The field of floating spike-walls narrowed into a geometric throat of pure suffocating heat. As the rusted remnants of the Ballista Sovereign drifted into the lower slipstream, the sky of the minor constellation curdled into a dark bruised red. The channel ahead flattened out into a series of interconnected, bleeding ditches —the burning molten-iron trenches guarding the inner gate of the fortification. The fluid within these massive stone gutters was not magma, but liquified iron scraps, boiling and spitting chunks of unrefined steel that bubbled with an ancient martial hostility.
The Void-Galleon slowed to a crawl, its lower keel scraping against the basalt lips of the trenches. The friction sent a low, rhythmic screaming sound through the hull, a vibration that made the iron bolts in the floors dance and loosen.
[Synchronization: 84.0%]
[Level: 135]
