The gunfire had stopped. The bodies were still. But no one raised their voice in triumph.
The battlefield—if it could still be called that—was a graveyard of ash, blood, and broken souls. The Hollowed Saints were gone, their black cores shattered, but their influence clung to the town like a cold mist, refusing to lift.
Among the ruins, soldiers moved through the aftermath in silence. Medics worked with grim efficiency, bandaging burns and bullet grazes, stitching flesh without meeting each other's eyes. There were no cheers. No relief. Just the quiet, numbing work of survival.
Victory had come, but it hadn't come clean. Innocent people—possessed, manipulated, turned into weapons—had to be put down like monsters. And that truth settled into every breath like dust.
Colonel Pierce stood at the center of the ruined town square, watching the flicker of a broken traffic light overhead. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His silence said everything.
The cleanup was swift. Gear packed. Bodies tagged. Bastion, the armored transport, rumbled back to life, its engine a dull heartbeat in the silence. With no time to mourn, they rolled out. West. Toward Angelo.
Further north, down colder roads and emptier skies, another unit moved with quieter urgency.
Delta Ash. A three-person recon team trained for recovery and long-range scouting. Their objective wasn't to find Angelo—it was to bring home what was left of Hale and Ryan.
Scout-Leader Rhea Morgan sat in the passenger seat of their light combat vehicle—Jackal—her rifle across her lap, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion that lived behind them. She'd stopped sleeping well years ago, and her instincts hadn't dulled since.
Behind her, Arlo Vance, the team's tech, hunched over a small console in the back seat. His fingers danced over controls, tuning and retuning the faint signal they'd salvaged from Nomad's last known transmission. A flickering blip. A breadcrumb.
At the wheel, Dima Kovac, tracker and survivalist, guided Jackal through the cracked and winding path. The north was quieter than expected. No drones. No movement. Just wind and memory.
They were heading for the place where everything changed.
Where the Duskborns attacked.
Where Hale and Ryan were lost.
Where Angelo was taken.
The tires hummed steadily beneath them, the only sound in the quiet cabin—until Arlo's console pulsed. The screen fuzzed with static, glitching once—then again.
"Shit," Arlo muttered, already popping the casing open. "Hold on, it's bugging out—"
Sparks jumped once. He swore, adjusted a node, and the screen flickered clean. Stable. Then—
A new signal.
Strong. Sharp. Not from Nomad. Not like anything they'd seen before.
Arlo leaned in. "I've got something…"
Rhea shifted. "From Nomad?"
He shook his head slowly. "No. This is different. It's… strong. Too strong."
That made her sit up straighter. A cold breath swept through her lungs. She scanned the trees, the ridgeline, the open sky beyond the windshield.
"Your hardware's probably busted," she said flatly. "There's nothing out there."
Then the signal spiked.
Arlo's voice went quiet.
"It's in the sky."
Rhea rolled down the window, leaned out, rifle ready. Her eyes narrowed, scanning upward.
And then she saw it.
The shimmer.
Just for a second.
Like a fold in the sky had twitched.
Then it slipped into view—vast, silent, wrong. A Hollowed Saint drifted just above them, wings veiled in shadow, trailing dark mist through the clouds. No sound. No roar. Just presence. Absolute and inevitable.
Rhea pulled back in, her voice calm and cold. "Enemy airborne. Directly overhead. Prepare for engagement."
Dima cursed under his breath and hit the accelerator, trying to put distance between them and the threat—but the Saint followed, matching their movement with unnatural grace. A predator toying with its prey.
Then it raised its weapon—a long spear of twisted light and blackened bone, crackling with corrupted energy.
It threw.
The spear came down like judgment.
It struck the road just ahead with a thunderclap, detonating the asphalt in a plume of concrete and flame. Dima braked—but too late.
Jackal slammed into the impact crater, the spear's energy still pulsing from the wound it tore in the road. The vehicle jolted violently. Sparks burst from the dash. Metal screamed. The reinforced frame groaned and buckled along the passenger side, a deep gash carved down its length.
"We're hit!" Arlo shouted, trying to stabilize the readouts. "Right flank's damaged—something's burning—"
But the Saint was already descending. Slow. Controlled. Spear now back in its hand, retrieved without sound.
The doors burst open.
Rhea. Arlo. Dima.
All three exited at once. Armor on. Rifles raised. Movement fluid. Not a second wasted.
No panic. No hesitation.
They were professionals.
They had trained for worse.
They were ready.