The two bronze doors of the Main Strategy Room opened with a heavy thud that echoed throughout the corridors of the Central Command Tower. Ethan stepped inside first, followed by Isyra, Jaxon, and Commander Aqlan. The cold air from the remnants of the battle in the Sky Sector still wafted thinly from Ethan's black robe, but his pair of blue-gold eyes immediately locked onto the holographic map table in the center of the room.The atmosphere inside the room was truly at its nadir. The green glow that usually symbolized the thickness of Aegisvar's protective veil was now almost completely obscured by the projected whirlpool of a dense, purplish-black energy. The whirlpool spun slowly precisely above the coordinates of the valley's outer sky, forming a macro anomaly resembling a giant eye staring down toward them.Supreme Commander Zaky stood at the end of the table with facial lines that appeared ten years older. Both of his hands gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned

The rumble inside the core axis room of the Western Sector grew increasingly rampant, creating a truly deafening audio distortion. Giant copper pipes on the obsidian walls vibrated violently, releasing high-pressure hot steam as the color of the earth Mana stream shifted from emerald green to a dense orange-red. The safety threshold indicator had been exceeded; this valley was truly in its final moments before experiencing a Mana Collapse that would level the entire domestic sector.On top of the cracked stone floor, the consciousness of Luvy, the old Physician, was thinning out. However, upon uttering an ancient voice circuit password into Jaxon's ear, the grand physician's old pair of eyes flashed with the remnants of his medical authority."Jaxon ... hold on ... become the anchor ...." Luvy coughed, throwing up fresh blood that instantly froze due to the ice vapor wafting inside the room. His old hand tactically pressed an emergency acupuncture point on his own neck, sealing his ma

The clash of two energies with completely opposite polarities broke the silence of dawn at the peak of the Central Command Tower absolutely. A grand scythe of black crystal manifesting from Lady Cassandra's Astral Materialization technique struck the surface of the broken blade of Ethan's Shadow Veil. The shockwave generated from the collision was no longer a mere ripple of Mana; it was a pure kinetic explosion that cracked the concrete floor of the highest roof platform until half of it collapsed, throwing ancient stone materials into the abyss of the Domestic Sector below.Isyra was forced to thrust both of her silver daggers into the remaining solid floor to hold her body from being thrown by the blast's aft wind. Her pair of officer eyes widened perfectly seeing the mechanical precision of Cassandra's new physical form."A physical manifestation of an astral projection, she has truly transferred a portion of her original body's core circuit from the main mothership!"In the midst

The night silence in the medical laboratory of the Lower Sector felt so pressing, a stark contrast to the thunderous victory still being celebrated by some of the soldiers on Aegisvar's outer platform. The sharp aroma of Amethyst Marrow extract and military antiseptic settled in the air, mixing with the cold vapor from the mechanical heart-rate stabilizing machine installed beside Chief Physician Luvy's bed. The life lines on Luvy's magical instruments moved constantly in a slow rhythm. Exactly as Rexi's tactical prediction had stated, the grand physician's old body was truly in a highly deep recovery hibernation phase.In a dimly lit corner of the room, Lyra rested her head against the edge of the iron bed with her eyes tightly closed. The physical and mental exhaustion after hours of locking her father's blood circuit to prevent it from leaking had truly drained the remnants of her energy completely. Her long, tangled hair appeared in stark contrast with the dim blue lighting from t

The echo of the black magic voice recording emerging from the mechanical device at the tip of the arrow slowly died out, leaving a far more gripping silence on the front line of the pine forest at Aegisvar's border. Lyra's interrupted scream of pain paired with the hiss of ice vapor from the blade of Ethan's half-unsheathed Shadow Veil. The night wind blew hard, flying the gray tactical robes of Captain Vaelen's hundreds of shadow soldiers who stood firmly like a row of ghosts among the ancient trees.Isyra stepped forward, her pair of officer eyes staring at the blood-stained medical gauze tied to the arrow with a flash of tactical rage."Emperor Axandra is deliberately luring us to conduct a reckless frontal attack toward the western gate. Lyra's scream is a macro-scale psychological bait so your logic circuit becomes paralyzed, Ethan.""He underestimates my war calculation draft too much, Isyra," Ethan spoke up, his tone highly flat and as cold as death. His blue-gold pair of eyes