Grace and the entire room remained suspended in stunned silence as one after another, new figures stepped out of the darkness above Nova and took their positions.
The status windows that flickered into existence above each of them read as question marks across every display, which was itself a statement, but the reason for the silence was not the unknown power.
It was what the Architect was doing.
Architect was not an unknown to the people in that chamber. The major guilds had either dealt with him directly or gathered enough intelligence from Shadow Oblivion's known members to build a working picture of who he was and where he stood.
His performance during the Mythical Island event had given the world a baseline. A strong player, and exceptional, even. By the most generous estimates of those who had watched him closely, a Fifth Rank individual, possibly a Sixth if something extraordinary had occurred during the last year.
Powerful, but not world-stage powerful. Not this.
