Morning broke over Solara Vant with false calm. The city woke to light as it always did. The runic mirrors above the towers shifted and caught the rising sun.Beams of gold and pale blue poured down into the streets. The crystal roads glowed warm beneath waking footsteps. Vendors opened stalls. Transit skiffs hummed into motion. Bells rang from high terraces. For a few heartbeats, the world felt normal. Then the ground breathed.It was not a shake at first. It was a slow pressure, like the city drawing a deep breath beneath its skin. Windows rattled once and then went still. Birds lifted from rooftops in sudden flocks. The light bent strangely, as if the air itself had thickened.Oliver felt it before the alarms. His Reality Aegis flared against his ribs. Pain shot through the crystal veins in his arm. He turned sharply in the command hall as the floor beneath him vibrated.A split second later, sirens screamed. The sound rolled across the capital in layered waves. Red and white lig

Dawn came slowly to Solara Vant. The sun rose behind broken towers and cracked bridges, its light bending through drifting dust and shattered prisms. Every street shimmered with leftover energy. Pieces of crystal lay everywhere, glowing faintly like fallen stars.Smoke lifted in thin lines from ruined blocks, soft and gray, as if the city itself was breathing again after holding its breath too long. The battle was over. But the city had not yet realized it.Defense sirens fell silent one by one. Med-drones hummed through the air, their blue lights sweeping across rubble. Traveler healers moved in careful lines, kneeling beside the wounded, hands glowing as bones knit and burns faded. Engineers worked at broken pylons, rerouting power and mana through temporary lines. Everywhere, people moved with quiet purpose, too tired to speak loudly, too grateful to stop.Oliver walked among them. He no longer ran. He no longer fought. He walked.His armor was cracked and scorched. The crystal

Weeks passed after the victory at Solara Vant, but peace did not truly return. It only learned how to stay quiet.Oliver stood at the edge of the Traveler transport platform as the world slid beneath them. The sky was clear, yet his Reality Aegis pulsed with a low warning hum that never left him anymore. The System interface floated at the corner of his vision, stable but watchful, like an eye that refused to blink.Ahead lay Veyra Reach. The plateau rose from the land like a broken crown. Jagged stone cliffs ringed its edges, and above them floated hundreds of crystal formations, massive shards suspended in the air by forgotten forces. Long ago, these crystals powered humanity’s first cities, before the System learned how to regulate energy cleanly. Now they were relics, unstable, dangerous, and mostly abandoned.Magnetic storms flickered between them, blue and violet arcs crawling through the air. Localized auroras bloomed and faded like nervous breaths. Even from a distance, the

Oliver Beckett watched the timer on his wrist stall between seconds as his message crawled through the air. His mouth moved faster than the signal. The words left him clean and sharp, then stretched thin, like they were pulled apart by something unseen.“All Travelers,” he said, voice clipped. “This is Beckett. Evacuate Veyra Reach. All stations. All teams. Move now.”The reply lights did not blink. They dimmed. One by one.Around him, the plateau groaned. Floating crystals along the ridge shuddered in place. Some dipped, then rose again, slow as if thinking about it. A mining tower in the distance leaned a degree to the left. Bolts popped. No explosion followed. The sound arrived late.Oliver lowered his wrist. “System delay confirmed.”Billy did not answer at first. He stood on the edge of the canyon path, eyes on the convoy below. Six crawler trucks. Two med rigs. One fuel hauler. Civilians mixed with Guild support. Hard hats. Data packs clutched to chests.The ground under Billy’s

The plateau did not go quiet after the blast. It held its breath.Oliver stood with his boots planted in cracked stone, the air pressing inward from all sides. The mirror forms had stopped moving. They stood frozen across the field, weapons raised, bodies half-turned, like mannequins caught mid-fight. The anchors around them shuddered, cracked open, and hummed with a low, steady tone.The Envoy’s shell loomed ahead. It no longer rippled. It leaned forward, close enough that the light bending around it pulled at Oliver’s vision.Billy’s voice broke through the comms. “They’re not advancing.”“Don’t trust it,” Oliver said. He did not lower his weapon.A mirror form near Anchor Five twitched. Its head turned a fraction too far. The metal at its neck creaked.Oliver raised his hand. “All units, hold position. Do not engage unless I call it.”Silence followed. Not empty silence. Loaded. The anchors began to glow. Not bright. Focused.The runes carved along their frames lit one by one, not