The air in the Sartefinait of Kyo didn't smell like victory. It smelled like a slaughterhouse at the bottom of an ocean.
Yuna's boots skidded on the cooling glass shards that used to be the island's floor. Every breath she took felt like inhaling crushed diamonds and ozone. She scrambled toward the center of the crater where the light of the "Dying Sun" had finally winked out.
"Raizen! Stay with me!"
The Silver Emperor didn't move. He lay facedown in the black soot, his body steaming like a spent engine. The transformation was horrifying. His hair, once the brilliant white of a mountain peak, was shot through with veins of oily, iridescent black. His skin was cracking like parched clay, and the silver glow in his eyes had been replaced by a dull, lightless charcoal.
She flipped him over, gasping at the weight of him. He wasn't just heavy; he felt like he was turning into literal stone.
"Don't you dare," Yuna whispered, her vine-blade flickering with a desperate, dying green light. "You promised we'd see the end of this island together. You don't get to leave me here with the ghosts."
A low, mechanical thrum vibrated through the ground. It wasn't the heartbeat of a Tencen. It was the rhythmic, soulless beat of industry.
Yuna looked toward the northern horizon. The mist was being shredded by massive iron prows. The Royal Navy of Sarte had arrived. These weren't the wooden scout ships of the past; they were Alchemical Dreadnoughts—monsters of steel and steam, their chimneys belching thick smoke that blotted out the violet sky.
On the lead ship, the DSS Sovereign, a gold-plated horn sounded. The noise was a physical wall of sound that knocked the remaining mutated birds from the sky.
"By order of the Eternal King," a voice boomed, amplified by resonators, "the Sartefinait of Kyo is declared a Red Zone. Total Sanitization is authorized. All biological assets are to be liquidated."
A small, steam-powered skiff detached from the lead ship, skimming across the black waves. It hit the shore with a violent crunch. A man stepped out, dressed in pristine white silk cinched with gold wires. He wore a mask of polished ivory, carved into the shape of a smiling child.
"Commander Yuna," the man said, his voice smooth and terrifyingly polite. "You've done a remarkable job. Truly. To think a 'sword-slave' could assist in the downfall of a High Priest."
Yuna stood up, dragging Raizen's limp arm over her shoulder. "Who are you? Get your healers here now! He's dying!"
The man in the ivory mask laughed. "Dying? No, Commander. He is perfecting. The High Priest was a crude tool. But Raizen... he has provided the one thing the King lacked: the data of a God at the moment of his extinction."
He opened a silver casket. A pulse of violet light shot out, moving toward the pile of ash that had been Zoon.
The grey dust began to twitch. It swirled into a cyclone, drawing in broken obsidian shards. In seconds, a new horror stood before them—a humanoid shape made of swirling ash and violet electricity. It was an Ash-Wraith, a living weapon with the speed of a Tencen but the soul of a machine.
"Kill the girl," the Messenger commanded. "Secure the Emperor."
The Ash-Wraith didn't run; it simply appeared in front of Yuna, a claw made of hardened ash aiming for her throat.
Yuna didn't fight back. She knew she couldn't. Instead, she slammed her vine-blade into the cracked ground, detonating the last of her stored Qi.
The earth collapsed.
They plummeted into the dark, falling through layers of ancient rock and hidden piping. They hit a pile of discarded, moss-covered scrolls. They were in a laboratory—the King's original Alchemical Cradle. Hundreds of Obsidian Masks hung from the ceiling, all breathing in a low, wet unison.
"I wondered when the noise upstairs would finally break the floorboards," a voice said from the shadows.
Yuna grabbed her blade. "Who's there? Show yourself!"
A figure stepped into the light of the glowing vats. He looked like an older version of Raizen, but his eyes were a piercing, vibrant blue—the color of a sky that didn't exist here.
The man looked at Raizen's cracked face and sighed. "Look at you, Raizen. You always were the overachiever. You used the 'Dying Sun' for a bug like Zoon? You were always too sentimental."
"You... you know him?" Yuna's voice trembled.
The man smiled, but there was no warmth in it. He touched one of the hanging masks. It turned silver at his touch.
"Know him? I created him. Or rather, we were created together. I am the fragment they couldn't burn. I am the one the King thinks is a ghost."
He looked at the ceiling as the Navy's bombardment began to shake the cavern.
"My name is Kaelen. And if you want your 'Emperor' to live through the next hour, you're going to have to help me kill our father."