The doubt clouding Hegemon's mind evaporated instantly. The thought of Lily—bound, tortured, yet stubbornly holding out for him beneath the earth—re-ignited the cold, fierce drive within his chest. She hadn't given up, which meant he didn't have the luxury of despair. Saving her was the absolute, singular priority that eclipsed every fear, every fractured memory, and every broken bone in his body.
"Three seconds," Hegemon muttered, his voice dropping into a razor-thin tone of pure composure as he adjusted his grip on his crutch. "Kenji, move on my mark."
Above the subterranean cavern, the primary surface operation erupted into chaos. High Knight Xuka Astri descended into the ruins of Sector 4 like a divine tempest. Her silver armor blazed with localized wind pressure as she confronted Relay, the 10th High Officer of the Western Cult.
Relay's porcelain demon mask tilted ominously as she raised her heavy, rusted pendulum, sending a violent spatial compression wave rippling toward the knight. But Xuka was prepared. Utilizing the wind vacuum technique, she ducked beneath the gravitational crush, her broadsword unleashing a roaring crescent blade of air that forced Relay onto the back foot.
"Your little gravitational parlor tricks won't work twice, cultist!" Xuka roared, her wind magic locking Relay into a fierce, blinding duel that completely consumed the officer's focus, pulling her attention entirely away from the abyssal altar's spatial anchor.
Meanwhile, miles away from the capital's subterranean depths, a completely impossible phenomenon was unfolding.
Helar, the fearsome 6th High Officer, found herself standing atop a desolate, wind-swept cliff far outside the borders of the Western Kingdom. She blinked in utter bewilderment, cold sweat instantly drenching her obsidian leather armor. Just a millisecond ago, she had been comfortably lounging in the underground catacombs, surrounded by her millions of shadow locusts. Yet, without any spell casting, spatial portal, or warning, she had been forcibly ripped across space and dragged to this isolated wasteland.
Standing a few paces ahead of her, gazing calmly out at the horizon, was a middle-aged man.
He wore a simple, worn leather tunic beneath a dark traveling cloak that fluttered in the mountain breeze. Sun-bleached golden hair fell loosely over his shoulders, framing a weathered, quiet face scarred by countless forgotten wars. Held casually in his right hand was a plain, unadorned iron longsword—a weapon that looked entirely unremarkable, yet radiated an incomprehensible, suffocating weight.
Helar's shadow locusts, usually aggressive and ravenous, refused to leave her shadow, trembling in absolute instinctual terror before the man's presence.
Her teeth chattered, her eyes widening into hollow circles of pure horror as a long-buried nightmare resurfaced in her mind. She stumbled back a step, her voice trembling violently as she forced out the name of the living legend before her.
"V-Vrax...?" Helar choked out, her breath catching in her throat. "The... The Sovereign of Silence... How are you... why are you here?!"
The golden-haired man slowly turned his head, his calm amber eyes locking onto the 6th High Officer with terrifying indifference. He didn't answer her question. He merely raised his plain iron sword, pointing it lightly toward her heart, as the air around the mountain peak fell into absolute, unnatural quiet.
Back in the subterranean dark, Hegemon watched the spatial seam flicker as the pendulum's frequency shifted.
"Now, Kenji!" Hegemon barked. "Slice it!"