The glacial highway surged two hundred paces up the sheer volcanic cliffs of the Isle of Serpents, solid as granite beneath the thundering boots of the Vanguard. Overhead, the concentrated solar beams from the tidal mirrors hissed fruitlessly against Aurelia’s frost-shield, scattering into harmless rainbows of fractured ether.
At the summit of the ramp loomed the Lower Barbican of the Sunken Spire.
The portal was barred by colossal double-valves forged of deep-sea bronze, each twenty paces tall and carved with spiraling kraken tentacles inlaid with glowing aquamarine. Behind the battlements stood forty elite battle-magi of the High Arcana, their indigo robes snapping in the howling gale as they raised heavy crystalline staves to weave a synchronized barrier of concussive force.
"Hold ranks!" Captain Dennis roared from the front of the Val-Roc spearmen, his shields locking tightly against a hail of azure lightning bolts that rained down from the parapets.
"Break their barrier, Aurelia," Malakor growled, his deep voice slicing through the crackle of arcane thunder.
He was beside her, moving with the terrifying momentum of an avalanche, his abyssal great sword trailing a wake of black fire that consumed the stray lightning strikes before they could touch his vanguard.
"With pleasure," Aurelia replied, her voice ringing cold and clear.
She did not draw her daggers. Instead, she drew upon the unified celestial core within her sternum. The silver runes along her forearms flared with blinding luminescence as she extended her open hands toward the bronze gates.
She did not freeze the metal itself; she seized the ambient moisture trapped in the sea-bronze's weathered pores and the deep salt air clinging to its seams. With an explosive snap of her will, she forced that moisture to crystallize into expansion-grade frost.
The ancient bronze groaned, shrieking under immense, instantaneous internal pressure as micro-fractures spiderwebbed across the kraken carvings.
"Now, Malakor!" she cried.
Malakor unleashed the full fury of his abyssal wellspring. He launched himself into the air, ascending fifteen feet above the ramp, both hands locked around the hilt of his great sword. As he descended, the blade cleaved downward in a devastating, vertical blow cloaked in superheated black-and-crimson flame.
The thermodynamic shock was total.
The frozen, brittle bronze met the infernal abyssal fire, and the massive gates shattered. The double-valves did not merely give way; they detonated inward, spraying jagged shrapnel of bronze and boiling slag across the inner courtyard. The concussive blast blew the forty battle-magi off their parapets, sending their crystalline staves clattering across the smoking flagstones.
Through the pulverized archway walked Malakor, his eyes burning with lethal crimson hunger, smoke curling from his dark plate.
Aurelia stepped through the breach beside him, her twin star-iron daggers drawn and bathed in azure starlight. Behind them, two thousand spears of Val-Roc flooded the courtyard, quickly disarming the dazed, broken magi and securing the stairwells of the lower redoubt.
At the far end of the courtyard, before the spiraling grand staircase that ascended toward the high sanctum of the spire, stood Grand Magus Elidor.
He was an ancient man with a long silver beard bound in gold rings, his opulent robes embroidered with the celestial constellations of the Old Empire. In his trembling hands, he gripped an ornate astrolabe that spun with wild, erratic speed, its central lens reflecting the rhythmic pulses of the Fourth Shard hovering at the top of the tower.
"Barbarians from the waste," Elidor hissed, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and aristocratic disgust. "You broke the thrones of men, but you cannot claim the heavens! The Astral Tear is bound to the celestial orbit! If you attempt to seize it by force, it will tear the island from its bedrock and plunge us all into the abyss!"
Malakor stepped forward, his heavy boots crushing a shattered fragment of a bronze tentacle into dust. He towered over the trembling Grand Magus, the sheer heat radiating from his chest causing the old man’s beard to singe.
"You speak of heaven, old man," Malakor rumbled, his voice dropping into a dark, terrifying purr as he raised his great sword, resting the flat of the smoking blade against Elidor’s shoulder. "I tore down the Emperor who built your order. I took his throne, and now I have come for your toy."
Elidor’s knees buckled under the weight of the steel and the suffocating pressure of Malakor’s aura. He looked to Aurelia, seeking mercy, but found only the cold, unyielding silver of a sovereign who had transcended mortal limitations.
"Your order ends today, Elidor," Aurelia said softly, her voice cold as the grave. "Lead us to the high sanctum, or bleed upon these steps."
Elidor’s astrolabe slipped from his numb fingers, clattering onto the flagstones. He bowed his head into the ash, his proud spirit completely shattered.
"The way is open, High Sovereign," the old man choked out.
Malakor turned to Aurelia, his crimson-flecked eyes meeting hers with fierce, triumphant heat. He extended his free hand, his fingers intertwining with hers in an ironclad grip.
"To the top of the spire, Aurelia," he murmured, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her knuckles. "Let us claim the Astral Tear."