The rain over Aethelgard wasn't water; it was a cold, acidic mist that clung to the stone walls of the Spire like a shroud. I stood at the mouth of a ventilation shaft, the **[OVERLORD’S SHROUD]** humming against my skin. The black crystal gauntlets felt like ice, yet they vibrated with a predatory heat every time I looked at the towering spire above us."The 'Star-Light' canisters are already in position," Luna whispered, her silhouette barely visible against the rain. She pointed toward the servant barracks, where two squads of Elite Wardens were unloading metallic cylinders that glowed with a sickly, holy white light. "If they crack those open, the radiation will dissolve anyone without a Tier-4 core. Your people will be ash in minutes.""They won't get the chance to turn the valves," I said.I turned to Mallow and Elara. The three hundred Dross stood behind me in the cramped tunnel, their breathing synchronized—a low, rhythmic thrum that sounded like a giant engine idling. Their e

The air beyond the city walls didn't just smell of rot; it smelled of *erasure*. As I flew toward the Forbidden Wastes, the landscape beneath me dissolved from charred fields into a gray, featureless ash. The **[STAR-CORE]** in my chest was the only source of heat in a world that felt like it had been held in a freezer for an eternity."So, the little bird flies to the cage," the First Overlord’s voice rumbled in my mind. **"Do you feel it, Cassian? The pulse of the Prime Devourer? It’s not a god. It’s a stomach with a name."**"I feel it," I whispered, the wind howling against the black crystal of the Shroud. "It feels like the Archon’s ambition. Hollow and bottomless."I felt a sudden ripple in the gravity ahead of me. I banked hard to the left just as a spike of solidified shadow shot up from the gray dunes, missing my foot by an inch. I touched down on the shifting ash, my boots sinking into the remains of what might have once been a forest.Standing in my path was a figure that s

The sky above the Forbidden Wastes didn’t just change; it shattered. The sickly green of the Devourer’s aura was sliced open by beams of clinical, blinding white light. Twelve dreadnoughts of the Silver Spires hung in the upper atmosphere like silver needles, their ventral cannons humming with enough energy to boil the ocean."They're going to glass us!" Silas’s voice crackled through the communication rune, drowned out by the thunder of the fleet’s arrival. "Cassian, the Matriarch isn't distinguishing between the monsters and the citizens! She’s sanitizing the map!""Mallow! Elara! Get the Dross beneath the Devourer’s carcass!" I roared, my voice amplified by the **[STAR-CORE]**. "Use the beast’s hide as a shield! It’s the only thing dense enough to soak a Tier-9 orbital strike!""What about you?" Elara shouted, her eyes wide as she watched the silver ships align their targeting arrays."I have to finish the Archon," I said, looking up at the summit of the mountain-sized horror. "If

The world didn't just vanish; it was erased. The screaming of the Dross, the hum of the silver dreadnoughts, and the roar of the World-Engine were replaced by a silence so absolute it felt like a physical weight pressing against my eardrums. I was standing in a void of pure, featureless white—a space where distance and time were suggestions that no longer applied.*Internal Voice:* **[CRITICAL ERROR: DIMENSIONAL COORDINATES LOST. CURRENT LOCATION: THE ZERO-POINT. MANA DENSITY: 0%. REALITY STABILITY: CRITICAL.]**"Cassian?"I turned. Elena was standing a few feet away, her form flickering like a bad projection. Beside her, Mallow and a handful of my Dross were huddled together, their obsidian skin looking dull in this colorless vacuum."We're still alive," Mallow whispered, his voice sounding thin. "But I can't feel the ground, Cassian. I can't feel the air.""Because there isn't any," I said, my hand tightening around my obsidian blade. The **[OVERLORD’S SHROUD]** was the only thing w

The blue sky didn't last. As the black iron forest surged toward the city walls, the horizon bled into a bruised, metallic gold. The towering figure in the star-draped cloak didn't walk; he glided over the glass-slicked sand, leaving a trail of frost that hummed with a low, dissonant chord."The Architect’s Harvest?" Silas whispered, his face pale. "Cassian, we just broke the world. We don't have a wall left to stand on.""Then we stand on the ruins," I said. I looked at my hands—no crystal gauntlets, no shimmering shroud. Just skin and bone, yet the **[VOID-DEVOURING SEAL]** beneath my ribs was spinning with a violent, renewed purpose."Mallow! Elara!" I barked. "Forget the celebration. The brands might be gone, but the chains are just changing shape. Assemble the Dross at the North Gate!""Cassian, they’re exhausted," Elara said, her hands trembling. "They just fought a god. They’re human again.""They were never just human," I said, looking her in the eye. "They’re the Void’s child