2026-01-10 16:21:27
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Chapter 423
The plateau burned with fractured light. The Envoy had pulled back from Veyra Bastion, but its presence still pressed down on the terrain. Gravity pulses bent the ground, lifting boulders and tearing fissures across the canyon floor. Steam hissed from fractured crystal veins. The sky rippled like broken glass.Oliver ran across the fractured plateau, the shard strapped to his side, Reality Anchor humming faintly. Dust and rock tumbled with every step. He glanced back. The avatars, now smaller but faster, mirrored his movements, sliding across the warped terrain.“Iris!” he shouted. His voice cracked across static in the comm.“I’m not leaving!” her voice shot back. She ran beside him, her bandages stained but intact, projector glyphs flickering in front of her hands. She moved faster than her injuries should have allowed, weaving through collapsing rock, warning other survivors, marking safe paths.Oliver didn’t argue. He knew she wouldn’t leave. She never had. Ahead, the half-buried
Chapter 422
The first cannon fired. It was supposed to be a promise. A concentrated beam of compressed sunlight, focused into a spear of light that would pierce the Envoy and drive it back. The barrels flared. The energy streaked across the plateau. Then it split. The Envoy didn’t falter. It inhaled the light. Pulled it into itself like gravity, then erupted. The shell fractured in multiple points. Dozens of smaller, faster avatars burst from the fissures, sliding across the plateau like shards of living glass. Each one carried a fragment of the original’s gravity and pulse.The fortress shook. The walls groaned. Shield emitters flared and failed in quick succession. “Ring Two is collapsing!” a commander yelled.Oliver’s eyes locked on the avatars. They moved too fast to target with the remaining cannons. Light hit the walls. Travelers were ripped from their barricades and thrown into open air. Implosions of energy ripped through positions, vaporizing barricades and scattering debris.Billy sl
Chapter 421
The canyon collapsed without warning. One moment it was there, wide, jagged, packed with refugees running shoulder to shoulder, and the next it folded inward. Stone bent. Gravity spiked. People lifted off the ground and slammed back down as the air twisted. Oliver was already shouting before the sound reached him. “Left flank, break right! Move!”The order rippled late through the mass of bodies. Some reacted in time. Others did not.The canyon floor dropped out. A transport sled tipped sideways and vanished into the dark. A scream cut off mid-breath. The Envoy had moved. Not forward. Outward.Its gravity field swept across Veyra Reach like a slow wave. Cliffs bowed inward. Floating crystal formations slammed together and shattered. The sky dimmed as light bent toward a single point beyond the horizon.Billy skidded to Oliver’s side, one hand braced against the ground. “That was ten klicks out.”“It’s testing range,” Oliver said. “Keep them moving.”Ahead, the fortress came into vie
Chapter 420
The tunnel doors sealed behind them with a sound that arrived too late.Oliver felt it through his boots first. The vibration traveled up the metal stairs, into the walls, then into his ribs. The blast doors locked. Secondary seals engaged. Red lights flashed once, then steadied. Underground, time behaved better. Not normal. Just better.The evacuation column moved fast through the access tunnel. Headlamps cut white lines through dust and steam. Boots hit metal. No one spoke unless they had to.Billy took point. Rifle up. He checked every side passage, every maintenance hatch. He did not slow.Iris walked three steps behind Oliver. Her throat bandages were fresh. She held her projector close to her chest, both hands tight around it.Oliver stayed in the center of the column. The shard rested inside a sealed containment sleeve strapped to his side. Even through the casing, he felt it. Not heat. Pressure. A steady pulse. Step. Pulse. Step. Pulse.The tunnel curved downward. Old infras
Chapter 419
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
Chapter 418
The first Light Anchor arrived before the smoke cleared. It descended through the broken sky on a column of blue fire and slammed into the plateau hard enough to flatten a ring of crystal shards. The impact sent a wave through the ground. The wave moved late. Rocks jumped after the sound passed.Oliver stood at the canyon edge and watched it lock into place. The anchor was taller than a crawler. Its surface was dull silver, scarred with old marks and fresh weld lines. Thick cables ran from its base into the ground, drilling themselves down with a grinding sound that came in bursts. Runes along its spine pulsed once, then steadied.Around it, the air stiffened. “Anchor One is live,” a voice said over comms. “Time distortion reduced by point zero four.”Oliver did not reply. He watched the sky. The riftstorm still hung above the Reach. The aurora churned in slow bands, bending light toward its center.More shapes cut through the clouds. Artillery skiffs. Six of them. Heavy frames. Gun
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