When I opened my eyes, Havelyn's head was still resting on my shoulder.
For a few moments, time seemed suspended. On the horizon, however, the colossal silhouette of Gron-Tarh remained exactly where it had been, unshaken, split by artificial lightning and swept by long beams of light that had been cutting across the sky all night.
That was when I noticed the faint glow beginning to emerge from behind the mountains: weak and pale, but unmistakable.
Morning had finally come.
"Havelyn," I called softly.
It took her a moment to respond.
Her eyes slowly opened, blinking against the newborn light, and she lifted her head.
I didn't need to say anything else. The moment she looked toward the horizon and saw the fortress, every trace of sleep vanished from her face.
"It's time," she murmured.
I nodded in silence and released my transformation.
The dark green layer covering my skin dissolved as I stood, stretching legs that had gone numb from staying in the same position for so long.
Havelyn rose as well and spread her wings.
She folded one back in, then tested the movement again, her expression remaining tight.
"Does it hurt?" I asked, watching her face.
"It's bearable."
A deep metallic roar rolled through the valley.
We looked down at the same time. One engine had just started.
Then another.
And another.
Within seconds, the entire village began to tremble.
Lights came alive across the platforms, heavy doors were thrown open, and organized chaos swept through the settlement.
Mechanics rushed between hulls while pilots took their positions; warriors emerged from their quarters already equipped for battle.
No one shouted battle cries or words of encouragement.
Candice had already said everything that needed to be said the night before.
Now all that remained was execution.
Havelyn unfurled her black wings.
"See you down there."
She stepped off the edge.
Her wings opened fully and, for one brief second, she hovered in front of me before diving toward the lower platforms without losing altitude or showing the slightest hesitation.
I watched until her feet touched the ground.
Then I headed down after her.
By the time I reached the central sector of the village, the place was frantic with activity. Ammunition crates passed from hand to hand, weapons were checked one final time, and power cables were hurriedly torn free from the sides of the ships.
Some tightened equipment against their bodies while others waited on rooftops in tense silence, staring toward the distant storm.
Some people said goodbye.
Most didn't.
I saw a little girl clinging to the waist of a man carrying a heavy spear.
He knelt, pressed his forehead against hers, and stayed that way for several seconds.
Neither of them said a word.
Then he stood and walked with steady steps toward one of the ships.
I looked away.
This wasn't a traditional army.
Those people hadn't chosen to be there. Something had been stolen from them.
Just like it had been from me.
I found Tsukumo near one of the main platforms.
He was already equipped, thick bandages wrapped tightly around both arms.
He looked at me as soon as I approached.
"Get any rest?"
"Enough."
I looked at the wraps around his arms.
"What's with the bandages?"
"They keep my bones in place. It's something I still need to improve."
"Gravity affects me too."
"Tell Silver when we get back. I'm sure he'll figure something out."
"It doesn't get in my way during a short fight. Only the serious ones. But yeah, I'll talk to him."
We both turned our attention back toward Gron-Tarh on the horizon.
"When it starts..." I murmured.
"We don't stop," he finished.
"Suki. Tsukumo."
Candice's voice reached us from the boarding ramp of one of the ships. Her scythe was strapped across her back, and there was no impatience in her expression, only cold, calculated focus.
"Get in."
We climbed the ramp.
Sahger was already waiting inside.
His armor was fully sealed up to his neck, though his helmet rested on his knees.
The red crest trailed backward, completely still.
He raised his eyes when we crossed the hatch.
"Ready?"
"Yes," Tsukumo answered immediately.
Havelyn came in shortly after, followed by Candice, with Gordon entering last.
The armored door slammed shut, instantly muffling the commotion outside.
For several moments, the only sound inside the cabin was the low, continuous vibration of the engines.
Then a holographic tactical map of Gron-Tarh appeared in the center of the cabin.
Candice stepped forward.
"Final review," she announced.
No one objected.
She touched the hologram, and two glowing points appeared over the upper section of the prison.
"Suki. Tsukumo."
More markers appeared around them: defensive towers, drone patrols, and military positions.
"You go in first."
"Your objective isn't to reach the core. It's to make them believe you're trying to get there at any cost."
"The more damage you inflict on the surface, the more units they'll pull from the interior sectors to contain the invasion."
The markers on the map rapidly began converging on the points assigned to us.
"I want those towers aimed at you."
With a quick gesture, she illuminated a much lower section of the fortress, where two new points appeared: hers and Havelyn's.
"As soon as they start redistributing troops, we enter the prison."
"From there, we move toward the place where Rubens is being held."
Her mechanical hand slowly closed with a metallic click.
"Assuming the maps are still accurate."
She touched another section, causing several intersecting aerial routes to appear.
"Gordon will keep the fleet divided, forcing Gron-Tarh to respond on multiple fronts at once."
He nodded.
Candice then looked toward Sahger.
"You stay with the upper offensive."
He put on his helmet.
The instant he did, the red crest rose, and his relaxed posture gave way to an overwhelming presence.
He looked like a completely different man, a warrior shaped solely for the carnage of the battlefield.
Candice shut down the projection.
The ship shook harder as the engines reached maximum thrust.
I looked down at my hands and noticed the slight tremor running through them.
I clenched my fists, but the involuntary shaking remained.
I took a deep breath.
At a moment like this, Silver would probably have something to say.
Some short jab.
Maybe a piece of advice.
Control what you can.
Maybe that would be it.
I exhaled again.
"Silver must be furious," I murmured without meaning to.
Candice raised her head and stared at me.
"What?"
"You said 'Silver.'"
Only then did I realize I'd spoken aloud.
"He's my master," I said. There was no reason to keep secrets anymore.
"The Silver One?"
I frowned.
"You know him?"
"Not personally," she replied, leaning back against the wall of the ship.
"But there are very few people in the Dark Galaxies who haven't heard that name."
"Most people around here hate him."
I stayed silent, and she seemed to study my reaction before continuing.
"And a lot of them blame him directly for terrible things that happened in this region."
"Yeah. I can imagine."
I lowered my eyes to the metal floor.
I knew Silver, but the bare truth was that I only knew a fraction of him.
That realization had struck me before, but hearing it from someone who had witnessed the horrors of this side of the universe made the weight of it feel far more real.
The ship shuddered again, and she looked away.
"Rubens admired him."
I looked at her in surprise.
"Your brother?"
"Long before Gron-Tarh," she answered, and something faint passed through her usually closed expression, barely there, like the shadow of a distant memory.
"He wanted to meet him."
"He talked about the Silver One like someone that powerful couldn't possibly exist in the universe."
I exchanged a quick glance with Tsukumo before turning back to Candice.
"When we get Rubens out of there, he'll be able to see for himself."
Her eyes remained fixed on mine for a second, her expression rigid, before she gave a determined nod.
"When we get him out."
A red warning light flashed across the cabin ceiling.
It was the signal that everyone was ready.
Gordon immediately stood, and his voice echoed through the fleetwide communications channel.
"All units, prepare for departure."
The entire valley seemed to answer.
The deafening roar of engines filled the air as our ship began to rise.
I moved closer to one of the small viewports and looked outside.
The village slowly sank beneath us: the houses, the workshops, the platforms, and the people who would remain behind growing smaller and smaller.
Around us, dozens of other craft climbed in formation.
Some were heavily armored and sturdy.
Others were so old it seemed like a miracle they could still fly.
Several elves with thin, translucent wings cut through the spaces between the ships while warriors clung tightly to external structures.
No one looked back.
No one broke formation.
We kept climbing until Gron-Tarh finally appeared before us.
Even after spending days staring at that fortress, my mind still struggled to comprehend its monumental scale.
Gordon's voice came through the radio.
"Formation Three."
The ships began spreading apart, each group taking its assigned route.
Candice approached the side door.
"From this point on, keep communications brief."
Gordon simply nodded.
The first drops of rain struck the metal hull.
At first there were only a few.
Then hundreds of rapid impacts merged into a continuous growl that swallowed the entire ship.
Havelyn started opening her wings, but Candice placed a firm hand on her arm.
"Not yet."
Havelyn nodded and stepped back.
The first ship in the leading line plunged into the storm and vanished inside the dense haze.
The second disappeared immediately after.
Then it was our turn.
The outside world vanished completely.
Water.
Wind.
Lightning.
The ship lurched violently to the side, forcing me to grab a support bar.
A bolt of lightning ripped through the clouds so close to our viewport that a blinding flash flooded the cabin as alarms shrieked around us.
"Ship Seven lost stability!" a desperate voice crackled through the radio.
Gordon responded immediately.
"Correct your axis and maintain formation!"
"One engine's out!"
"Redistribute power! Don't leave your route!"
The transmission dissolved into static.
Seconds later, the damaged ship emerged from the haze beside us, black smoke pouring from one engine while it stubbornly held its course.
I kept watching the storm until a red light appeared through the rain.
Then another.
Three more.
Ten.
Twenty.
Gordon's expression hardened.
"Observation towers."
High-intensity scanning beams tore through the storm.
One skimmed directly over our ship.
Another swept across a craft to our left.
A third struck our hull head-on.
There was no explosion.
Only a wave of sensory light crawling across the fuselage.
We'd been mapped.
In response, Gron-Tarh's emergency sirens began to howl.
Even through the deafening wind and engine noise, the deep, guttural sound rolled through the storm and made the air itself tremble.
It was a trumpet announcing the apocalypse.
A second later, the prison's lights began activating in sequence.
One.
Ten.
Hundreds.
Kilometers of infrastructure awakening in the darkness like enormous eyes opening over an abyss.
Candice watched the spectacle in silence.
Twenty years.
She had waited twenty years for that exact moment.
She opened the general communications channel.
"Gron-Tarh has detected us."
For one second, the radio went completely silent.
"Begin."
The side door burst open, and the violent wind flooded the cabin at full force.
I gripped the hilt of my sword just as hundreds of tiny red points began appearing through the storm.
Combat drones.
And their numbers kept rising.
They descended through the heavy clouds in disciplined ranks, resembling a metallic swarm.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Multiplying as far as I could see.
Hatches opened beneath their rigid frames, revealing charged cannons as operational lights flashed in warning.
The first barrage cut through the darkness, lighting the entire sky at once.
The resistance ships scattered as red beams tore through the storm and detonated around our formation.
Our craft banked sharply to one side.
I pressed a hand against the metal wall to keep my balance.
One shot passed so close to the hull that the entire cabin shook from the displaced air.
Behind us, another ship took a direct hit.
The resulting explosion lit the clouds in an orange flash.
"Defensive formation!" Gordon ordered over the radio.
Havelyn stepped toward the open side door and took position beside me at the edge.
Her black wings spread fully behind her.
I looked at her.
She was eager for this.
I wasn't going to stop her.
"Show me what harpies can do," I said, holding out my hand.
"Gladly," she replied, touching it.
She remained still for one second.
Then she jumped.
My chest tightened as she vanished into the rain-soaked darkness.
For two endless seconds, there was nothing but the rain.
A crossing barrage tore through the exact spot where she'd fallen.
Then a black shadow shot upward.
Havelyn tore through the storm in an almost vertical ascent.
With a single brutal beat of her wings, the air around her erupted into a shockwave.
Three drones were caught in the pressure and hurled into one another.
Metal twisted.
Flames erupted between the clouds.
Without slowing down, she threw her body sideways into an aerial spin.
The sharpened edge of her right wing passed through a fourth drone, slicing its metal shell from end to end before both halves exploded in midair.
Another unit came up behind her and locked on.
Havelyn folded one wing and dropped instantly, letting the shot pass straight through the space she'd occupied less than a second earlier.
Opening her wings again, she changed direction with unbelievable speed and appeared directly above her attacker.
She dropped onto the machine, driving both feet into its shell and kicking it downward.
The crippled drone plunged straight into the center of an enemy formation, setting off a chain reaction.
Explosion after explosion ripped through the sky.
One.
Two.
Five.
Eight drones consumed by fire in a matter of seconds.
I watched without being able to look away.
But the threat she posed drew the attention of the rest of the enemy force.
Dozens of red markers converged on her at once.
"Havelyn!" I shouted, leaning out through the opening.
She folded both wings against her body and dropped into freefall as hundreds of shots converged on the exact point where she'd been.
The projectiles struck empty air.
Diving between two resistance ships, Havelyn snapped her wings open at the last possible instant.
The accumulated air pressure expanded into an invisible blast that shoved the allied craft slightly apart, while the drones pursuing her slammed head-on into the turbulence and the crossfire.
Several lost control completely and spiraled downward.
That was the signal the rest of our forces needed.
A dozen resistance soldiers leapt from the decks of the ships at once, followed by several more.
Jetpacks ignited.
Thruster boots activated.
Elves with nearly transparent wings surged forward.
The enemy formation collapsed.
Havelyn moved among her allies like a black blade.
One elf seized a drone by the sides and hurled it into another, while two others advanced together, folding their wings to slip through narrow gaps and sending their pursuers crashing together behind them.
Taking advantage of the opening created by the aerial assault, the transport ships opened their side batteries.
"All units, free fire!" Gordon's command boomed through the speakers.
The sky answered immediately.
A massive, chaotic bombardment erupted from the resistance craft.
There was no coordination or elegance to it.
Only an overwhelming volume of fire cutting through the rain and reducing dozens of targets to incandescent wreckage.
For several seconds, the entire storm seemed to burn.
Havelyn flew straight through one of the explosions, emerging from the other side with the tips of her feathers glowing through the smoke and sparks.
Three drones entered a direct collision course with her.
Instead of dodging, she accelerated.
When the first fired, she spun horizontally, slipping past the beam by inches and slicing through the machine with her right wing.
She carried the rotation through, her left wing smashing into the second drone's hull.
The third tried to climb away, but a brutal beat of her wings unleashed a blast of wind powerful enough to hurl the machine into the side of a distant tower, where it exploded on impact.
She spread her wings fully and hovered for one brief moment in front of our open door.
Rain streamed down her body, framed by the fire of the explosions falling behind her.
Then new red lights began appearing through the clouds.
A wave even larger than the last.
Gordon checked the cabin controls, his expression grim.
"They're reinforcing their air coverage."
"As expected," Candice replied without hesitation.
Outside, Havelyn noticed the incoming reinforcements.
She looked toward the new swarm approaching, then turned her head toward our ship.
Our eyes met through the storm.
No words were necessary.
She knew this was only the first layer of containment.
Not the main assault.
Candice raised two fingers to the communicator at her ear.
"Havelyn."
"Listening."
"Keep the sky open."
Havelyn looked across the allied fighters regrouping around her and the ships pushing forward in formation.
"Understood," she replied firmly.
She angled her body in the air, beat her wings hard, and surged toward the metallic swarm once more.
Inside the cabin, I remained silent beside Tsukumo.
Then the atmosphere changed.
A light flared from the depths of the complex, piercing the lower cloud layer.
Not the red glow of ordinary sensors.
A blinding, overwhelming white.
Gordon was the first to notice the energy spike on his monitors.
His face went pale instantly.
"Wait..." he muttered, pulling up the readings.
Between two of the fortress's largest central towers, a colossal structure began unfolding.
Massive armored plates slid aside, revealing a cannon of monstrous proportions aimed directly at the sky.
Metallic rings spiraled faster and faster around an incandescent core, generating such intense heat that the rain evaporated meters before touching the weapon.
Every light in the surrounding sector flickered and dimmed as Gron-Tarh diverted an absurd amount of power into the cannon.
"Full dispersal! All ships, clear the sector now!" Gordon screamed over the radio.
The communication channel erupted into overlapping voices.
The ships desperately tried to break formation, but the density of the fleet made every evasive maneuver too slow.
There wouldn't be enough time.
The cannon's core reached maximum saturation, projecting a fissure of pure light aimed directly at the heart of the fleet.
"They're not going to make it," I murmured, stepping toward the opening.
I didn't wait for anything else.
I ran toward the side door and threw myself into the void.
Freezing wind and rain struck my face as I cut through the storm in freefall before stabilizing myself in the air.
Far below, the cannon finally discharged.
There was no explosion.
The initial crack was so dense it simply swallowed every other sound, replacing the world with terrifying silence.
A monstrous column of pure white energy erupted toward the sky, wide enough to incinerate dozens of ships at once.
Its blinding radiance erased every shadow across the valley and instantly vaporized the clouds in its path.
Havelyn and the others managed to maneuver away in time.
The transport ships couldn't.
They were trapped directly in the beam's path.
I gripped my sword with both hands, ignoring the warning screaming through every muscle in my body.
I concentrated energy into the Kazekiba at my chest, making the metal vibrate with a high-pitched hum as the pressure from the approaching blast already heated my skin.
I drew the sword back and brought it down in a vertical slash.
The blade tore through the air, sending a concentrated wave of aura crashing into the column of energy.
The impact against the mass of light nearly tore my shoulders from their sockets.
For one terrifying second, the force of the beam drove my sword backward, dragging my body through the air with nothing beneath my feet to brace against.
"NO!" I roared, gritting my teeth and forcing my arms forward.
The line of my slash sank into the white energy.
A thin crack appeared at the center of the column.
Then it rapidly widened.
The colossal beam split into two enormous streams that passed along either side of my body.
The extreme heat scorched my skin and clothes as the redirected blasts tore across the sky, one passing left of the fleet and the other right, before detonating kilometers away.
The resulting shockwave slammed through the ships, throwing several off course but leaving the fleet alive.
I remained suspended in the air for several moments, my arm shaking and my breathing ragged, surrounded only by smoke and the gradual return of the storm's roar.
Below me, Gron-Tarh's cannon smoked.
But the structure itself remained intact.
The radio crackled, breaking the stunned silence.
"All ships..." Gordon's voice faltered for a second before steadying again.
"...maintain formation!"
I sheathed my sword and used a passing allied craft to launch myself back toward our ship.
I caught the edge of the open door, and Tsukumo's hand immediately seized my arm and hauled me inside.
I dropped to one knee as he stared through the opening at the gap my attack had carved through the clouds.
"That was their defense?" Tsukumo asked, never taking his eyes off the fortress.
"It was," I replied, forcing myself back to my feet.
Tsukumo stepped closer to the opening, his expression hardening as he stared down at the towers of Gron-Tarh.
"Then now it's our turn to attack."
Behind us, Candice activated the general command channel, her posture unwavering.
"Havelyn, clear everyone out of the upper sector."
"Suki. Tsukumo... now it's your turn."