The ascent from the dead, desiccated root of the European continent was absolutely frictionless.
Ren did not climb the mile-deep vertical shaft of the ruined sinkhole. He simply commanded the localized zero-point gravity of his Domain of the Abyss to violently reverse. He and Chloe, perfectly anchored within the ten-foot atmospheric slipstream, fell upward through the dark, hollowed-out throat of the planet.
When they breached the surface, the sky above the ruined, grey-ashen metropolis was flawlessly clear.
Hovering exactly one thousand feet above the dead city was the pitch-black, twenty-ship stealth fleet. Without the Category-Four toxic-purple miasma to obscure their localized telemetry, the massive Old World transports sat perfectly still against the pristine afternoon sun. The four thousand Abyssal Praetorians remained exactly where they had been ordered, their Level 35 architecture passively projecting absolute, localized dominance over the completely sterilized landmass.
