of frustration, Varrick slammed his hand onto his console. "Reset! Initiate the Labyrinth Protocol!"
The floor beneath him dropped away. He vanished into the intricate depths of the biodome's sub-structure, retreating to the upper spires.
The Void-Lance ceased. The diamond barrier shattered into dust, leaving the squad coughing but alive.
Roui collapsed. His skin was grey, smoking, and covered in fine, crystalline fractures, but he was breathing.