Vasreveilder Nov Aeteria saw everything through the hologram and for once he did not look amused.
The image feeds kept shifting and every one of them carried the same ugly truth. Vastarael had done it. He had pushed the entire Hidden Citadel out of Spheraphase's control and into a state where the old rules no longer reached it. That alone was enough to make Vasreveilder close his eyes and sigh.
On Earth, Narisva stood alone on the moon, staring down at the blue-white planet below her. Earth looked so small from up there compared to the disaster unfolding everywhere else. She kept seeing the notification in front of her.
[Vastarael Richinaria is dead.]
Her eyes had changed too.
What remained was dark, almost black in the way grief can hollow out color and leave something colder behind. She kept staring at Earth but now there was nothing soft in her expression at all. She did not speak. She did not cry. She just stood there with the notification hanging in her vision and the moon under her feet, looking like a woman trying to decide whether to mourn or destroy something first.
In Ledatic Siliportem, Elyonari had stopped being graceful a long time ago.
She was too deep in her grief now to care about anything except the next thing she could kill. The soldiers around her died with horrifying speed. Tens of thousands died per minute, maybe more. Her Fifth Enlightenment form had gone past restraint and was now just elemental wrath wearing her face. Elyonari did not even look at most of them anymore. She just moved, screamed and killed. The Separation was coming true.
And while that was happening, Veylonar had finally escaped with Celadille.
He had his wife in his arms and did not stop moving until the palace and battlefield were far enough behind him that he could breathe again. Greshina, meanwhile, had already outgrown the need to be gentle with Edarea Avinaris. She defeated her easily and stood in front of her now with a glare that could have frozen blood. Edarea was still trying to pretend she had some control over the situation but Greshina had wiped that confidence out of her face the moment the fight began. Edarea was no longer in charge of anything. She was just someone unlucky enough to be standing in front of a woman who had run out of patience.
In Technographia, the Richinaria siblings were still fighting hard enough that the city itself seemed to brighten around them.
Milliania, Anamorsia, Leon, and Leones were pushing the Krepsunas back with a steady, brutal rhythm that made the entire frontline more dangerous. They were winning ground. That alone was enough to fuel them. Every time a wave broke against them and failed, they pushed harder. Every time one of the natives of Technographia saw them hold the line, the morale of the entire city rose another notch. They had learned the same thing by now: the Richinaria siblings did not break easily.
In Regnum Musicae, Adelasta stood alone in Modernia, staring at the sapphire prison that held Luminescent.
Her fists were clenched so hard her knuckles looked ready to split. Her body trembled once and then steadied, but only barely. Around the prison, Divine Flames rose in a tight circle. Luminescent could still be seen inside, sealed and sealed and sealed again, and she wanted him gone. She wanted the world to stop pretending this was just a delay. Vastarael had died for this. The least she could do was make sure the thing he trapped stayed trapped.
She did not stay long. After surrounding the prison with her flames, she turned and headed to Concerto.
Then there was Cassandra. That was where the scene looked horrifying. Asenane stood in the frozen wreckage of the ocean and had singlehandedly murdered every Krepsuna that had reached her.
Xander, Farrynelle, Eldrigan, Peroncerea, Qalis and the Dynasty rulers saw the aftermath from different angles but the truth was the same no matter how they looked at it. She had killed 134,000 Scavenger Rank Sentient Krepsunas by herself.
Her outfit was soaked in black blood. Corpses covered the ice in every direction. Some of the creatures had been frozen mid-motion and shattered under the next blow. Others had been split open, frozen or hammered into pieces by the force of her halberd and the sheer rage driving her.
She was panting heavily now, using the haft of the halberd as support while one arm pressed against it and held her upright. Scales had started to cover her arms and neck.
She had broken to the Fifth Enlightenment.
The battlefield had given her the Codex she needed and she had taken it in the middle of slaughter.
Nobody there could have mistaken her for a calm woman anymore. She looked like a war goddess who had been dragged through the darkest kind of mourning and come out on the other side with her heart sharpened into a weapon. The others watched her in silence. There was nothing to say to someone who had lost her husband and daughters and was still standing in the middle of the frozen sea.
Phaenora, meanwhile, was outside the spaceship in Ledatic Siliportem.
Hansel, the spaceship AI, was with her, and she was trying very hard to sound reasonable, which usually meant she was about to be ignored.
"I'm going to try the Omniscient Trial."
"You are not ready."
She did not even blink. "I'm doing it anyway."
"If you are not ready, it will take you decades to complete."
"I know."
"That is not a reassuring answer."
"It is the answer."
"You are doing this now because of him."
Phaenora looked down at her system holograms and saw the message. He also freed her. Now she was no longer connected to him. Even if he would be alive, she couldn't use his energy or Tethers anymore.
"I'm going to learn in the fairytale trial."
"That is an absurd strategy."
Phaenora set her systems to auto command one by one, locking them into place as if she had already accepted she would not be coming back to them for a while. Then she disconnected herself from the system entirely. Once that was done, she stepped into the portal Hansel opened for her and vanished into the trial path.
Vasreveilder laughed. None of it was funny in a normal sense. Vastarael had once again managed to be more dangerous in death than most people ever were in life.
"He really is pragmatic. My grandson really is a pragmatic person."
He kept looking at the holograms while speaking, as if the shape of the entire plan had finally become clear enough for even him to appreciate the ugliness of it.
Vastarael had known what his death would do. He had known the hate for Krepsunas would grow worse. He had known that everyone who loved him would harden. He had also known that the Hidden Citadel being separated from Spheraphase would do more than just hide it.
It would free it from the Ascension Curse.
That meant no more forced limitations from the old world's pressure. No more children would be born under the same constraints that had shaped the previous ages. The refugees trapped in Ledatic Siliportem would grow, live, and eventually have children unaffected by the old curse.
The Dynasties would strengthen because of it, Richinaria especially. Vastarael delayed the flow of time so that by the time the effects wore off, decades would already have passed for the people inside. Decades of growth, adaptation and children who could be born into something stronger than the old world had allowed.
He had literally turned his death into an engine for the future of his Dynasty and that of others. Vasreveilder let out a low whistle and laughed again, more openly this time.
"That bastard. He stole my idea of a death and made it better."
He leaned back, still watching the holographic war, the frozen sea, the burning city, the trials opening, the blood and grief and power moving all at once across the Hidden Citadel.