Learning the full scope of Ovathrax's power left every Black Shores member looking at the Midnight Rangers with new eyes. These people were extraordinary.
To have held the line under conditions this punishing, fighting a Threnodian to a standstill for years on end... Jinzhou had proven itself tougher and more resilient than most civilized regions the Bloom Bearers and Consultants had ever visited.
And yet...
The Threnodian's horror ran far deeper than that.
"The fact that Ovathrax's power renders most heavy weaponry useless is something we can work around." Jiyan's expression darkened as he turned his gaze skyward. "But the real nightmare is the endless supply of soldiers."
The reversed rain. That was the true enemy.
"The Retroact Rain..." Rover murmured, watching raindrops drift upward from the earth into the sky. She recalled the intelligence briefings from earlier, and even she felt a chill crawl down her spine. This rain was the Threnodian's most terrifying weapon.
Because the Retroact Rain could replay the past.
Within its reach, people witnessed events that had once occurred on this ground. Those who'd been exposed to the rain before saw more, their visions growing sharper, the hallucinations harder to shake.
Even now, ghostly figures from battles long over wandered the field. Under normal circumstances, these phantoms were harmless enough, repeating the same motions on a loop, unable to touch the living.
But Ovathrax's Authority could amplify the Retroact Rain.
It made those rain-born phantoms real. Solid enough to wound. Solid enough to kill.
"Jinzhou is the bulwark against the Threnodian. The Midnight Rangers fight Tacet Discords every single day," Jinhsi began, her voice strained. Small hands clenched into fists at her sides. "We've suffered losses beyond counting, but we've also destroyed Tacet Discords beyond counting. And that's precisely the problem."
"The more Tacet Discords we destroy, the more phantoms the Retroact Rain produces. And Ovathrax can turn every last one of them into its own soldiers. It resurrects fallen warriors as Tacet Discords. It summons the Tacet Discords we've already killed to fight us again."
Ovathrax's Authority meant it would never run short of troops. The bloodier the battle, the greater the sacrifice, the larger its army grew. An endless, self-feeding cycle.
The only real breakthrough the world had achieved against the Retroact Rain in all these years came from data Jiyan had brought back from the Battle Beneath the Crescent. Researchers had developed targeted medications from those findings, drugs that let soldiers fight inside the rain without succumbing to hallucinations. Shielding arrays had been erected around major cities as well, barriers capable of blocking the Retroact Rain, though they consumed enormous amounts of energy. At the very least, they kept Tacet Discords from materializing inside civilian areas.
But as long as the rain kept falling, the Threnodian's soldiers would keep rising. Every minute. Every second. More and more.
And as Ovathrax grew stronger, it could amplify the rain further still, driving the reversed downpour to fall without end until Jinzhou was buried beneath it.
Or, one day, unleashing an infinite Tacet Discord army upon all of Solaris-3 in a war to end the world.
"GRAAAAHHH!!!"
Right on cue, another Tacet Discord Tide came surging forward.
As before, wiping out a thousand Tacet Discords would have counted as a major victory anywhere else. But on a war-class Threnodian's battlefield, the enemy's numbers were a sideways eight: infinity.
Still...
"Rover." He turned to her. "This is exactly why we might be the only two people alive who can counter a war-class Threnodian."
"I know," she said. "It has to be us. But... didn't we agree? You'd leave the Threnodian's battlefield to me while you go rescue the Sentinel and bring back a way to win?"
One eyebrow arched, her expression all but saying why are you still standing here? This is my fight now.
The more she understood about Ovathrax, the more relieved she was that she'd insisted he leave this front. Whatever was happening on the Sentinel's end, it couldn't possibly be worse than facing a Threnodian...
...right?
"Hey, I had to see it with my own eyes first." He spread his hands with a rueful smile. How else was he supposed to know whether the intel he'd gotten from the game was accurate?
Reality and a game were two different things. Until he'd confirmed the details in person, he couldn't go sharing information that might be wrong. Bad intel was more dangerous than no intel at all.
But now, based on everything he'd gathered on the battlefield, he was satisfied. The information checked out.
The game's depiction of the final battle against the Threnodian didn't capture even a ten-thousandth of the real danger. The game had trimmed an ocean of endlessly respawning Tacet Discords down to a few dozen manageable waves.
"Here." He handed over the notes he'd prepared in advance, a written breakdown of everything he knew about Ovathrax. "Consider it a full dossier on our friend up there. Every dirty secret laid bare."
"Oh? Let me see." She scanned the page, and her face immediately brightened. "That's it? Easy."
She stuffed the paper into the front of her jacket, then reached up and clapped him on the shoulder with a grin.
"And here I thought it'd be hard. Leave this place to me. You and Jinhsi go bring the Sentinel back."
"...Yeah. Wait for me, Rover."
The two Rovers pulled each other into a fierce embrace.
Then they ran toward different wars.
The moment she confirmed he was out of sight, she yanked the paper back out. Drew a long breath. Read it again, properly this time.
Her hands trembled.
1. Infinite troop spawning via Retroact Rain + hallucination interference.2. Absorbs weapon Frequency to strengthen itself.3. Absorbs Tacet Discord Frequency to strengthen itself.4. Converts the war dead into Tacet Discords.5. Enhances elite Tacet Discords.6. Creates elite Tacet Discords.7. Resurrects elite Tacet Discords.8. Immortal. Cannot be permanently destroyed.9...
The corner of her eye twitched violently. Was this even a beatable boss? Especially that line: the Threnodian is immortal and cannot be fully destroyed.
A thread of despair coiled through her chest, thin and cold.
It lasted exactly one second.
Her gaze hardened. She tore the paper to shreds and looked up at the sky, where the moon's shape grew more sinister by the minute and the rain hammered upward in defiance of gravity. She stared at it all as though she meant to rip that impossible enemy apart the same way she'd destroyed the note.
One reason. That was all she needed.
If he says we can win, then we can win. He knew all of this from the start and never gave up. That means he has a plan. It means there's a way.
Her part was clear.
Hold this battlefield until he returned.
And show this war-class Threnodian, this so-called negation of Civilization, exactly what it felt like to be countered right back.
Because just as he'd said: as Rovers, the two of them were the only people alive who could neutralize Ovathrax's abilities.
"Rover." Jiyan stepped forward without a moment's hesitation. "Per the Magistrate's orders, command of this battlefield passes to you. Give whatever orders you see fit."
"Then we fight. And we bring everyone through to dawn."
In an instant, her bearing transformed. Her memories hadn't returned, but she had once been the founder of Jinzhou, the leader of the Black Shores. She had always been someone who led. That presence was etched into her bones, and it blazed to life now as she seized command of the field, marshaling Black Shores members and Midnight Rangers alike against the oncoming Tacet Discord Tide.
And at the same time...
"Abby! Dinner's back on!"
"Ready when you are!"
"Yangyang, hand these out to everyone."
"Understood, Rover!"
"Echo legion, all units, charge!"
"GRAAAAHHH!!!"
With every ounce of that innate authority unleashed, she called on Abby, whose appetite had recovered nicely, to resume devouring Frequency. She pressed a stack of cards into Yangyang's hands, each one conjured through her spatial Forte and stamped with the Blake Bloom insignia, and sent the girl distributing them to every fighter in camp. And then, finally, she summoned the force she and the male Rover commanded together: their Echo legion, loyal and devastating.
"So you're Ovathrax." She leveled her Emerald of Genesis at the chaos ahead. "You're not the only one who gets stronger through war. Let's see which of us scales faster."
The Midnight Rangers, Black Shores operatives, and the Echo legion surged forward as one, smashing into the incoming Tacet Discord Tide.
Ovathrax may have had its thumb on the scale when it came to raw numbers, but the individual power of each human combatant was in a different league entirely. With morale burning white-hot, they shattered the wave in minutes.
And the Tacet Discord Frequency that Ovathrax should have absorbed to fuel its growth? Abby devoured every last scrap of it.
That stolen energy became power for both Rovers.
As for the Tacet Discords that dropped Echoes on defeat, she snatched them up with her Pangu Terminal the instant they materialized, folding them into the Echo legion's ranks.
Before long, both Rovers' strength and the size of their Echo army had doubled in this war for the survival of Civilization. And the numbers kept climbing.
Wave after wave of Tacet Discord Tides crashed and broke. And deep in the shadows, where Ovathrax had been quietly spawning troops, the Threnodian finally noticed something was wrong.
The war had raged for so long.
So why hadn't it absorbed its share of Frequency?
Its progress bar toward full resurrection still had a gaping hole in it.
When Ovathrax turned its attention to the battlefield and spotted the Rover who had defeated it before, it flinched. Then it spotted Abby fighting alongside the Rovers and snarled. "Abraxas... You really did betray us!"