The White Raven was a ghost.
Power down. Lights off. Sonar passive. The ship drifted on the deep-ocean current, a speck of debris falling toward the sleeping god.
Outside the viewport, the black shapes of the Silence submarines prowled. They were sleek, needle-like vessels with no windows and engines that emitted no sound. They circled the golden city on the Titan's back like sharks guarding a reef.
"Heart rate check," Isolde whispered, her hands hovering over the manual ballast controls. "If anyone so much as hiccups, their sensors will pick it up."
"I'm calm," Julian said, though his hand gripped the railing so hard his knuckles were white.
They drifted past a patrol sub. It was so close Julian could see the rivets on its hull. A red laser scanner swept over the White Raven, lingering for a terrifying second on the darkened cockpit... then moved on.
"We're through the perimeter," Skid breathed. "Approaching the Atmospheric Shield."
The city on the Titan's back was enclosed in a massive, shimmering bubble of hard-light and compressed air. The White Raven glided toward a service airlock on the edge of the dome.
Isolde fired a short, precise burst of the hydro-jets.
THUNK.
The docking clamps latched. The airlock cycled. Water drained away.
"We're in," Julian said. "Welcome to the Old World."
The Silent City
They stepped out of the airlock and stopped dead.
They weren't in a factory. They weren't in a prison. They were in a paradise.
The city—Aethelgard—was built of white marble that seemed to glow from within. Towers of spun glass spiraled up toward the top of the dome. Gardens of bioluminescent coral grew in neat, geometric rows along avenues paved with gold.
The air smelled sweet, like ozone and vanilla.
But it was dead silent.
There were no people. No birds. No wind. Just the pristine, preserved corpse of a civilization that had died a thousand years ago.
"It's... perfect," Lyra whispered, lowering her rifle. "Why is it empty?"
"It's not a city," Julian realized, walking toward a fountain where the water was frozen in mid-air by a stasis field. "It's a museum. Or a tomb."
He looked at the Titan beneath his feet. He could feel its consciousness. It wasn't pained like the others. It was Waiting.
"We need to find the bridge," Julian said. "The Titan's mind."
He pointed to the central spire—a massive tower of blue crystal that pulsed faintly.
The Spire of Memory.
The Hall of Records
They moved through the empty streets. The Silence patrols were outside the bubble, but Julian knew they wouldn't leave the inside unguarded.
They reached the Spire. The doors were open.
Inside, the walls were lined with millions of data-crystals. Holographic ghosts flickered in the air—recorded memories of the people who built this place.
Skid ran to a console. She jacked in her datapad.
"This code..." Skid's eyes went wide. "It's not Imperial. It's Pre-Collapse. This is the Harmonic Ascendancy."
"The people who built the Titans," Julian said. "What does it say?"
Skid worked fast. "The Titans... they weren't weapons. They were Arks."
She pulled up a hologram. It showed the world as it was a thousand years ago. Green. Blue. Alive.
Then, a shadow appeared. A cosmic anomaly labeled THE DISSONANCE.
"The world wasn't destroyed by war," Skid read, her voice shaking. "It was infected. A resonant frequency from deep space that shattered the tectonic plates and drove humanity insane. The Ascendancy built the Seven Titans to stabilize the planet's core. To sing a counter-song that would hold the world together."
"They aren't batteries," Julian whispered. "They're life-support."
"There's more," Skid swiped the screen. "The Silence. The Empire. They know."
She pulled up a file marked CLASSIFIED: IMPERIAL ORIGIN.
The hologram changed. It showed the first Emperor. He wasn't a savior. He was a Traitor.
"The First Emperor was the architect who sabotaged the song," Julian realized. "He realized that if he disrupted the harmony, he could harvest the chaotic energy—the Rust—for power. He broke the world on purpose so he could rule the ashes."
"And they keep the Titans asleep," Lyra finished, "because if they wake up and sing together..."
"They heal the world," Julian said. "And the Empire loses its power source."
Suddenly, the hologram flickered and died.
A slow, sarcastic clap echoed through the vast hall.
Clap... Clap... Clap.
"History is such a messy thing," a voice purred. "That is why we edit it."
The Silencer
A figure stepped out from the shadows of the data-stacks.
He wore a suit of matte-black armor that seemed to absorb the light around him. He had no face—just a smooth, black mask with a single vertical slit that glowed pale violet.
He held a weapon that looked like a tuning fork made of obsidian.
"I am Noctis," the figure said. His voice didn't come from the mask; it resonated directly inside their skulls. "Grand Silencer of the Imperial Void."
Behind him, a dozen Silence Assassins materialized, decloaking. They wore the Void Walker masks.
"You found the truth," Noctis glided forward, his feet making no sound on the marble floor. "The 'Emperor's Secret'. A pity you won't live to publish it."
"You're suppressing the cure," Julian accused, stepping in front of Skid. "You're letting the world rot so you can stay king of the garbage heap."
"Order requires sacrifice," Noctis tilted his head. "The Ascendancy wanted freedom. Freedom is chaos. The Empire brings stability. We silence the noise."
He raised his obsidian fork.
"And you, Conductor... you are very noisy."
The Battle of the Archive
"Skid, keep downloading!" Julian shouted. "Lyra, Isolde, clear the room!"
Lyra opened fire. BANG-BANG-BANG.
The bullets hit Noctis, but they didn't penetrate. A field of Anti-Sound around him absorbed the kinetic energy. The bullets simply stopped in mid-air and dropped to the floor.
"Kinetic dampeners!" Lyra yelled. "Bullets are useless!"
"Then we use frequency!" Julian raised his Resonance Gauntlet.
He fired a Sonic Lance.
THWUMP.
Noctis didn't dodge. He struck his obsidian fork.
PING.
A wave of Silence—pure, destructive negative space—erupted from the weapon. It met Julian's sonic blast in the center of the room.
The two forces collided. They didn't explode. They canceled out.
The air turned grey. Gravity fluctuated. Books and crystals floated off the shelves.
"You use Resonance," Noctis said, walking through the distortion field. "I use the Void. Sound cannot exist in a vacuum."
He swung the fork. A blade of vacuum slashed through the air.
Julian dove. The invisible blade sliced through a marble pillar behind him as if it were butter.
"He's cutting reality!" Julian scrambled up. "Isolde! The chandelier!"
Isolde looked up. Above Noctis hung a massive crystal chandelier.
She didn't shoot Noctis. She fired a harpoon into the chain holding the chandelier.
SNAP.
The massive crystal structure fell.
Noctis looked up. He raised his hand.
STOP.
He projected a gravity well. The chandelier froze in mid-air, inches above his head.
"Crude," Noctis sneered.
"Not crude," Julian said. He was standing by the fallen pillar. He placed his gauntlet on the floor. "Conductive."
He wasn't aiming at Noctis. He was aiming at the Crystal Floor.
Focus: Shatter.
Julian slammed his hand down.
He sent a resonant pulse through the floor. The vibration traveled through the marble, up Noctis's boots, and into the gravity field he was maintaining.
The concentration broke.
The gravity well collapsed.
CRASH.
The chandelier fell. Tons of crystal smashed onto Noctis, burying him.
"Go!" Julian grabbed the drive Skid had ejected. "Back to the ship!"
The Escape
They sprinted out of the Spire, the Silence Assassins pursuing them.
"They're blocking the exit!" Lyra shouted, firing blindly behind her.
"The Titan!" Julian yelled. "It's an Ark! It has defenses!"
He stopped at a street terminal. He jammed his crystal hand into the interface.
"Wake up!" Julian screamed into the machine. "Intruders! Defend the passengers!"
The city lights turned red.
DEFENSE PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.
From the golden towers, automated turrets deployed. Golem-Guardians—statues of gold and marble—stepped off their pedestals.
The city went to war. The Golems attacked the Silence Assassins, smashing them with stone fists.
"That's our cover!" Isolde yelled.
They reached the airlock. They scrambled inside the White Raven.
"Get us out of here!" Julian shouted.
Isolde punched the launch sequence. The clamps released.
The ship shot away from the Titan just as the pile of crystal in the Spire exploded.
Noctis floated in the air, his armor cracked, surrounded by a swirling vortex of Void energy. He watched the ship escape.
The Surface
The White Raven breached the surface of the ocean, launching into the grey sky.
Skid held up the data-drive.
"I got it," she said, breathless. "I got the map. The location of all Seven Titans. And the activation code for the Grand Harmony."
Julian looked at the drive.
"We know the truth now," Julian said. "The Empire didn't save the world. They stole it."
He looked at his team.
"Halfway there. We have the map. We have the key."
"Where is the next one?" Lyra asked.
Julian plugged the drive into the ship's nav-computer. The map of the world appeared. Three lights were green (North, Jungle, Volcano). One was flashing yellow (Ocean).
Three remained red.
"Titan 04," Julian pointed to a desolate region of canyons and wind. "The Canyon of Whispers. The Titan of Air."
"And then?"
"Titan 01. The Capital."
"And the last one?"
Julian pointed to the sky.
"Titan 07. The Orbital Spire. It's not on earth. It's in space."
Julian sat back.
"The war is just starting."