The Kashima Maru had become a drifting tomb of cold starlight. As the fleet reached the absolute center of the Necropolis's buffer zone, the ash-tide ceased its movement. The water was a gelatinous, grey medium that held the ships in a suffocating grip. Silence here was not the absence of sound, but a physical weight, which is a pressure that squeezed the air from the lungs of the two thousand survivors.
Ren Hanshin sat in the center of his cabin. The room was no longer a human living space. The steel walls were coated in a thick, crystalline layer of red frost, and the air was saturated with the heavy, cloying scent of lavender and ancient smoke. He did not sleep. At present synchronization, the concept of rest was a relic he had discarded. Instead, he existed in a state of Celestial Vigil, his mind unfurled like a map across the threads of the surrounding miles.
[Synchronization: 59.2%]
[Condition: Divine Obsession]
