The silence following the collapse of the Glimpse was not peaceful; it was heavy, filled with the weight of the sword hanging over our necks. I stood in the empty Noren plaza, the storm winds whipping my cloak, looking up where the Pyramid hovered, draped in violent Essence.

  I didn’t waste a second. The Glimpse had bought me intel, mostly learning that they were trying to try to bait me before firing, so we had a little time.

  I activated my comms link.

  “Lucas,” I said, my voice cutting through the static with the precision of a scalpel.

  “Eren,” his voice came back instantly, deeper and steadier than the thunder rolling overhead. “The atmospheric pressure is shifting. We think it might be launching soon.”

  “It’s a Tier 7 Kinetic Anchor,” I stated, keeping my tone flat. “A Compliance Unit. They also have a lock on Bastion. They will probably threaten to destroy it after showing its capabilities on Noren, it’s an attempt at a bait.”

  “We need to evacuate the people,” I commanded. “Protocol Exodus. Immediately.”

  The background noise in Bastion stopped. This was the nuclear option. The total abandonment of our Settlement.

  “Understood,” Lucas said. His voice was heavy, mournful, but iron-clad. “The Sanctuary Gate?”

  “Yes. It’s not finished, but it has air, similar gravity, food and shelter. Send the signal to Freja. Tell her to move the Noren civilians through the local portal node first. Evacuate the Elves to the Veiled Path — tell them to go inside the Veil, where the Empire’s scanners can’t penetrate. Also send the signal to Silverwood Reach, Marcus and Lena will know what to do.”

  “The infrastructure…” Eliza’s voice cut in, not arguing, but frantic with the logistics of the impossible. “The workshops. The alchemy labs, Eren. The Mana Forges. We can’t move them fast enough. We have maybe twenty minutes if your assessment of their charge launch is correct.”

  “Leave it,” I said. The words were painful. Every stone of Bastion was bought with sweat and blood. “Just take your data-crystals. Leave the rest of the hardware. We have even better resources and technology we can take from the Cradle now that we don’t need to hide it from the Empire. We’ll build again, Eliza. But we only do that if we’re alive.”

  “Okay,” Eliza clipped out.

  “I also have an idea,” I added, watching the sky. “I’ll try to destroy that thing before it takes Bastion, but I don’t know if I will make in time, or if they can build more. For now at least, get everyone out.”

  I cut the link.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds, the subtle hum of the portal network flared to life. The people of Noren were disciplined; under Freja’s command, they were already moving.

  A moment later, the landing pad near me shimmered.

  A few of the leadership of Noren and my friends stepped out. Lucas, shield strapped to his back, looking like a mountain that had been asked to move. Silas, his daggers at the hip, his expression masked by shadow. Anna, bow in hand, her face pale but set in a hard line. Rexxar, vibrating with suppressed energy.

  “You’re not coming through the Gate,” Lucas noted. It wasn’t a question.

  “Not yet,” I said. I walked to the edge of the plaza, looking out over the mountain range toward the direction of Bastion. “If I disappear, Vayne might keep searching. She needs closure. She needs a body, or at least one confirmed kill.”

  “You’re going to fake your death,” Anna concluded, stepping up beside me. She didn’t look at me; she looked at the sky.

  “I’m going to give her a catastrophe,” I corrected. “The Pyramid has a vent. A harnessing system for an Essence Singularity Engine, I saw the internal flow of distinct signatures. I think they are harnessing energy from groups of Tier 4s and 5s within their cities and somehow transferring it to the ship. Maybe that is how they bypassed the System.”

  “A singularity?” Eliza, who had just stepped through, looked nauseous. “They have a black hole up there?”

  “Something like that,” I nodded. “And I’m going to try to feed it something it can’t digest.”

  I looked at them. This was the circle I had forged in the fire of the Confluence. We had defied many odds. But now, we had to abandon our home.

  It tasted bitter.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucas said softly, echoing my thoughts. “We failed to get strong enough.”

  “No,” I turned to him, putting a hand on his pauldron. “We survive. Bastion isn’t the stone, Lucas. It’s the people. You get them to Sanctuary. You keep them calm. If I’m not there in an hour… assume I’m dark for a while. Trust the plan.”

  “We trust you,” Lucas gripped my forearm, a warrior’s shake.

  “Make it big,” Rexxar grumbled, clapping a massive hand on my shoulder. “If we must retreat, let them remember the bite!”

  “It’ll be loud, buddy,” I promised.

  “Be safe,” Anna whispered. She hugged me tightly. “Don’t lose.”

  “Go. Make sure everything is running smoothly in the Sanctuary, I’m sure Grandpa, Leoric and Jeeves could use some help, and make sure to tell them to get Nyx to fall back.”

  They didn’t linger. We couldn’t afford to waste time. They turned and vanished into the portal, heading for the Spire network.

  I was alone.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  I didn’t stay in Noren after everyone left, assuming they’ll either destroy it to send a message or move on to Bastion afterwards. It tasted bitter, but I hadn’t had enough time to set up my attack. I stepped through the shadows, utilizing [Void Walk] to get to the portal and teleported to the Veiled Path. After another [Void Walk] I appeared on the high cliffs overlooking Bastion.

  A place I started to call home.

  It was silent. The lights were still on, the workshops humming, the Aegis shield shimmering with its familiar pattern. It looked peaceful. A monument to defiance in a galaxy that wanted us dead.

  Above it, the sky began to discolor.

  The ship was dropping all its stealth. The Black Pyramid revealed itself, hanging in low orbit like a monolithic tombstone. The tip of the pyramid was glowing with a harsh, violet light. The weapon was charged.

  Vayne was done waiting.

  “Alright,” I exhaled, sitting down cross-legged on the cold stone of the cliff edge. “Let’s send the welcome wagon.”

  I triggered [Echo of the Ashen Soul].

  The mana drained from my core, pooling in front of me. The Clone solidified. It looked exactly like me — same height, same armor, same grim expression.

  Usually, my Echo was a combatant. A tool of finesse.

  Today, it was a munition.

  “You aren’t coming back,” I said.

  The Clone nodded. It had no consciousness, only my imparted will.

  I placed my hands on the Clone’s chest. I didn’t cast a spell. I opened the floodgates.

  I engaged [Apex Mana Authority].

  I began to siphon every spare ounce of mana I possessed into the Clone. I stripped my buffers. I drained the ambient mana from the air. I poured it into the Echo’s vessel not as structured spells, but as raw, volatile potential, hidden under a guise.

  I carefully modulated the frequency. I masked the [Ashen Flame] signature. I stripped away the distinct feeling of it and replaced it with generic, overwhelming Thermal and Kinetic power.

  To any sensor, this would look like me. And the aftereffect would look like a desperate Stage 2 cultivator sacrificing their Soul. A suicide pact.

  I filled the clone until its skin began to crack, white light spilling from the fissures. It vibrated, destabilizing the air around it, then settled. It was a walking massive nuke.

  “The coordinates,” I whispered, transferring the memory of the Glimpse to the Clone. “The Engine Room. The Vent Casing.”

  I recalled the layout of the ship from the vision. The obsidian walls. The violet pillars. The precise location where the intake manifold met the reactor shielding.

  “Try to stall her to make sure everyone gets out,” I commanded. “Then you [Void Walk] into the engine room and use everything at once. Make it look real, a desperate last stand.”

  The Clone’s eyes glowed with blinding light.

  “Go,” I ordered.

  I severed the sensory link. If I stayed connected when it went off, the feedback might cause too much backlash due to the raw amount of Essence. I was blind to its journey.

  The Clone stepped back. It triggered [Void Walk]. It tore a hole in the fabric of the world and vanished.

  I sat alone on the cliff, pulling my cloak tight around me. I maximized my [Prime Axiom’s Nullifying Veil] in sync with my mana weaving, sinking my presence into the rock, becoming nothing more than a shadow on the cliff face.

  I looked up.

  The Black Pyramid hung there, vast and terrible. The black shadow at its tip intensified, pulsating. I counted the seconds in my head.

  The Clone was now inside.

  It would be struggling against the Domain pressure now. But the sheer density of mana I had packed into it would act as a shield. It was too dense to be easily discovered.

  Minutes later, high above, miles into the atmosphere, the dark silhouette of the massive ship suddenly jerked.

  It wasn’t a sound. It was light.

  A second sun turned on inside the hull of the Pyramid.

  It didn’t look like fire. It looked like a breach in reality. A sphere of pure, blinding white expansion erupted from the geometric center of the Pyramid.

  The effect was instantaneous and horrific.

  The Tier 7 structural integrity fields — shields designed to withstand orbital bombardment — flared and died in a millisecond. They weren’t designed to take an internal detonation of that magnitude.

  The sides of the Pyramid bulged.

  The black metal that felt impervious, glowed cherry-red, then white, then transparent.

  Then, the singularity engine failed.

  The “Anchor” snapped.

  From my vantage point, it looked like the ship vomited gravity.

  A shockwave of violet distortion rippled out from the explosion, warring with the white thermal blast. Space twisted. Clouds hundreds of miles away were sucked in, then blasted out.

  The sound hit me seconds later. A thunderclap so loud it wasn’t heard; it was felt in my bones. The cliff beneath me shuddered, dust cascading down the slope.

  I watched, mesmerized.

  A massive chunk of the Pyramid — an entire quadrant of the superstructure — was simply blown clear off. It spiraled away, glowing like a meteor, tumbling into the upper atmosphere.

  The rest of the ship, the main chassis, lost its suspension.

  It didn’t fall straight down. The explosion had imparted massive lateral thrust.

  The Pyramid tipped. The smooth, ominous hover turned into a chaotic, uncontrollable spin.

  It looked like a wounded god falling from Olympus.

  The Pyramid streaked across the twilight sky, wreathed in smoke and leaking arcs of unstable void energy. It roared over the mountains, the sound of tearing metal screaming like a dying beast.

  It was heading North. Fast.

  It crossed the horizon in seconds, moving several times faster than the speed of sound.

  Then, a distant, muffled explosion echoed from the edge of the horizon. A mushroom cloud of steam and debris rose thousands of miles away, marking the spot where the pride of the Kyorian compliance fleet had introduced itself to the tectonic plate of the Confluence.

  I sat there for a long moment, watching the smoke trail that bisected the sky.

  The gun pointed at Bastion was gone.

  Vayne would check her logs. She would see a localized energy spike in the engine room — a suicide blast of immense power with a signature that perfectly matched the “missing variable” she had been hunting. She would see her ship broken, her battery destroyed, and her target obliterated in the process.

  To the Empire, the Anomaly had self-corrected.

  “Hope it works,” I whispered.

  I stood up, the wind howling around me, carrying the smell of burned metal and victory.

  Below, Bastion stood silent and empty. The lights were still on. The automated workshops still churned. It was a ghost city, waiting for another weapon that would find nothing but cold stone and empty beds.

  I felt a pang of loss. I had found a family there.

  But walls could be rebuilt.

  I turned my back on the empty city and walked toward the hidden cave entrance where the rearguard portal waited.

  Protocol Exodus was complete.

  We were gone. We were far away. And hopefully, to the eyes of the Kyorians, I was dead.

  Nothing is more dangerous than a devil everyone believes to have been exorcised.

  I stepped into the shadows, leaving the burning sky behind.