KRAAAAAAABOOOOOOM!The earthquake did not come from beneath them. It came from the cavern ceiling.Chunks of rock the size of houses came crashing down from the obsidian roof, slamming into the streets of Sub-Terra Prime. The city's blue neon lights flickered before half of them finally went dark, replaced by rotating red emergency lights. The hysterical screams of tens of thousands of refugees erupted all at once, drowning out the sirens.On the command room balcony, Clive gripped the crystal railing until it cracked. His eyes remained fixed on the external monitor, which projected a view of the surface above the gate.A steel shadow covered the screen.It was not an aircraft.It was Goliath, a Titan-Class Siege Automaton. A two-hundred-meter-tall war machine designed by Lumeria specifically to flatten civilizations. Its mechanical feet, forged from pure Aetherium steel, stomped against the city's protective obsidian shell, attempting to crush it beneath hundreds of thousands of tons

Tarek's scream, the Onyxspire envoy, tore through the thin walls of the emergency clinic in Sub-Terra Prime."AAARGH! IT'S HOT! IT HURTS! GET THIS THING OUT, PLEASE!"On the medical bed, Tarek's body convulsed violently. Rina and her two assistants fought to hold the man's shoulders and legs down. Using tweezers and a small-scale plasma cutter, Rina tried to dismantle the red-blinking mechanical device embedded directly into the vertebrae of Tarek's neck."Hold still, Tarek! Don't move, or your spinal nerves could snap!" Rina shouted in panic, sweat running down her forehead. She glanced toward the door. "Clive! Hold his legs! I need more strength!"Clive, who had been standing against the doorframe with a hardened expression, stepped forward. He grabbed both of Tarek's ankles with his scaled left hand. With barely any pressure, the struggling man's legs were locked firmly against the bed as if nailed down by steel."Pull it out, Rin," Clive ordered coldly.CRASH!Rina yanked the pal

ZRAAAASH!The laser scalpel sliced through the muscle tissue of Clive's left arm once again. Thick smoke that smelled of charred flesh billowed upward, filling the massive operating chamber of the Onyxspire laboratory.Blood streamed across the metal table, which had been tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. Yet the young man being dissected alive did not scream. Clive simply clenched his jaw, his pitch-black eyes unblinking as he stared at Sheldon Mallory's face with a faint, blood-smeared grin."You're... losing your touch, Sheldon," Clive whispered, his voice hoarse but dripping with pure mockery. "Your cuts used to make me cry. Now they feel like a mosquito bite."Sheldon's face reddened behind his thick glasses. The mechanical spider-bodied scientist snorted in irritation and pulled back his laser scalpel. He realized that physically torturing Clive gave him absolutely no satisfaction anymore. The young man before him had severed the connection between pain and emotion. Physical

The temperature inside the evacuation tunnel connecting Onyxspire and Sub-Terra Prime skyrocketed to insane levels. The stone walls began to crack, releasing waves of scorching steam that burned exposed skin.Ogar kicked the rusted steel door at the end of the tunnel until it tore free from its hinges. The stocky former thug was gasping for breath, his leather uniform drenched in sweat. Behind him, twenty of his soldiers rushed forward, carrying several injured comrades."Come on! Move, you bastards! Don't stop breathing!" Ogar shouted as he grabbed the arm of one of his men who had stumbled.Clive ran at the very back of the formation, making sure Rina stayed ahead of him. The white-haired young man could no longer smell the acrid ozone or the scent of melting stone. His sense of smell was permanently gone. But his skin could still feel the hellish heat spreading down from the ceiling of the earth.[WARNING! Time until impact of 'Benedict's Light': 8 Minutes 12 Seconds. Current tempe

Outside the obsidian dome of Sub-Terra Prime, the world was still burning.The remnants of the granite rocks of Drakon's Spine, melted by the impact of The Spear of Lumeria, flowed slowly like artificial rivers of lava. The air was thick with dark gray volcanic ash raining down upon the ground, burying the explosion craters beneath a silent shroud of death.Amid that hellish landscape, a small ivory-white airship descended through the clouds of smoke. It was equipped with neither cannons nor armored plating. It landed gracefully on rocky ground that was still steaming with heat, only fifty meters from the main gate of the obsidian city.The ship's hydraulic door opened with a soft hiss.A man stepped out.His polished white leather shoes touched the ash-covered ground without hesitation. He wore an immaculate white silk suit, with a golden cloak draped over his shoulders. His blond hair was perfectly combed, untouched by the hot wind blowing around him.Benedict Archibald had arrived.