Technographia had become a warzone so large it barely felt like a city anymore.
Krepsunas kept pouring in from every direction. The natives of Technographia fought with everything they had left, firing modern weapons, activating defensive grids, dragging wounded civilians into cover and trying to hold lines that should have collapsed hours ago but holding the line was not enough against a horde of Scavenger Rank Krepsunas.
And through all of it, the Richinaria siblings fought together.
Milliania had joined Anamorsia, Leones and Leon after leaving Regnum Musicae. Somehow the four of them ended up moving like a single unit through the battlefield. There was no shouting between them about their brother or the fact that Vastarael was dead. They had already done that part, privately. Out here, it was just action.
Milliania's attacks were precise and brutal. She used her staff to incinerate through waves of Krepsunas using her Soul Energy. Leones moved like a storm front, always where she was needed most, ripping through enemies with her spiked mace. Leon stayed closer to the center of the formation, trying to read the battlefield faster than it changed, striking hard with his sword whenever a gap opened.
Anamorsia was the one anchoring the group when the pressure got too heavy. Her speed and sharp feathers plus her Sixth Enlightenment body tore through the ranks.
None of them spoke much.
The natives of Technographia who were fighting beside them could feel it anyway. Their brother was dead. Everybody knew it now but grief, for them, had not turned into an obstacle.
So they kept fighting.
A Krepsuna lunged from a shattered transit line and Milliania snapped it backwards with a strike that sent it crashing into two more behind it. Leon drove a blade through another one's throat and shoved it aside with a sharp twist, then turned immediately to block the next attacker without losing rhythm. Leones tore through a pair of enemies at once. Anamorsia burned a path through the front line with her Soul Energy and the scent of scorched flesh filled the air as a whole cluster of Krepsunas turned to ash.
The battle went on like that until Throenia was intercepted.
She had been fighting somewhere nearby, probably too far to be seen clearly before Natalis and Denisia reached her. The two of them appeared with the kind of timing that made it obvious they had already decided this was going to happen one way or another.
"Throenia," Natalis said.
Throenia turned, irritated at first, then confused when she saw both of them standing there together in the middle of a war.
"What are you doing here?"
Denisia answered before Natalis could.
"It's time to head back to heaven."
Throenia stared at them.
"Our role here is done," Natalis said.
"What do you mean, done?"
"Exactly that."
Throenia looked like she wanted to argue and point out that there was still fighting happening but then she saw their faces properly. The devastation was there. It was hidden under discipline, but it was still there. Their eyes were not neutral. They were hurting. They were just keeping it contained.
That made Throenia stop.
She did not want to go. That much was obvious but she also understood what it meant when people like Natalis and Denisia showed up with that kind of expression. It meant something bigger had already been decided.
"How did you even get here?"
"Vasreveilder helped us," Natalis said.
That name landed strangely, but there was no time to unpack it.
Denisia shook her head.
"Either way, we don't have time for this."
Natalis raised her hand and a golden portal opened up before them. It led straight to Naranq. The opening shimmered with holy light that looked almost out of place in the blood-soaked chaos of Technographia.
Throenia looked at it and gave up. The three of them entered together and the golden light swallowed them up as the portal closed behind them, leaving Technographia's battlefield darker again.
Leon saw it all from a little farther out.
He kept fighting while watching the portal vanish. He wanted to ask what the hell was going on. He wanted to ask why Throenia had just left. He wanted to ask why heaven was suddenly involved and why nobody had told him anything but he already knew the answer to that too. It would be useless to ask. Throenia had never wanted anything to do with him. Whatever history they had, it was not one that could be repaired in the middle of a battlefield.
So he kept fighting. While doing so, he noticed something else. The Overlord Ravagers were not among the troops.
He looked up again, scanning the battlefield and the sky and the shattered streets beyond. It was just an endless swarm of lower-rank creatures being thrown forward like disposable bodies. The Ravagers were not the kind of beings who would normally sit back when something this big was happening. They should have been here. They should have been leading or at least watching.
It looked like something had happened. Something had pulled them all away.
Leon turned to Anamorsia, who was still fighting nearby with the same focus as before.
"Why aren't any of the Overlord Ravagers here?"
She did not answer immediately. She cut down a pair of Krepsunas first, then sent a pulse of Soul Energy through the ground that shattered another cluster into fragments. Only after that did she look over at him.
"Focus."
Leon swallowed the frustration and did as told, striking down a Krepsuna that had tried to flank him from the left. He was still watching her, though, and after another second she answered his question anyway.
"They're gone because of Veneri."
"What?"
"I don't know how he did it but he did this."
That hit worse than he expected. Vastarael had still been moving pieces even while the rest of them were breaking apart under the weight of his death. It meant this battlefield, this absence, this weirdly empty structure of the enemy force, all of it had been shaped by him. Even if he was gone, he was still forcing the world to obey the shape of his plan.
Leon looked away for a second. The pain on his face was brief but real. His brother was dead and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't have his grief here so he did the only thing left.
He kept fighting.
He moved back into the slaughter beside his siblings. The Richinaria family did not have the luxury of crying. They had been left with a world that still needed them and the only answer they had left was the one Vastarael had taught them all along.
Keep enduring.