Wordlessly, Aleister piloted them down towards Portum’s surface. It would be midday where they arrived. Their descent to the capital city of Logos would take a few minutes. The low roar of turbulence punctuated the tense silence.

As the Sparrow entered the stratosphere, two mountain-sized spaceships translated into orbit above them, leering down from space above. Beneath them, four warships floated in the waters of idyllic Logo’s harbour, each of their house-sized guns lined up on the Sparrow’s trajectory. Shiny morphic vehicles patrolled the land, sea and skies in varying combat formations. Hardlight constructions of battlements and stationary guns materialised in key strategic positions. Soldiers and Angels lined the streets and low rooftops in flesh and powered armour.

The Sparrow made its landing on the designated pad west of the traffic control tower. The harbour was less than a kilometre behind them, and the rest of the city, appearing as a great expanse of vegetation, spanned for ten kilometres between the sea and the mountains, where the sovereign ruler’s villa was built.

Countless weapons continued to point at the tiny Sparrow as the three Bloodstones made their way down the exit ramp, staying close to be protected by Rolynd’s Aegis. Aleister carried a runed box with him.

A waiting Incandestine representative, the warden of the moon base himself, in fact, wordlessly gestured to usher them along.

Rolynd barely spared the helmeted warden a glance, reserving no special vitriol for another cog in the machine. Sophia and Aleister followed suit, stepping off the vehicle pad.

Despite the intensity of the situation, Sophia’s mind was remarkably clear owing to her conditioning as the perfect soldier to which she had been designed and groomed her entire life. She found herself admiring Logos and its great beauty. If one ignored the flagrant threat of imminent death all around them, the place could be called a paradise. A perfect mixture of architecture and nature. There were no skyscrapers or tall buildings, but the structures of Logos had been built into the ground, allowing nature to all but run its course on the surface, save for the paved streets which remained clear of any obstruction.

They continued their escort through the streets.

As soon as Rolynd had taken his one-hundred-and-sixty-eighth step on Portum’s soil, an uproarious explosion rang out across the city. Fragments of metal shrapnel and dust blew across the largely flat ground unobstructed. The Bloodstones turned around to see vehicle pad 27-C had gone up in flames, the sight of the Sparrow was completely engulfed in smoke.

Sophia’s senses, enhanced magnitudes beyond that of a human by layers of enchantments, caught the barest glimpses of three projectiles flying away from them. Sniper’s bullets, redirected by Rolynd’s Aegis. Three Angels, hidden in sniper nests in varying locations throughout the city, were sent to the afterlife as their own bullets decapitated them. The sound of a loud crack, like thunder, could be heard a few seconds later.

At the same time countless other muted explosions could be felt, rumbling through the ground like an earthquake or the footsteps of an army on the horizon.

Aleister’s box glowed with mystical purple energy for a brief moment, the light already fading.

All the Incandestine forces present had their weapons ready to shoot… but they seemed to hesitate. The snipers had somehow failed to do their job.

Rolynd used his Aegis to project his voice so that it could be heard for kilometres around: “If you value your life, you will let us proceed. Nullifiers have no power over us anymore.”

Despite Rolynd’s warning, heard by all, the soldiers and Angels present continued to point their weapons at him.

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“Aleister. Demonstrate, please.” Rolynd requested of his aide.

Aleister brought his right hand to his chest, clutching an amulet hidden beneath his clothes, and with his left hand, he seemed to point his index finger at the ground, slowly raising it up to the sky.

A low rumbling took hold of the earth, like the stirring of a sleeping giant. The ground beneath the city began to tremble and moan like a person deep in the throes of sickness. Great flights of birds took to the skies in distress, milling about in confusion. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky as magma erupted to the surface in sudden volcanic activity.

As the silver-haired Bloodstone gestured, a great shadow fell across the land. Some of the flying birds began to migrate to their nests to roost upon the silent arrival of night.

The warships in the harbour began to drift, rock, sway, capsize and violently plunge as the tides slipped this way and that, growing more and more violent. Some of the smaller vessels were sucked under the waves, dragged to the bottom, and bashed against the seafloor.

Portum’s moon had been dragged across the sky by the power of the artefact Aleister held, the forces of gravity on the home planet wreaking havoc.

The two Incandestine spaceships in the heavens above abruptly accelerated, compensating for the gravitational disturbance of the moon’s sudden appearance behind them.

And… a tsunami appeared over the horizon. The waves towering unfathomably high.

“That was just a pittance of our power. Like picking one’s nose with a pinky finger. Next time you attempt to betray us, we will extinguish the star of Creumbruxon-XII. You can say goodbye to the trillions of people living in that system.” Rolynd declared.

Deathly silence fell over the eclipsed streets. Dumbfounded at the sight of this ineffable power, the enemy finally lowered their weapons. Some could even be heard clattering to the granite streets below.

“Impossible… it has to be a trick.” mutterings such as these could be heard, uttered by unwitting mouths.

But even as the people would not believe it, Portum’s automated tsunami defences sprung to life, surrounding the city in a dome of translucent hardlight. Such technology was the standard for a planet so close to a supermassive blackhole, where tidal forces were more likely to be violent.

Rolynd, Sophia and Aleister continued through the streets, the warden hastily appearing to guide them. Gentle golden lights flickered on throughout the city, now under the shadow of artificial night.

With each step, something within Sophia was growing. A feeling. But she couldn’t quite place her finger on what flavour of uncomfortable frustration it was.

We’ve come this far. Don’t fuck it up now. She told herself.

Sophia never, ever imagined that she would set foot on Portum, much less be paraded through its streets as a terrorist, and yet here she was.

If things went sideways, Sophia was to use her Aegis-scorn ability and cleave everything in half. Multiple enchantments empowered her abilities. Tests on Apolaphia showed that she could extend her infinitely sharp blades a kilometre long.

The Bloodstones eventually reached a nondescript building after some twenty minutes of walking. Inside the building, which appeared to be some kind of hotel, there was a hidden elevator through a locked door.

The trio followed the warden inside.

The elevator led deep into the bowels of the earth.

Not a single word was exchanged the entire time. Aleister kept his grip tight on the box he carried.

After what felt like an impossibly long trip, The Bloodstones emerged into a well-lit corridor of brushed steel, reminiscent of the base on Portum’s moon. Sterile and secretive. A ceiling-mounted camera at the end of each corridor.

The facility below ground contained far fewer military personnel than on the surface, not that it was of any significance to Sophia. The Angels here had different livery, rather than gold, white and blue, these were dressed in solely black.

Corridor after corridor, they walked. Periodically they would encounter a checkpoint which necessitated the warden performing numerous stringent checks to validate his identity.

Sophia had plenty of time to think as they were led to the place where Catherine’s body was kept.

Time was running out. The Knight’s heart grew more troubled with each step. She never asked for this. She didn’t want to be here. She never wanted Catherine to die. She never wanted Lucina to die. She never wanted anyone to die. She never asked to be a killing machine. She never asked to be created.

Did she really have to be here right now? Did they really have to be here? Doing this? Would Rolynd really have to-

Doors opened to reveal a small laboratory. Sophia’s train of thought was completely derailed upon making sight of Catherine’s corpse, which hung suspended in a glass vat of preservative orange fluid in the centre of the room.

“Oh, Catherine. What have they done to you?” Rolynd could not help but say.