The Sand Sovereign staggered.
Not from the force of the strike—
But from what the strike carried.
Emerald light pulsed through the twin blades embedded within its torso.
Bryce's voice remained calm.
Almost clinical.
"Dues Impact."
The glow intensified.
Then...
The Sovereign convulsed.
Every fragment of organic matter buried within its enormous body suddenly awakened.
Long-dead roots.
Ancient pollen trapped beneath the dunes.
Fossilized spores.
Microscopic remnants of plants buried over countless centuries.
Every dormant piece of life answered the call.
The wounds carved by Blade Maiden erupted.
Not with sand...
But with forests.
Thick roots burst violently from inside the Sand Sovereign's chest, splintering stone apart as bark rapidly spread across entire sections of its torso. Massive vines coiled around its ribs before driving themselves deeper, searching for more material to consume.
The construct lurched backward.
For the first time since its creation...
It had stopped regenerating.
It was transforming.
Inside Blade Maiden...
Bryce's breathing remained perfectly controlled.
Her neural interface displayed the flow of Life Force through the E.V.A.'s synthetic body.
Every heartbeat.
Every nerve impulse.
Every contraction of muscle.
Felt like her own.
Her augment...
Life Force.
On paper...
It had once been considered mediocre.
Classification: D1
Area of Effect: Low.
Combat Range: Minimal.
No explosive attacks.
No devastating beams.
No city-level destruction.
Its only documented functions had been deceptively simple.
Accelerated regeneration.
Enhanced stamina.
Improved agility.
An unusual affinity for stimulating biological activity.
Useful.
But hardly exceptional.
Most users possessing similar abilities entered medical divisions, where they accelerated recovery or stabilized wounded Knights.
Bryce refused.
She fought.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every defeat became another lesson.
Every injury became another opportunity to understand exactly how her own body healed.
Years passed.
Technique replaced raw talent.
Control replaced instinct.
Until eventually...
Someone noticed.
The Empress herself.
Rather than seeing a weak augment...
She saw limitless refinement.
A body that could withstand extraordinary strain.
A Knight capable of fighting long after others had collapsed.
Someone who treated endurance as a weapon.
That observation changed Bryce's life forever.
She was selected.
Not because Life Force was powerful.
Because Bryce had made it powerful.
The E.V.A. Conversion Program pushed that philosophy even further.
The spinal implantation.
The neural lattice.
The thoracic reactor.
Every nerve rerouted.
Every sensory pathway synchronized with a synthetic war platform.
The operation would have killed most candidates.
Bryce survived.
When she awakened...
Life Force no longer flowed through a human body alone.
It flowed through an E.V.A. reactor.
Its classification changed forever.
D1
became
S1
Not because the augment itself evolved...
But because its scale did.
The E.V.A. reactor functioned unlike conventional URATSU amplifiers.
Rather than creating new abilities...
It magnified every existing characteristic of its pilot.
The stronger the pilot's mastery...
The greater the manifestation.
For Bryce...
Life Force spread through twenty meters of synthetic musculature.
Every actuator.
Every artificial tendon.
Every meter of Mage-Steel became an extension of her nervous system.
Her blades were no longer steel alone.
They had become conduits.
Dues Impact.
The technique embodied everything Life Force represented.
Upon striking a target, Bryce flooded the point of impact with impossibly concentrated Life Force.
The energy ignored dead stone.
Ignored metal.
Ignored lifeless matter.
Instead...
It sought whatever still possessed biological memory.
Living cells.
Dormant spores.
Fragments of bark.
Buried roots.
Forgotten seeds.
Anything that had once been alive.
Anything that could still respond.
Plant tissue erupted into explosive growth.
Dormant roots became forests.
Disconnected vascular tissue knitted itself together.
Even isolated biological cells responded instinctively.
Stomach cells secreted digestive enzymes.
Muscle fibers attempted to contract.
Neurons discharged chaotic electrical impulses.
In exceedingly rare circumstances...
Residual URATSU-producing tissue could even be shocked back into activity for a fleeting instant.
Life Force did not create life.
It commanded what remained.
And against creatures that incorporated living matter...
Its effects were devastating.
The Sand Sovereign had unknowingly absorbed centuries of organic debris into its endless mass of sand.
Now...
Every buried remnant rebelled.
Roots thicker than buildings burst through its arms.
Bark consumed entire shoulders.
Vines coiled around its legs before hardening into living restraints.
Bryce twisted both colossal blades.
The forest answered.
The vines constricted.
The bark thickened.
The giant's own body became its prison.
The Sand Sovereign roared as millions of tons of living plant matter tightened around it.
For the first time since entering the battlefield...
The apex of the desert biome had been immobilized.
High above the battlefield...
Something moved.
Bryce's visor chimed.
UNKNOWN URA SIGNATURE DETECTED
Her emerald eyes flicked upward.
Against the smoke and burning clouds...
A lone figure plummeted toward the battlefield.
Uncontrolled.
Surrounded by unstable currents of brilliant white Ura that bled into the atmosphere like burning mist.
The energy pouring from his body was unlike anything in the Association's database.
It wasn't URATSU.
It wasn't any known augment.
It was...
Ancient.
Wild.
Violent.
Bryce's eyes narrowed.
"...Who..."
Bryce's targeting display chirped.
MULTIPLE URA SIGNATURES DETECTED
Her emerald eyes flicked upward.
A lone figure was falling.
Not gliding.
Not descending under control.
Falling.
His body tumbled violently through the smoke, unstable currents of brilliant white Ura spilling from him like vapor escaping a fractured reactor.
The readings refused to stabilize.
Every fraction of a second they changed.
Higher.
Lower.
Higher again.
The reactor's processors struggled to classify the phenomenon.
UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED
UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED
UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED
Bryce frowned.
"...District Five..."
Facial recognition completed.
Knight Identified
Nathaniel Alderman
"...He survived?"
No...
Survived wasn't the right word.
He looked as though he had been thrown.
His limbs jerked violently as unstable currents surged across his body, every muscle fighting against an energy that clearly didn't belong inside him.
Then Bryce noticed another signature.
Far below.
Hovering effortlessly above the burning crater that had once been District Five.
A woman.
Pale skin.
Black clothing cut with sleek crimson lines.
Long white tendrils drifted lazily around her as though submerged beneath invisible water.
She wasn't looking at the destruction.
She was looking at Nathaniel.
Bryce's sensors immediately attempted identification.
Nothing.
No registry.
No Association records.
Only one thing became immediately apparent.
The unknown signature saturating Nathaniel's body...
Matched hers.
Exactly.
"...She did something to him."
The woman smiled.
Then, as though speaking to an old friend rather than a monster capable of destroying cities, her voice carried effortlessly across the battlefield.
"Zeroth..."
Bryce's head snapped toward the Sand Sovereign.
"...Zeroth?"
"So that's your name..."
The woman's smile widened.
"Quit playing nice."
The world trembled.
The roots binding Zeroth stopped growing.
Not because Bryce's Life Force weakened—
Because something beneath them began to move.
Violently.
The surrounding desert erupted.
Entire dunes collapsed inward before racing toward Zeroth like rivers flowing uphill.
Ruined buildings.
Broken highways.
Collapsed temples.
Stone.
Glass.
Steel.
Everything caught within the biome's reach was dragged toward the giant.
The vines constricting its body groaned.
They had bound a sixty-meter construct.
Not...
Whatever this was becoming.
Bryce's eyes widened.
"...It's increasing its mass."
The restraints snapped.
One after another.
Roots tore apart.
Living bark exploded from the strain.
Zeroth rose higher.
Broader.
Heavier.
Its already massive frame swelled as countless tons of sand compressed into fresh limbs and thicker armor.
Its forearms elongated into enormous clawed weapons capable of cleaving through city blocks.
Golden fissures ignited beneath the newly formed armor.
Then—
It moved.
One claw swept across the battlefield.
Blade Maiden crossed both swords.
The collision detonated like thunder.
Bryce held.
For less than a second.
The force behind the strike overwhelmed her stance.
Twenty-meter-tall feet carved trenches hundreds of meters long through the desert before the second claw arrived.
It struck with enough force to tear the air apart.
Bryce barely twisted aside.
The attack grazed Blade Maiden's shoulder.
That was enough.
The E.V.A. became a projectile.
She was launched backward.
One kilometer.
The desert blurred beneath her as Blade Maiden skipped across dunes and shattered stone before driving both heels into the earth.
Twin furrows stretched behind her for nearly another hundred meters before she finally stopped.
Warning glyphs illuminated across her visor.
RIGHT ARM ACTUATOR: 81%
LEFT SHOULDER STRUCTURAL STRESS DETECTED
Bryce looked up.
"...That's..."
She had barely finished speaking.
Zeroth opened its mouth.
Darkness gathered within its throat.
Not flame.
Not energy.
Wind.
The atmosphere itself twisted inward.
Sandstorms converged into a single point before erupting outward in a hellish gale.
The blast struck Blade Maiden head-on.
The pressure alone rivaled a hurricane.
Entire dunes vanished into the sky.
The desert became airborne.
Bryce lowered her center of gravity.
Hydraulic joints screamed as she drove both blades into the earth, using them as anchors against the torrent.
Even then...
She was forced backward.
Meter by meter.
The gale howled across the wasteland.
Above it all...
Vernalit watched in quiet amusement.
As Nathaniel continued falling toward the battlefield, white Ura shedding from him like burning snow.
Nathaniel fell.
His body tumbled through the storm like a discarded ragdoll, unstable currents of Ura peeling away from his skin in long ribbons that scarred the air behind him.
At first glance...
The energy looked beautiful.
White.
Almost ethereal.
Like moonlight given form.
But beneath the pale glow...
Something lurked.
Crimson.
Black.
The colors churned together beneath the white mantle like blood trapped beneath ice.
The energy hissed as it escaped his body.
It wasn't merely unstable.
It was angry.
It hated restraint.
It clawed at his muscles.
Burned through his nerves.
Every heartbeat felt as though molten glass had been poured into his veins.
Nathaniel grit his teeth as another violent spasm seized his body.
"...Gh...!"
Within the depths of his consciousness...
Arc watched.
His arms remained folded as he observed the foreign Ura coursing through Nathaniel's body.
His expression wasn't concerned.
It was fascinated.
"...Interesting."
The crimson-and-black currents surged against Nathaniel's soul.
Arc felt them immediately.
Violent.
Primitive.
Almost predatory.
"...So that's your answer..."
He reached toward the turbulent sea of energy before withdrawing his hand.
"No."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"You've got this one."
"I'll keep your body alive..."
"...but the influence is yours to conquer."
He leaned back once more.
Watching.
Waiting.
Studying.
Nathaniel struck the desert.
Instead of stone...
He disappeared into a towering dune thrown skyward by Bryce's clash with Zeroth.
Sand exploded around him before swallowing his body whole.
The impact rolled him dozens of meters beneath the surface.
He finally came to rest buried beneath the scorching dunes.
Silence.
Then...
Pain.
The foreign Ura surged violently again.
Nathaniel dug his fingers into the sand.
"...Damn it..."
He could feel emotions that weren't his own.
Rage.
Hatred.
Resentment.
The overwhelming urge to destroy.
His own thoughts became increasingly difficult to separate from the influence flooding his body.
Every instinct screamed for violence.
To unleash.
To burn.
To tear apart everything in sight.
Nathaniel slammed a fist into the sand.
"No..."
His breathing became ragged.
"...You're..."
Another spasm.
"...not..."
His muscles convulsed.
"...me."
Then...
Something struck him.
A faint emerald beam.
Residual energy.
One of Bryce's Life Force waves, scattered by her collision with Zeroth.
It washed harmlessly across the dunes before passing through Nathaniel's buried body.
He froze.
"...Huh?"
Warmth.
Unlike the violent Ura...
This was gentle.
His exhausted URATSU reserves stirred.
Not much.
Only a little.
Enough.
He felt fresh URATSU begin circulating through pathways that moments earlier had nearly run dry.
Nathaniel slowly smiled.
"...That's all I needed."
The foreign Ura immediately lunged toward the replenished energy like a starving beast.
Nathaniel welcomed it.
"No..."
His breathing steadied.
"...Come here."
He pulled.
Compressing both energies together.
Not mixing them.
Folding them.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The pressure became immense.
His entire body trembled beneath the strain.
Veins bulged beneath his skin.
His heartbeat thundered louder than the battle above.
White.
Crimson.
Black.
Cyan.
Every color swirled together inside him before collapsing under relentless pressure.
Nathaniel's body spasmed violently.
His eyes snapped open.
White.
They flashed brilliant white.
Then...
Dark crimson.
The color lingered only for an instant before shifting again.
Orange.
Not flame.
Not gold.
A vibrant molten orange that seemed to glow from somewhere impossibly deep within his irises.
Tiny arcs of orange plasma danced across his skin.
The surrounding sand hissed as waves of compressed energy radiated from his body.
Nathaniel slowly rose to one knee.
The foreign Ura hadn't disappeared.
It had been dragged into the reaction.
Forced into order.
His own URATSU became the framework.
The volatile Ura became fuel.
The two no longer fought.
They burned together.
Inside his own mind...
Arc smiled.
"So..."
His hand rested against the spectral representation of Nathaniel's shoulder.
"...that's what you've been trying to do."
Ever since Arete.
Nathaniel's body had remembered.
Not consciously.
Instinctively.
Time after time it had tried recreating the overwhelming enhancement she'd once granted him.
It failed.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until adaptation began.
His body stopped searching for Arete's exact power.
Instead...
It began building its own approximation.
Not identical.
Not even close.
But undeniably born from the same desire.
Combined with Nathaniel's own genetic factors, kinetic muscle.
Combined with the relentless pressure of HellCharge.
Combined with the volatile Ura Vernalit had forced into his body.
The result stood before him.
Nathaniel climbed slowly to his feet.
Outwardly...
Nothing had changed.
The same body.
The same silhouette.
The same face.
Only his eyes betrayed the difference.
His irises burned with a vivid molten orange while his pupils had constricted to tiny points, as though permanently staring into the blinding heart of a desert sun.
Orange plasma drifted from his body in slow waves, clinging tightly to his skin instead of exploding outward.
It was quieter than HellCharge.
Denser.
Refined.
Nathaniel clenched his fist.
The air cracked.
Not from heat.
From pressure.
He looked toward the distant battle where Blade Maiden struggled against Zeroth.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
"...Guess I've finally got a name for you."
The plasma around him pulsed once.
Energize.
A state achieved by collapsing one hundred percent of one's immediately available reserve into a violently compressed reaction, sacrificing sustained output for overwhelming instantaneous performance.
Every movement.
Every strike.
Every technique executed under Energize would be amplified approximately sixtyfold until the compressed reserve was exhausted.
Arc's smile widened.
"...Now..."
Far above, the battlefield rumbled once more.
"...show me what you'll do with it."
Blade Maiden accelerated once more.
Bryce refused to give Zeroth another moment.
The E.V.A.'s synthetic musculature flexed as twenty meters of living machinery burst through the sandstorm, emerald conduits blazing beneath its armor.
She crossed both colossal blades.
"Dues Impact."
The twin edges glowed with condensed Life Force before crashing toward the giant's sternum.
Zeroth answered.
Dozens of sand tendrils erupted from its torso, each one denser than reinforced steel. They wrapped around the descending blades, arresting their momentum only meters from its core.
The collision sent shockwaves racing through the desert.
Bryce didn't stop.
She disengaged immediately.
Blade Maiden blurred around the Sovereign in a burst of speed.
One slash.
Then another.
Then five more.
Her blades carved glowing emerald trenches through Zeroth's armor, severing entire slabs of compacted stone and vitrified sand that crashed into the desert below.
Each wound immediately erupted.
Roots burst outward.
Bark spread.
Ancient organic remnants hidden within the construct answered her command, thick vines weaving themselves into the fractures as they attempted to bind the colossal body once again.
The restraints slowed Zeroth...
But no longer stopped it.
The Sovereign roared.
The gale pouring from its maw continued battering Blade Maiden even as Bryce forced herself forward one step at a time.
Every advance cost her.
Every swing demanded more power.
She slipped beneath another claw.
The blade mounted along her right forearm suddenly retracted into its housing.
Panels shifted.
Mage-Steel folded inward with a chorus of mechanical clicks.
The forearm elongated.
Internal rails rotated into alignment.
What had moments before been a sword arm reshaped into an enormous cannon-like assembly running from her elbow to her knuckles.
Emerald energy converged along its length.
Thin lines of condensed power raced across the weapon, growing brighter with every passing second until a brilliant edge of compressed energy formed along one side of the barrel.
She steadied her aim—
Then paused.
Her visor registered a familiar signature.
Bryce turned.
Far beyond the dunes...
Nathaniel Alderman stood alone.
The unstable white Ura surrounding him had vanished.
In its place...
Orange.
His body crackled.
For an instant, faint cyan arcs danced across his skin before collapsing inward, consumed by dense orange plasma clinging tightly against his body.
His eyes...
Burned.
Molten orange.
Not wild.
Focused.
Bryce instinctively frowned.
"...What happened to you...?"
Nathaniel never answered.
His attention wasn't on Bryce.
Or even Zeroth.
He watched the battlefield.
Watched the scars carved into the desert.
Watched the vitrified glass stretching for kilometers.
Watched the shattered remains of the burning obsidian projectile.
He remembered.
The pressure.
The heat.
The explosion.
Every fragment.
Every wave of force.
He slowly raised his right hand.
Orange plasma drifted around his fingers like smoke.
Then...
His arm extended.
Palm facing Zeroth.
He held it there.
Perfectly still.
As though measuring something invisible.
"...No."
His fingers curled.
The hand slowly reeled back toward his shoulder.
Trails of dark orange plasma followed the motion, lingering in the air before collapsing into his fist.
His breathing slowed.
Inside his mind...
Every calculation aligned.
"The blast..."
He replayed the impact.
The expanding pressure wave.
The kinetic release.
The transfer of momentum.
The compression preceding detonation.
"Not heat..."
Orange light intensified around his arm.
"Force."
Another ribbon of plasma spiraled around his forearm.
"The Hellcore Catalyst didn't destroy everything because it burned..."
He remembered the instant before detonation.
The impossible pressure folded into a single point.
The stored force waiting to erupt.
His pupils narrowed further.
"It compressed..."
The plasma tightened.
Drawing closer to his skin.
Denser.
Heavier.
"Then released."
A grin slowly spread across his face.
"If Energize amplifies the output..."
His fist clenched.
The surrounding air buckled.
"Then I don't need to make a bigger explosion."
The orange aura pulsed once.
"I just need to hit..."
His gaze locked onto Zeroth.
The grin widened.
"...hard enough."
Nathaniel disappeared.
Not into the sky.
Into the earth.
The dune beneath his feet collapsed inward as his body punched through it, orange plasma leaving only a fleeting afterimage before the desert swallowed him whole.
Bryce's targeting reticle immediately lost him.
"...Where?"
Zeroth continued lumbering forward, oblivious.
Then—
Every grain of sand beneath the colossal construct trembled.
Nathaniel's voice echoed through the ground itself.
"[KINETIC MUSCLE—CRITICAL IMPACT...]"
Orange plasma condensed beneath Zeroth's feet.
The earth groaned.
"...IMPACT REVERB..."
The pressure doubled.
Tripled.
The desert compacted beneath impossible force.
Even Zeroth instinctively glanced downward.
Too late.
Nathaniel erupted from beneath the giant like a volcanic lance.
"...HELLCHARGE—DETONATION!]"
"ENERGIZED VARIANT—"
His fists drew back.
Every ounce of compressed power folded into his forearms.
Dark cyan sparks crawled across clenched knuckles before being consumed by blinding molten orange.
"SMELTING IMPACT -OVERDRIVE!"
BOOOOOOOOM!!
Both fists struck Zeroth's underbelly simultaneously.
The impact didn't merely stop.
It continued.
Nathaniel twisted both wrists violently.
The compressed force spiraled through his arms.
Impact Reverb activated.
The initial strike rebounded through every muscle fiber.
Then multiplied.
Again.
Again.
Again.
His forearms vibrated so violently that the surrounding air fractured into visible shock rings.
The amplified force had nowhere to go—
Except upward.
HellCharge answered.
The compressed inferno detonated inside the point of impact.
Not outward.
Upward.
A pillar of incandescent orange tore through Zeroth's body.
Molten glass vaporized.
Compacted sand liquefied instantly before being blasted apart.
Armor that had withstood artillery and Bryce's earlier assault sheared away in colossal slabs.
Entire sections of Zeroth's abdomen erupted skyward.
The temperature surpassed even the original burning obsidian projectile.
Stone became liquid.
Liquid became vapor.
The expanding column of force ripped deeper still.
The blast punched clean through the giant's interior, lifting millions of tons of compacted sand from within its frame.
For the first time since its creation...
Zeroth left the ground.
The immense construct lurched upward, its lower body torn open by the explosion erupting from beneath it.
A deafening screech echoed across the desert.
Not the roar of shifting sand.
Pain.
Real pain.
A pulse of blistering heat exploded outward.
The accompanying concussive wave flattened dunes for kilometers.
Already fractured buildings finally collapsed beneath the pressure.
Even Blade Maiden staggered against the expanding shock front.
Bryce instinctively raised one arm to shield her visor.
"...What...?"
The smoke parted.
Her breath caught.
Nathaniel hovered beneath the suspended giant, orange plasma cascading from his body like burning rain.
Above him...
A cavern had been carved straight through Zeroth's lower torso.
And there—
Suspended within the hollowed center of the Sand Sovereign—
Was it.
A radiant core.
Golden.
Pulsing.
Completely exposed.
Bryce's combat instincts overrode her disbelief.
Her transformed right arm locked into firing position.
Emerald energy screamed through the cannon's internal conduits as the condensed edge along its barrel collapsed inward toward a single focal point.
Target acquisition completed.
CORE IDENTIFIED.
Her verdant eyes narrowed.
"...Nathaniel..."
The corner of her mouth lifted into the faintest smile.
"...Nice opening."
The charging whine of Blade Maiden's cannon rose above the roar of the battlefield as Bryce centered the glowing reticle over Zeroth's exposed heart.
Bryce fired.
There was no thunder.
No explosion.
Only a single Empowered emerald beam.
It crossed the distance in less than an instant.
Then—
Contact.
The beam pierced the exposed core Nathaniel had revealed.
For one heartbeat...
Nothing happened.
A brilliant web of emerald fractures spread across the golden sphere.
One crack.
Then another.
Then hundreds.
Bryce whispered beneath her breath.
"...Break."
BOOOM!
The core shattered.
Not violently.
Beautifully.
Golden fragments burst outward like a dying constellation, each shard shedding streams of fading light as they rained across the desert.
The instant the first fragment separated—
Zeroth froze.
The colossal construct convulsed.
Its roar died in its throat.
The golden light flowing through its body blinked once...
Twice...
Then disappeared.
The immense frame began collapsing inward.
Sand no longer obeyed it.
The countless tons composing its body cascaded back into the desert like an avalanche as the vines Bryce had summoned reclaimed the remains, roots splitting apart the crumbling armor until the giant simply...
Collapsed.
The Sovereign was dead.
Silence spread across the battlefield.
Nathaniel remained beneath the falling remains.
His molten orange eyes burned brighter.
"...Not yet."
His left hand rose.
Invisible pressure rippled through the collapsing carcass.
Authority.
A dense fragment of the shattered core suddenly halted.
It resisted.
For a moment.
Then—
The unseen telekinetic force tightened.
The fragment lurched downward, tearing free from the collapsing remains before hurtling into Nathaniel's waiting hand.
The instant his fingers closed around it—
The world flashed white.
His hand screamed.
A portion of the skin covering his palm and fingers liquefied as though exposed to impossible heat.
Orange plasma erupted instinctively around the wound.
The fragment fought him.
Not physically.
Energetically.
Nathaniel grit his teeth.
"...Damn...!"
The golden crystal dimmed.
Its remaining energy poured into him before rapidly dissipating into nothingness.
The shard became little more than lifeless stone.
Nathaniel opened his hand.
The blackened fragment crumbled into glowing dust.
He looked down.
The skin across both hands had blistered.
His forearms bore fresh burns.
Scorched lines climbed toward his elbows where the backlash from Smelting Impact Overdrive had torn through muscle and flesh.
His chest rose sharply.
"...Worth it."
Above him...
Blade Maiden stood motionless.
Its emerald glow softened.
Panels of Mage-Steel dissolved into countless motes of light.
The colossal frame gradually unraveled.
Twenty meters...
Fifteen...
Ten...
Until the synthetic giant ceased to exist altogether.
Only Bryce remained.
Her body drifted downward through the fading lights.
At that same moment—
Nathaniel felt the foreign Ura leave him.
The orange plasma clinging to his skin unraveled into harmless sparks.
Energize ended.
His knees nearly buckled.
His irises faded.
Orange...
To silver.
His breathing grew heavy as the last remnants of Vernalit's injected Ura dispersed into the atmosphere, spent completely.
He looked toward the distant dunes.
Vernalit stood atop a ridge of glass and sand.
She watched the battlefield with unmistakable satisfaction.
When Nathaniel met her gaze...
She laughed.
A quiet laugh.
One meant only for herself.
"...Good."
The white tendrils surrounding her folded inward.
Space rippled.
She vanished.
As though she had never been there.
"..."
Nathaniel exhaled.
"No...!"
Bryce.
He launched himself forward just as her unconscious body began falling.
His arms caught her moments before she struck the sand.
The impact drove both of them into a rolling tumble across the dunes.
Nathaniel twisted, taking the brunt of the landing against his already battered back.
"...Gh—!"
His burns flared.
Pain shot through the injection wounds crossing his chest and spine.
Warm blood seeped through the torn fabric of his combat suit before MAX REGEN slowly began knitting the injuries closed.
Bryce didn't move.
Nathaniel gently brushed loose strands of crimson hair away from her face.
Blood ran from a cut near her temple, tracing a thin line down the side of her cheek.
"...Hey..."
No response.
He quickly checked her breathing.
Steady.
Pulse.
Weak...
But present.
"...Thank God."
Only then did he notice the blood soaking his own uniform.
Fresh crimson spread across the puncture wounds in his chest and upper back where Vernalit had forced the foreign Ura into his body.
The bleeding had already begun slowing as new tissue formed beneath the torn skin.
Nathaniel let out a tired laugh.
"...Guess we're both a mess."
His eyes fell upon the communications patch fixed to Bryce's uniform.
He unclipped it.
Static.
He forced the channel open.
"This is..."
He winced, coughing once before continuing.
"...Knight Nathaniel Alderman..."
The transmission crackled across every surviving military and Knight frequency.
"Sand Sovereign..."
He looked toward the endless dunes where Zeroth had fallen.
"...has been neutralized."
A pause.
Then, more quietly—
"E.V.A. Pilot Bryce Pitch is alive..."
He tightened his hold on her as another wave of exhaustion threatened to pull him under.
"...She's unconscious and requires immediate medical extraction."
Nathaniel looked once toward the horizon where the battle had finally ended.
Then lowered his head.
"We're at the impact site."
"...Please hurry."
For the first time in three hours...
The desert was silent.
Three days later—
The familiar opening theme of the Imperial Broadcasting Network echoed across televisions, holographic displays and public terminals throughout the Azeroth Empire.
The camera settled upon a well-dressed news anchor.
Behind her rotated footage of Khepra before the attack...
Then after.
The contrast was staggering.
Glass fields stretched where districts once stood.
Entire highways had vanished beneath mountains of sand.
Several city blocks remained little more than blackened craters.
Despite that...
The city still stood.
"Good evening.
Our top story tonight...
The Battle of Khepra."
The screen transitioned to aerial footage captured by military drones.
Repair Core personnel moved through the ruined districts in disciplined formations.
Massive Mage-Steel construction platforms hovered above fractured bridges while specialized earth manipulators reshaped collapsed roads.
Collapsed apartment blocks slowly rose as structural specialists reconstructed foundations layer by layer.
Emergency shelters had already become temporary neighborhoods.
"The Imperial Repair Core has begun full-scale reconstruction efforts following what military officials have now classified as a Titan-Class Biome Event.
Engineers estimate initial infrastructure restoration will take approximately six weeks, while complete reconstruction of Khepra is expected over the coming months."
The footage changed once more.
Medical tents.
Evacuation centers.
Children reuniting with parents.
Military personnel distributing supplies.
"Current casualty estimates continue to be revised.
Officials have confirmed that the rapid civilian evacuation significantly reduced the projected loss of life."
Another image appeared.
Blade Maiden.
Standing against the Sand Sovereign.
"The Knight Association has formally credited E.V.A. Pilot Bryce Pitch, operator of the Blade Maiden platform, for engaging and ultimately neutralizing the biome's apex organism."
Another photograph slid into view.
Squad Four.
Taken only weeks earlier during academy graduation.
They had been an active squad for about 5 months.
Young.
Smiling.
Completely unaware of what awaited them.
"The Association has also recognized the actions of Squad Four, whose prolonged evacuation operations prevented catastrophic civilian losses despite facing continuous biome resistance for over three hours."
Images cycled rapidly.
Alucard Haemo supporting the suspension bridge.
Ria Bergschrund directing rescue teams from a rooftop.
Shirou Livinrock lifting collapsed buildings while military personnel translated her sign language.
Oliver Narite maintaining enormous shadow evacuation corridors.
Nathaniel Alderman standing amidst burning scarab carcasses moments before communications with District Five were lost.
"The Association has praised the unit for exceptional coordination under unprecedented battlefield conditions."
The anchor smiled faintly.
"Khepra still stands."
"Tonight...
The Empire sleeps because of the courage of a handful of young Knights."
The broadcast faded into images of reconstruction crews continuing their work beneath the desert sun.
Moments after Nathaniel had called for back up.
Several kilometers beyond the city's temporary military perimeter...
A transport had yet to arrive.
Nathaniel sat upon the cooling sands beside Bryce.
His once-pristine combat uniform had been reduced to little more than scorched armored trousers.
The upper half had been almost completely destroyed.
Burns and fresh pink scars covered his chest, shoulders and arms where MAX REGEN had only recently finished repairing the worst of the damage.
The injection wounds across his back had become little more than thin red lines.
Around him...
The rest of Squad Four had finally gathered.
George stood with folded arms, silently watching the horizon.
Alucard leaned against a fractured slab of concrete, one arm heavily bandaged.
Oliver sat cross-legged in the sand, exhaustion written plainly across his face.
Ria cleaned her rifle in complete silence.
Shirou knelt beside Bryce, gently brushing sand away from the unconscious pilot's crimson hair.
Nathaniel reached into his inventory under the guise of him reaching in his pants pocket he took out the vials.
Three small jade-green glass vials clinked softly together.
"Thought I'd save these..."
He smiled weakly.
"...Guess today's earned them."
With a sharp crack...
The first vial shattered in his hand.
Jade Light spilled into his mouth.
Warmth immediately spread through his battered body.
The lingering ache inside his muscles eased.
His breathing steadied.
"...Better."
He picked up the second vial.
Carefully lifting Bryce's head with one hand, he uncorked it and slowly poured the luminous liquid between her lips.
"Easy..."
"Don't waste it."
The emerald medicine disappeared down her throat.
Almost immediately...
The color slowly began returning to her face.
The cut along her temple ceased bleeding.
Her breathing deepened.
Nathaniel released a quiet sigh of relief.
"That's more like it."
The final vial remained unopened beside him.
"For emergencies," he muttered.
George glanced toward him.
"You planning on collapsing again before extraction gets here?"
Nathaniel chuckled.
"...Depends."
"On?"
"If the universe's finished trying to kill me today."
Oliver laughed first.
Then Alucard.
Even Ria allowed herself the faintest smile.
Shirou signed something.
George translated with a grin.
"She says..."
"'You looked stupid glowing orange.'"
Nathaniel stared at her.
"...Seriously?"
Shirou nodded once.
Completely unapologetic.
"...I nearly died."
Another series of signs.
George laughed.
"'Still looked stupid.'"
The group erupted into tired laughter.
For the first time since arriving in Khepra...
None of them heard explosions.
No collapsing buildings.
No monster's roar.
Only wind.
Only the distant sounds of the Repair Core rebuilding a city that, against all odds...
Had survived.
Far overhead...
The low hum of approaching evacuation transports finally echoed across the desert.
Home had come for its heroes.