Damon Vestigious, the Ghost of Authority, was having a terrible day. Easily in his top ten worst days on the Starry Sea. And that included the days he’d lost his wife and son. It might not be emotionally trying, but it had pushed him to the brink several times, and there was no obvious sign of stopping or slowing down yet.

When the suppression field had come down, Damon had been one of the more prepared, having already experienced it once. More than that, he’d talked with his granddaughter and knew her friends’ suspicions that the Revolution was present at the Tournament. Since she’d told him of their misgivings, he’d been prepared for the suppression field to appear at any time.

Despite that, he wasn’t the most prepared. No, that distinction went to several members of the Ten Thousand Empires delegation, who received some kind of signal before it happened. When all of them had an ethertech device beep at the same time, no one at the meeting had thought anything of it. After all, most national leaders had some kind of interlinked notification system they used to communicate, and similar beeps had occurred all throughout the days of meetings. Something that obviously wasn’t done by mistake.

It was one of the last days of the summit between the five nations before the main combat tournaments would begin. As such, it was one of the last days of the summit. Some more private meetings would continue on throughout the Tournament of Powers as backdoor deals were made and broken, but this would be nearly the last time that all five nations’ representatives would meet together in one large group.

With it not being the very last day, but near it, attention was starting to wane. Damon could tell that many had already mentally checked out and were barely paying enough attention to keep up appearances. That lackadaisical attitude left many vulnerable when their access to aura suddenly vanished.

It was chaos in the first few minutes. Damon had already formshifted and slipped through the floor before anything could truly start, but he kept just enough of his face out to watch the events that transpired. Those from the Empires attacked their own with violent fervor before targeting the Central Council next.

The time they’d taken had been barely enough for those from Damon’s home country to ready themselves, but they managed to survive. Things only truly started to fall apart when everyone seemed to take this as an opportunity to settle every grudge they’d ever had. Delegates and dignitaries from across the five nations present began attacking.

There was no apparent rhyme or reason. Everyone seemed to have just as many grievances with those from their own nations as the others. As such, there was no sense of camaraderie between countrymen. Some formed groups of allies, but most were left to fend for themselves against literally everyone else.

Dozens died in minutes. Without access to aura, most of those in the room were left off kilter. Under normal circumstances, these men and women would have been nearly unkillable. But with their aura suppressed, no one could use their aura senses. Attacks were being thrown around at random and catching many unaware.

With the amount of power being tossed around, a single moment of inattention was enough to erase some of those present, their shrouds caught unprepared and thus incapable of mitigating the damage. Minutes passed with fewer and fewer dying as everyone present adapted to unfamiliar conditions.

That was when the explosion went off.

Damon had no idea what happened. To him, it was as if the world itself simply turned white. Then, the atmospheric Ki went berserk. Out of control ether reactions ignited the air itself, throwing out random phenomena. Never before was Damon so happy that his formshift essentially separated his body from physical reality, as he wasn’t sure he could have survived otherwise.

Once the storm of Ki settled down, Damon found that the explosion had consumed most of the meeting hall. There was naught but rubble left. Many more shrouded had died in the blast as bursts of Ki interacted badly with their own shrouds, often canceling their formshift and exposing their fragile human bodies to the storm of raw power rampaging around them. Even the reinforcements granted to those that had achieved Embodiment would not withstand such intense energy without the assistance of a shroud.

Still, Damon was not the only survivor. Many of those present had used their Embodiment before the explosion went off, and practically all of them had survived as their heavily shroud-infused bodies resisted the foreign energy bombarding them in a way that simple formshifting couldn’t.

Most did not escape unscathed, having suffered heavy damage. Damon could see their shrouds hard at work trying to keep them alive. A task that was made infinitely harder when the bombardment began. Thousands of etherships now filled the skies, including a truly gargantuan edifice of ethertech that seemed to match or even exceed the size of the island itself.

The ships opened fire, raining down attacks of all kinds in a breadth of variety that seemed designed to counter whatever defenses the shrouded might manage. If that was the intent, Damon had to admit that it was effective. More rulers, the heads of nations that had lived for tens of thousands of years, fell like a newly trained shrouded in their first true battle. Never before had Damon seen so many powerful shrouded laid low in such rapid succession.

Still, some survived even this. Even with so many attacks specifically targeting them pounding down, these were some of the strongest shrouded currently alive. And with such stunning loss of life, they all seemed to collectively and wordlessly decide to put aside their grievances and work together to survive the current threat.

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Damon assumed that, up to this point, most of those present had figured that the suppression field was a move by another nation. After all, despite everything said at the meetings in regards to the unshrouded, no one really viewed them as a real threat. None but those of the Central Authority actually knew of the devastating attacks the Revolution had carried out and they definitely didn’t know about the suppression field.

Only some of the shrouded from the Empires seemed to know what was going to happen. As such, the few that had survived so far were ended with vicious efficiency. All the rulers and nobles left then did their best to create a defensible position within the rubble. Something that would have been simple with their auras was far more tedious without them.

Despite their limited access to their shrouds, the collective abilities of over a dozen powerful shrouded was more than enough to cobble together a thick structure formed from metal, stone, and several other materials. It was enough to deflect or resist most of the attacks still falling down, and the rest could be dealt with using a more active hand.

Through it all, Damon felt it best to remain a passive observer. He was practically minded and knew that without his aura, he was of very limited use right now. He had worked on a few mnemonics that he could use when he only had access to infusion, but none had progressed very far in the month or so since the attack on the Academy.

He was tempted to leave and search out his granddaughter, but he knew she was with her team, and they were far more likely to handle this situation better if he didn’t draw any attention to them. Damon had no doubt that he was a major target for the Revolution and being near Hekate would only put her at greater risk, especially when he was so weakened by the suppression field.

Instead, Damon did what he could. Namely, taking out etherships. In his ghostly formshift, he could freely slip through the energy barriers surrounding them. After that, a bit of sabotage was enough to destroy whatever flight engine was holding the ship up. Damon mainly just broke whatever pipes or valves he could until the thing started making dangerous noises before getting out of there.

Hours passed as a sort of equilibrium appeared. The few rulers left had formed such a defensible position that no one was dying, but they were unable to attack the ships overhead as they lacked flight without their auras. Damon was the only one attacking the etherships, and himself alone was only able to deal with a handful an hour out of literal thousands.

Damon was made aware of his granddaughter’s relative position when a familiar-looking dragon appeared off in the distance to destroy one of the largest etherships he’d ever seen, excluding the behemoth currently overhead. Despite the significantly increased size and different coloration, Damon recognized Noodle’s overall body shape. If that was where Caeden was, Damon could only assume Hekate was nearby.

With that in mind, he paid more attention to that area. It quickly became apparent that his granddaughter and her friends were causing far more trouble than the leadership was. He was almost tempted to head over and see what exactly they were doing to garner so much attention. After all, if the Revolution’s focus was already in their direction, he couldn’t possibly draw more focus.

He headed that way once he saw the portal open and a new ship headed in that direction. He hadn’t seen the portal open the first time, but Damon was smart enough to realize that it was how the Revolution fleet had originally arrived without anyone seeing them coming. If they’d opened the portal again just to deal with his granddaughter, they must be truly causing trouble.

He arrived overhead just in time to see Caeden deal with said ship’s inhabitants handedly with a new shroud Damon had never seen before. Without his aura he couldn’t tell how strong any of them were, but he would place every member of Hekate’s team far above where they should be. Indeed, far higher than they had been a mere month ago.

He was also there to see Hekate’s shroud swallow the ship in a deeply disturbing fashion. It was an attack that he wasn’t sure he could have survived himself, despite his intangibility. It was amusing to him to think that the only person he’d ever felt truly threatened by in the last thousand years or so was his own granddaughter.

Rather than join her, Damon watched in awe as Caeden marched an army through a series of portals he seemed to control that proceeded to destroy vast chunks of the Revolution fleet in such a controlled manner that it looked like they’d been planning for this exact scenario for years, decades even.

Of course, that was absurd. No one could have predicted such an attack. But it just showed how well-trained and experienced said army was that they could adapt to such odd circumstances. Damon had never seen the type of creature Caeden had created from his portals, but they seemed far more intelligent than the average shroud creation.

Damon’s attention was turned, as Caeden’s was, after the barrier surrounding the arena fell. However, Damon’s attention shifted when he saw the massive Etherman that entered it arrive from the Revolution’s flagship. He hadn’t seen anything similar to it before and was curious as to what it was doing.

So, he followed it. Hekate and her friends seemed to have the situation well in hand, and he didn’t want to distract them. Instead, he felt like his time was better spent on recognizance at this point. A unique Etherman seemed like a relevant subject of observation.

The Giant Etherman, as tall as three men, left the arena with one of the oddly sharp circles Caeden had used to call on his forces. It headed straight back to the flagship and Damon followed it. He watched as it approached a seemingly solid section of the ship’s hull that opened a hidden passage at its arrival.

Growing even more curious, Damon followed along as it passed ever deeper into the massive Ethership. As they went, the intensity of the atmospheric Ki continually ramped up ever higher until finally they entered a massive chamber practically pulsing with power.

Damon was no ether technician, but he didn’t need to be to know that this was the heart of the vessel, the ether generator and the suppression field generator. A massive square black pillar filled the center of the room. It was over a hundred feet tall and seemed to float in place. Every few seconds, a surge of something would pulse through several tubes coming into the room before pulsing into the pillar.

Drifting closer, Damon felt a sense of familiarity with this energy. When he placed it, his head spun with questions. The things entering the pillar were the ghosts of shrouded. Damon had no idea how they were getting here or what the pillar was doing with them, but that’s what they were.

Then, massive metallic fingers wrapped around his spectral form. To his surprise and alarm, they gripped him easily.

“What an interesting form. I think you’ll yield especially valuable results.”