The swirling red-logic vortex of the Crystal planet’s portal collapsed behind me, replaced instantly by the nebular, disciplined hum of the Foundation Spire. The transition was always a physical shock, like jumping from a sauna into a snowbank, but this time the difference seemed starker.

  “Master,” Jeeves stepped out of the shadows near the console. He wasn’t a hologram form; he was physically waiting — an impeccable figure of woven shadow-matter dressed in a tuxedo that absorbed the ambient light. His expression was grave. “Welcome back. You have detected the Beacon fracture.”

  “I felt it,” I said, moving quickly toward the transfer gate. My walk was different now. After a year of gravity training, my steps felt much more planted. “What’s the situation?”

  “Stable for now,” Jeeves said, falling into step beside me. “Mistress Anna told Freja to break the coin with an intent heavily laden with trauma. Her psychic residue suggests a [Rewind] event of significant magnitude. She appears quite distressed, Master.”

  “She must have seen a significant loss,” I concluded, my voice dropping an octave. The thought of Anna being forced to watch friends die — maybe even watching herself almost die — ignited a cold, white flame in the pit of my core. “Then let’s make sure this time we have a better ending.”

  We stepped through the internal portal to the Cradle of Echoing Flame.

  I didn’t stop for pleasantries with Bennu, the guardian Phoenix. I went straight to the armory and accessed it with my Soul signature.

  I grabbed a variety of materials I thought could be useful, some Legendary Tier 5 weapons and mountains of consumables, then deposited them into my System Storage.

  “Ready,” I whispered.

  We ported to Noren.

  The atmosphere hit me first. Noren was always stormy, built amidst snowy mountains. The air was heavy, pressurized. The smell of ozone was thick enough to taste, mingled with the copper scent of anxiety.

  I stepped off the receiver pad, the wind whipping my cloak.

  The War Hall was packed. Freja stood at the head of the table, her blonde braid fraying with static, her hand gripping a powerful hammer so hard her knuckles were white. Bjorn was pacing like a caged bear, testing the edge of his axes. Astrid leaned against the wall, flipping a dagger, but her usual smirk was gone, replaced by a tight, pale line.

  My team was there, too. Lucas stood like a bulwark near the door. Eliza was practically climbing inside a massive, jury-rigged cannon that took up half the table, shouting instructions to a terrified Noren engineer.

  And Anna.

  She was sitting on a bench near the window, staring out at the roiling grey clouds. She looked physically fine — the Tier 5 vitality she achieved made her look radiant even in gloom — but her posture was shattered. She looked defeated.

  I walked straight to her.

  “Anna,” I said softly.

  She flinched, then looked up. When she saw me, the glassy, thousand-yard stare cracked. Relief, raw and painful, washed over her face.

  “You’re here,” she breathed, standing up and grabbing my arm. Her grip was iron-hard. “Eren, they… they’re coming. At dawn.”

  "I’m here," I said, covering her hand with mine, letting a pulse of soothing warmth flow into her. “We’ll handle this together. What happened?”

  She shuddered. “A ship. A massive flying black pyramid. It dropped some weird assassin types. Ghosts. Five Tier 5s, and very coordinated. We could barely even hit them. Bjorn charged and they just… walked through his axe. They killed everyone. They started taking all the civilians. I couldn’t stop them.”

  She looked me in the eyes, desperation swimming in the silver of her irises. “I used everything. My new skills. The Decision anchors. But it wasn’t enough. It was like fighting smoke with a stick.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” I said, my voice hardening into diamond. “It was five Tier 5 evolved cultivators against you. You did the right thing by calling for help. I’m just surprised the empire had recruited people that powerful without us noticing anything.”

  I turned to the room, pitching my voice to carry over the storm outside.

  “Listen up!”

  The room froze. Freja looked up, hope kindling in her storm-blue eyes.

  “We have five hours until dawn,” I stated, walking to the tactical map. “Anna bought us this time. We aren’t going to waste it. We are not giving up. We aren’t running. We are digging in.”

  I looked at Eliza. “Is that the Resonant Mirror schematic I sent back?”

  “Modified!” Eliza grinned, wiping grease from her cheek. “Leoric and I tweaked the output. It catches conceptual frequencies — like a mana based beam — flips the polarity, and vomits it back out. But it’s temperamental. One shot, maybe two before the coils melt.”

  “One shot is better than nothing,” I said. “Freja, get non-combatants to Bastion or in your shelters. I don’t want anyone above surface level who isn’t at least Tier 4.”

  “Done,” Freja barked, moving to the comms.

  The next few hours were a blur of frantic, disciplined preparation. I didn’t plan on deploying my full strength yet. I helped reinforce the wards, weaving subtle mana-threads into the lightning grid, masking my true power level. I wanted to bait them into leaving their ship, with backup shields activating once we have them trapped within.

  When the first light of dawn tried to pierce the storm clouds, the shadow arrived.

  It was exactly as Anna described. A massive, obsidian Pyramid descended from the cloud layer. It didn’t have engines; it moved via gravity displacement, hanging silently over the city like a headsman’s axe.

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  It charged. A black light gathered at the tip.

  “Shields are active!” Freja screamed.

  The Noren barrier snapped into existence — a dome of blue lightning.

  The Pyramid fired. A pulse of silent, black noise crashed down.

  It hit the shield. But this time, Eliza’s cannon was waiting.

  The cannon screamed, a high-pitched whine that set teeth on edge. The black wave hit the barrier, was caught, inverted to white light, and blasted back up at the ship.

  The projectile was thunderous. But it hit a barrier the ship deployed, fizzling into nothing. It was a very impressive shield, at least Tier 7 by my estimate. Not a good sign.

  Two more attacks were able to disperse our active shield. The ship lurched, its perfect silence broken by the groan of tearing metal.

  Then, the bay doors opened.

  “Here they come,” Anna whispered, charging an arrow.

  Five figures dropped from the ship. They descended in freefall, slowing only inches from the ground to land silently in the central plaza. They were nightmares of pale armor and billowing shadow-cloaks.

  The Ghosts.

  They blurred. Their bodies became translucent smoke, preparing to phase through our frontline.

  The stronger back up barrier was immediately activated, cutting off any scrying by their ship and trapping the assassins with us.

  The ground then shook.

  “GRAAAAAH!”

  A massive, golden blur slammed into the plaza floor in front of me, cracking the cobblestones and sending a shockwave of dust rolling over the Ghosts.

  Rexxar stood up from his landing, hefting his massive claymore. He looked magnificent. His armor was polished to a mirror sheen, adorned with several crude, child-made trinkets he had tied to his belt.

  “MASTER!” he boomed, not turning around. “Allow this humble Lion to demonstrate that he has not been idle! The children of our cities need a new bedtime story!”

  I blinked, my hand letting go of the dissipating mana sword. I couldn’t help the grin that split my face.

  “All yours, big guy,” I laughed. “Make it loud.”

  “WITH PLEASURE!”

  Rexxar charged.

  The Ghosts didn’t panic. They were elite killers. They simply activated their phasing, turning into mist. They waited for the brute to swing through them, planning to materialize inside his guard and gut him.

  Rexxar swung.

  He didn’t use mana. He didn’t use finesse. He used raw power and his skill [Sovereign’s Might: True Impact]. He imposed his sheer, physical reality onto the world so hard that the concept of ‘intangible’ was bullied into submission.

  The claymore slammed into the smoke.

  It sounded like a car crash. The Lead Ghost, who had thought himself safe in the shift, suddenly turned solid, his eyes widening behind his mask a fraction of a second before the flat of the blade hit him.

  He wasn’t cut; he was launched. He flew backward with a sonic boom, skipping across the plaza fountain and smashing through three stone pillars before crumbling into a heap.

  “You think shadows protect you?” Rexxar laughed, his mane bristling with golden energy. “Cower before my SUN!”

  The other four Ghosts hesitated. This broke their rules.

  Two of them flanked him, reappearing instantly at his kidneys with shadow daggers.

  Rexxar didn’t even turn. He flexed.

  His Tier 6 aura exploded outward — not just light, but a physical sphere of force. The two assassins were blasted away as if caught in a hurricane. Rexxar spun with cat-like grace, dropping his sword and snatching one Ghost out of the air by his ankle.

  “Puny!” Rexxar roared.

  He swung the Ghost like a club, slamming him into the second assassin who was trying to recover. Their armor shattered.

  Bjorn lowered his axes, staring. “By the Thunder... is he... is he allowed to do that?”

  “He’s an acquired taste,” Lucas murmured, clearly enjoying the show.

  The fourth Ghost realized the melee was a death trap. He phased into the floor, shooting toward Anna — who was running closer to get her revenge before Rexxar finished them off — as a streak of shadow.

  Anna didn’t flinch. She drew [Final Word].

  She didn’t aim at the ghost. She aimed at the ground in front of him.

  “Stay,” she commanded.

  An arrow struck the stone. A heavy, grey ripple of [Decision] expanded.

  The shadow was forcibly dragged out of the ground. The Ghost materialized, stumbling, heavy, gravity crushing him into the dirt.

  Anna put a second arrow through his mask before he could stand.

  “Nice shot,” I noted.

  The last Ghost, the Leader, dragged himself out of the rubble. He looked at his decimated squad. He looked at the giant, laughing Lion-man dusting off his hands.

  “Abominations,” he hissed.

  Rexxar walked up to him and poked him in the chest with a massive finger. “You are the abomination. And you are trespassing.”

  Rexxar engulfed his fist in aura and punched him in the temple, sending the Ghost flying. He hit a wall and slid down, unconscious, kept alive for later interrogation.

  “DONE!” Rexxar announced, throwing his arms wide to imaginary applause. The Noren defenders cheered wildly, caught up in the sheer absurdity of the victory.

  I chuckled, relaxing my stance. “Well. I guess I didn’t need to rush after all.”

  But then, the hair on my arms stood up.

  My [Void Perception] triggered a warning. Not from the plaza. From above.

  I looked up.

  The Pyramid wasn’t retreating. Massive cracks on its surface started glowing.

  A deep, thrumming hum began to build. It was the roar of raw, condensed power. Mana began to spiral around the apex of the ship, sucking the very air from the city.

  My stomach dropped.

  “The earlier attack wasn’t the strongest the ship had,” I realized, my voice cutting through the celebration. “That was the jab. This is a haymaker.”

  The energy gathering up there was catastrophic. It was a massive spell, designed to flatten the entire mountain range.

  “It’s charging!” Eliza shouted. “Massive spike!”

  “The backup shields won’t hold that,” she yelled, checking her tablet frantically. “That’s over Tier 7 output! How did they bring that past the restrictions?”

  “Weapons must have different restrictions applied,” I said grimly. “But lower Tiers shouldn’t even be able to operate something like that. They have to be abusing some sort of loophole.” Even Bastion’s shields wouldn’t be able to stop this attack.

  “Get everyone out,” I ordered. “Jeeves, activate the Bastion portal. Evacuate Noren. Now!”

  The cheer turned to organized panic as Freja began barking orders.

  I stared at the charging ship. I had to stall it somehow, the beam was charging too quickly for everyone to make it out.

  I turned to Anna. “I’m going up.”

  “How? You can fly?” she asked, looking at the sky where the energy was becoming a blinding star.

  “Eh, sort of,” I said. I realized then that learning how to fly would be very useful — and exciting. “I’m going to try to cut the fuse.”

  The time I spent training with Crys taught me that one could never be too careful, there were always stronger forces in the Great Universe with hidden cards. With that in mind I reached into my Soul, activating my ability.

  [Glimpse of a Path].

  In the vision, I activated [Void Walk]. The world turned grey. I saw the web of strings connecting reality. I saw the causal line of the beam preparing to fire.

  I took a step, flashing upward in a blur of motion on a different plane of reality. Time halted as I raced the charge, ascending toward the heart of the weapon to stop it before Noren became a crater.