"Four Sentinels!" Jibril shouted, throwing out a wave of darkness. "Left flank, closing fast!"
"I see them!" Atasaiah replied. He reached deep into Spessia with his ether and grabbed onto as much rock as he could. Right before the Sentinels passed his trap, cannons firing into Jibril's wall of darkness, he brought the rock up. Spikes tore through their formation, impaling them as they charged forward. He avoided killing blows as much as he could, trying to disable weaponry or kill the monks without harming the Titans. But they were moving too fast for him to aim reliably.
"Star squadron!" Jibril called out. She twisted around, throwing out a wave of darkness behind them. Atasaiah turned, ripping two spikes out of the ground from beside Morent as he ran, but Jibril's darkness proved more than enough. It engulfed the Stars and threw them off course, crashing them into the nearby trees. For good measure, Atasaiah uprooted one and threw it across their path, hoping to keep any ground forces from following them.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Not that I can see," she replied. "I think that's the last of them for now."
"Finally," he muttered, collapsing against the side of Morent's saddle.
"Not much longer until we reach the coast," Morent said, leaning his head back to look at Atasaiah. "How are you all holding up?"
"We…" Atasaiah glanced back at the rest of their pitiful group. This retreat had begun with four hundred refugees and eighteen Drivers, and now they were down to one each. The golden-haired boy they'd picked up was still huddled against the saddle, clutching a Core Crystal to his chest. He kept muttering something to himself, but otherwise hadn't really done much. He'd been in shock like that since they'd found him. The real problem was their Driver.
Hasmehd was likely the last surviving Driver of Addam's militia, as far as Atasaiah could tell. After they were separated from the Paragon and his Driver, they'd been systematically slaughtered, but Hasmehd had kept fighting to the bitter end. Now he was struggling to hold his guts in while they made their escape. Pretty soon, he'd be dead, and so would the two of them. Unless they did something soon, Morent and the Tornan boy would be all alone.
"That bad?" Morent asked.
"I'm not out of the fight yet," Hasmehd grunted.
"Save your strength," Jibril said. "Can't have you dying on us before we can get you somewhere safe."
"Jibril…" Atasaiah looked at her, trying to communicate what he was thinking without saying it aloud. Where were they supposed to go? He was a tough Driver, but at the end of the day, he was only human.
"What?" Hasmehd asked. "Giving up on me already, Sai?"
"No. But where are we supposed to go?"
"We'll figure it out," Morent said. "If anyone call pull through, Hasmehd can."
"Darn right," Hasmehd said. "Once I get stitched up, we go find Addam and the others. Figure out how we're going to pay these fuckers back for everything they—"
He coughed, spewing blood across the saddle. Shit.
"Hey kid," Atasaiah asked, jostling the Tornan boy. He didn't respond, so Atasaiah shook him harder. "Kid!"
The kid looked up at him, blank eyes barely understanding.
"That Blade of yours," he said, pointing down at the Core Crystal. "Were they a healer?"
"Haze…" The boy shook his head. "She was…"
"Fuck me," Atasaiah muttered. "That's Haze!?"
"Oh no…" Jibril slumped against the saddle too, head in her hands. Haze had been one of Addam's companions. Her Driver, Lora, was the Paragon's Driver. If she was dead, if even the Paragon of Torna couldn't stand up to the Praetorium, then they really were screwed.
No. No time to think like that. Focus on the problem at hand.
"She was a healer, though, right?" Atasaiah asked again. When the boy didn't reply, he reached over and wrenched the core out of his hands. He protested weakly, but he was already in too much shock to do much of anything.
"Atasaiah!" Jibril shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you!?"
"I'll apologize later," he said. "If Hasmehd can—"
He stopped as he studied the Core Crystal in his hands. It was dark. Of course it was. The Paragon had been alive a few hours ago. There was no way Haze's core would be ready to resonate again so soon.
"Sorry," he muttered, tossing it back to the kid. "I thought maybe…"
"This is what I get for never finding a good healer," Hasmehd muttered. "We make it through a year of fighting face-to-face with Gargoyles, and this is what finally does it? A stray fucking spear jab from some dough-faced virgin monk?"
"You are not dying," Jibril said. "I won't let that happen."
"I appreciate the sentiment, Jibril, but…" He took his hand away from his stomach for a moment, showing her the gash across it. There was too much blood for Atasaiah to really make out anything. "I think I can feel my intestines slipping."
"I did not need to know that," Atasaiah said.
"Some of the other Titans must have made it out," Morent said. "Tenax, at the very least. We'll find them, maybe they've got healers on hand."
"Better than waiting to die," Jibril said. "Any idea where they might have gone?"
"Somewhere the Praetorium wouldn't be able to follow, at least not without breaking off their assault. I can see the coast now, so we can start by—"
The ground around Morent exploded, throwing everyone off his back. Atasaiah tore up spikes of earth as he rolled, hurling one the second he laid his eyes on the closest Sentinel. There was a squadron of five perched on a ridge overlooking the coast. Here to catch anyone who tried to flee by sea, probably. And they'd walked right into the trap.
Before another volley could hit, he erected a wall of earth to shield the two humans. By the time he was done, Jibril was already on her feet and running for the enemy. He manifested a volley of spears to back her up, pulling rocks out of the ground to form the projectiles. He could feel his focus slipping, so their construction was a little shaky, but all they had to do was weigh a lot and hit really hard. He could manage that, at least.
The Sentinels blasted most of his spears out of the air before they landed, but even the destroyed ones managed to blast the enemy with a rain of high-speed rock fragments. The one that survived struck a Sentinel on the edge, tearing through the artillery on its back and killing the rider instantly. As the ether diffused out of the spear, Atasaiah diverted it, driving it into the ground to form new, smaller spikes that shot up around the others. Now they were unable to move, and Jibril had finally reached them.
She jumped and swung her fans out, blanketing the whole squadron in darkness. Slowly, she suffocated the monks trapped within, giving Atasaiah the cue to move in closer. He did so, reaching out with more ether and erecting walls around the squadron, Titans and all. They'd survive what was about to happen, but their human handlers wouldn't be so lucky. Jibril's darkness was already restricting their movements, but now any of the monks lucky enough to be near the edge had no hope of escaping. It was only a few more seconds before Jibril flashed the all-clear.
Immediately, Atasaiah looked to Morent, seeing if he was back on his feet yet. Hopefully the saddle was still intact, otherwise they'd be—
Morent hadn't gotten back on his feet yet. In fact, he was missing several feet to get back on to. The blast had severely injured his front limbs and burned a nasty gash across his neck. He lay collapsed against a nearby tree, barely moving to breathe.
"Shit," Atasaiah muttered. "Morent! You alive?"
"I'm fine," Morent replied. "But that last hit really took it out of me. It'll take me a few minutes to get back on my feet."
"A few minutes? That looks a lot worse than a few minutes."
"Core's still intact," Morent said. "We're no Blades, but Titans are still remarkably resilient. If you want, you can fetch some Cloud Sea, though. Help speed things along. The shore shouldn't be too far."
"I don't think we have that long." Atasaiah glanced back at Hasmehd and the Tornan boy. Both of them were unconscious. Or, at least Hasmehd was, because they were still alive. The boy might've been dead.
"Atasaiah!" Jibril shouted, running up to him. "What the—" She stopped when she got a good look at Morent. Immediately she switched course, running over to check on Hasmehd.
"How is he?" Atasaiah asked.
"Shit!" was all she said in reply. "Shit shit shit! Don't you die on me, asshole! You hear me!?"
"How is he?"
"He's…" Jibril looked around, trying to find something to help him with, and came up short.
"He's dying, isn't he?"
"He was dying before. Now… We've got a minute. Maybe two."
"Fuck… You know, Jibril, we could—"
"No," she said.
"But—"
"No!" she shouted, whirling around to face him. She was crying. "We swore an oath, Atasaiah! No matter how bad this war got, we swore we'd never stoop to eating people! We are not breaking that oath now!"
Atasaiah sighed. It was hardly an oath. Really, it was the one definitive order their Driver had ever given them. No matter how bad things got, they were prohibited from eating people, be that him or anyone else. He'd wanted to die with dignity when the time came, and for whatever reason he thought they should too. But there was no dignity in this.
He looked past Jibril at Hasmehd, slowly bleeding out against the wall of stone. He wasn't even conscious anymore, but his orders still held so much weight. The idea of disobeying felt wrong on every level. Enough to make Atasaiah sick to his core. But if it was between that and dying, he could stomach feeling sick.
Jibril, however, clearly didn't feel the same way. As he stepped forward, she drew her fans, placing one against his neck.
"Don't," she said. "I won't let you."
"There's no reason we should have to die too," Atasaiah said. "I don't like it any more than you do, but someone has to keep going. Someone needs to pay the Praetorium back for everything they did."
"Hasmehd wanted to die in peace. I'm not going to let you take that from him."
"I…" Atasaiah looked around. There wasn't time for this. Already he was feeling weak. Fighting past Jibril would take far too long; there had to be a better way to do this. Then his eyes settled on Morent. There was no guarantee it would work, but at this point… He didn't see any better options.
"Fine," he muttered, turning back toward Morent. "No eating humans."
He stepped forward, placing a hand on Morent's neck.
"I'm sorry," Morent said. "I wish there was more I could do."
"There is," Atasaiah muttered, manifesting his main spear. Jibril realized what he was doing a moment too late. She shouted, running for him, but he moved faster. He drove the spear into the area around Morent's core, carving it out with one swift strike. Then before Jibril could stop him, he bit into it. No matter what, he was not going to let himself die here.
…expiration-transmit-archive/update/reset-{ark.2E3A0,ark.15D6A}-receive-archive-{ark.2E3A0,ark.15D6A}-error-{archive.15D6A}-unreadable-transmit-archive-{ark.15D6A}-error-{ark.15D6A}-unresponsive-dump-{ark.15D6A}-subprocess-begin-diagnostics…
The words struck him like a typhoon, too fast for him to keep up. If he focused, he could pick out individual phrases, but they had no meaning for him. And even if they did, there was no time to understand them. The rush of information was too fast for him to process. An endless stream of noise that cascaded from one out-of-context sound to the next. After a minute or so, he gave up trying to make sense of it. Only then did he wonder where exactly he was.
He couldn't see or feel anything. And the only thing he could hear was the sound of the stream. Wherever this was, he barely seemed to exist at all. No body, just thoughts fighting to be heard amidst the noise. Had eating Morent driven him mad? Maybe that was the reason he'd never head of a Blade eating a Titan before, even though they'd all heard the stories about the Flesh Eaters. Whoever tried it didn't tend to survive long.
Well, if he had lost his mind, then there wasn't much he could do about it. And if he hadn't, then he needed to figure out what had happened. He tried reaching out and found that, as he'd suspected, he didn't seem to have a body here. Wherever here was. The idea of reaching out barely made sense at all.
Despite the lack of body, however, he could still move. If he thought about walking forward, he could feel something shift around him. And the stream grew ever-so-slightly louder as he did. So he pressed on, moving until the stream drowned out every thought in his head. Then, eventually, he began to see.
There was a hill, gently sloped, with a lone tree perched at the top. He could feel the ground beneath his feet, now. The grass swaying gently against his leg as the breeze passed over it. Wherever he was, it was a far cry away from the massacre in Spessia.
He could still hear the stream, too, flowing past him and up the side of the hill. It was still only noise, but it seemed calmer here, somehow. Less rushed, more structured. It seemed to gather by the tree, and that's when Atasaiah noticed the woman standing in its shade.
She had bright-red hair, the kind only Blades could realistically have, and wore a red and black outfit. Tassels on her waist fluttering in the wind behind her, and soft green lights glowed at various points along her body. She seemed to be humming to herself. He could hear her clearly, despite the distance between them and the stream of noise that should have drowned her out. It was like her voice suppressed everything else around her. Even the wind.
He took a step toward her, and immediately the humming stopped. She turned, shock plain as day on her face, and for a moment the stream of noise cut out entirely. As she stepped toward him, hands pulled to her chest, he noticed her Core Crystal. Cross-shaped and green. She looked different than he remembered, but admittedly he'd only ever seen her from a distance. And there was no mistaking that core. She was the Aegis.
"Who are you?" she asked. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. "You shouldn't be here."
"I'm with Addam's militia," he said. "We were—"
"Stop," she said. "Whatever it is you're going to say, I don't want to know."
"But… You're the Aegis. You stopped Malos. We need your help, the others—"
"I said stop!"
She slammed her fist against the tree, and Atasaiah lost the ability to speak. He tried to shout, but no sound came out.
"I came here to get away from all the fighting. I don't know how you found me, but I can't help you. Leave."
She… She was the Aegis. She saved the world. How could she not help them now, when things were more desperate than ever? The Praetorium had massacred thousands of refugees, and she couldn't muster the courage to stand against them?
Fuck that. He didn't know what had happened to her during the battle with Malos, but there was no excuse for letting the Praetorium kill everyone. There was no excuse for turning her back on the people she was supposed to protect. He stepped forward, reaching to manifest his spear, intent on dragging her back to Spessia if he had to. She was going to help them. He wouldn't give her a choice in the matter.
Then the Aegis stretched out a hand, and suddenly he felt his footing shift. His spear never materialized. He lost his balance and fell to his knees, and the stream of noise returned.
"I said leave," she muttered. Suddenly, violently, Atasaiah was thrown backward. He crashed through a tree line he didn't remember crossing and impacted a wall of light. Then the Aegis pushed against him again, and he fell through that too, losing his body again as he tumbled into the formless void outside.
There was noise again, but this time he could understand it. Not just words, but voices. People. Three people, to be precise. Humans. A younger man with short blonde hair, wearing a disheveled white robe. He carried himself with immense arrogance for his age. A young woman with long black hair, wearing a similar robe. She seemed calm and collected, the kind of person who could weather any storm. And then the third one, an older man with concerns beyond his years. He wore a military uniform, vaguely resembling something from Mor Ardain, but the symbology of which was entirely unfamiliar.
The three of them sat around a table in front of a large glass wall. Behind the glass floated a cross of golden light. Atasaiah had never seen anything like it before. He tried to look around, but he didn't seem able to move. And the people didn't seem able to see him either. He could only watch them, a silent observer intruding on their meeting.
"We need time," the woman insisted. "This is without a doubt the most important discovery of our lifetime. Perhaps the most important discovery in human history. But science cannot be rushed, director."
"Your job is to understand this thing," the older man said. Likely, he was the director. "My job is to keep this facility safe. Aoidos has gotten lucky so far, but ever since the Human Rights Protection bill failed, the Saviorites have been growing more militant. Some are making noise about taking the Zohar by force. It's time we broach the uncomfortable question of using the Zohar to defend the station."
"Theoretically?" the woman asked. "It's doable. The Zohar acts as a fixed energy gradient. No matter how much radiation it puts out, the temperature never decreases. It's… Fascinating, frankly. We could use it to power basically anything, provided we can figure out a way to extract the energy."
"Is that safe?"
"Considering what happened in Toronto? Not in the slightest. Linking with this thing is likely to rupture the entire—"
"I can make it work," the younger man said, interjecting. The woman rolled her eyes.
"Your 'Master Generator' barely nets four watts," she said. "And it's far from safe."
"It breaks even. It's doable. We just need to work out the particulars. Give me a couple months, maybe a year, and we'll be able to broadcast power directly to the Slave Generators. We could probably power the whole station with this thing."
"Excellent," the director said. "We'll need every advantage we can get. Coalition intelligence suggests the Saviorites are planning to strike one of the Authorities soon. Minos, if I had to guess. And if they take control of a tower Authority, it won't be long before they mount an assault on the whole station."
"Shouldn't be a problem," the younger man said. "Worst comes to worst, we'll just have the Trinity Processor take over. They should be able to fend off the Saviorites no problem."
"The Trinity Processor is not a weapon," the woman insisted. "And they aren't even close to being finished. They still need more time before they can properly function."
"I'll suppose we'll be making do with our second-gens, then," the director said. "Be sure to keep me appraised on your progress with the Slave Generators."
He stood up to leave, but after a moment he paused.
"There was one more question I had, actually. It's a matter of intellectual curiosity more than logistics, but… Do you have any idea what the Zohar actually is?"
"It's too soon to say," the woman said. "As best as we can tell, it functions as a bridge between our physical space and other physical spaces."
"Like parallel realities?"
"No," the woman said, at the same time the younger man said "Yes." They glanced at each other for a moment before laughing. A tense laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
"Someone going to let me in on the joke?" the director asked.
"Professor Klaus and I have… Differing opinions on the nature of the Zohar," the woman said.
"Remind me again," the younger man—Professor Klaus—said. "Which one of us here is the physicist?"
"That'd be me." She smirked. "Or did you forget I have two degrees?"
"Biophysics and particle physics are hardly the same thing. Not much cause to invoke Grand Unified Field Theory when studying neurons."
"More than you'd think. Would you like me to explain it to you?"
"Excuse me," the director said, interrupting them. "I expect you to keep at least the appearance of professionalism while I'm around."
"Yes sir," they both mumbled.
"Since you seem to have all the answers today, Professor, then why don't you enlighten me?" The director motioned at the cross of light. The Zohar. "What is it, in your opinion?"
"It is a symmetry-breaking process," the man said. "Think of reality as composed of many overlapping fields. These fields oscillate, and those oscillations couple together to produce waves. Interference of these waves is what generates all physical processes. All matter, and all the forces that act on that matter, are excitations of these fields. And these fields have certain symmetries that generate what we observe as conserved quantities. Momentum, energy, charge, spin, and so on are all the result of various symmetries inherent to these fields."
"This is becoming rather technical, Professor."
"I'm getting there," he insisted. "We've suspected for a while that the fields we know of aren't the whole picture. That there are physical phenomena lurking at the fringes of our understanding which do not fit the current paradigm. My thinking is this: everything we observe in our reality is one part of a much larger symmetry. The label I've conceived to describe the idea is the 'Domain Picture'. We exist in the so-called 'Lower Domain', occupying the lowest rung in a discrete ladder of reality."
"Ah yes," the woman said. "Baselessly invoking a symmetry without properly motivating it, then drawing as many conclusions as you please. Truly you are a theorist at heart."
"Spin," the professor retorted. "It took decades to unpack spin because everyone kept trying to make it fit classical analogues. How is the Domain symmetry any different?"
"People actually observed spin, for one."
"Am I missing something?" the director asked. "Isn't spin just when something is… spinning?"
"No," the pair said, almost simultaneously.
"I confess this discussion may have escaped me, then. Dr. Galea, if you would let the Professor finish?"
"Fine," she said. "Far be it for science or reason to get in the way of theory."
"Thank you," the Professor said. "Where was I?"
"Something about a ladder?" the director offered.
"Right. We here occupy the lowest rung on a discrete ladder. The Zohar is an object that connects us to the top of the ladder, the 'Upper Domain'. By forming that bridge, the symmetry is broken, and thus our current understanding of physics fails us. Energy is no longer conserved, time doesn't flow linearly, and so on. Now, this is where things start becoming conjecture."
"Yes, now it's conjecture," the woman said. "As if it wasn't already before."
"Hypersymmetry is a well-founded theoretical basis for—" The Professor cut himself off before getting into an argument. "Anyway, I think the Zohar should be capable of not only connecting us to this Upper Domain, but any Domain. If we can figure out the parameters that govern it, we should be able to connect ourselves to…" He paused for a moment.
"Professor?" the director asked.
"This is the part where I no longer have the adequate language to describe the idea. To say it could connect us anywhere implies we could use it to go wherever we want in space-time. But the Zohar's scope is much, much greater. It can take us more than anywhere. Other realities, different universes, none of the names really fit, but… If you can think of a state of existence, then the Zohar should be able to bridge us to it."
"It's an entertaining story," the woman said. "But it's hardly a coherent theory. It should go without saying, director, that what Professor Klaus has just outlined is not wholly motivated by a rigorous understanding of the facts."
"You're just upset because it's the best explanation we have."
"I won't deny that."
"How did it get here, then?" the director asked. "It seems like something too miraculous to just find lying in a lake in Kenya."
"That's the part that has me stumped," the Professor said. "Well, moreso than the rest, anyway. In theory, a large enough surge in energy should prompt a spontaneous Domain realignment and temporarily connect us with the Upper Domain. But you'd only see that kind of surge when a star goes supernova or after a compact binary merger, and even then, it'd be highly unstable. However it got here, you can bet the process was unfathomably destructive."
The conversation kept going, but the sound of their conversation began to fade, affording Atasaiah the ability to move again. As he looked around, the room changed. The glowing cross—the Zohar, whatever that was supposed to mean—was still in place behind the glass, but all the furniture was gone. In its place sat a triangular pillar with three cross-shaped holes. And in place of the people who'd been there before, there was now only one man.
He looked unfathomably old, with wrinkles deeper than some of Atasaiah's armor plates and a long, matted braid of hair that trailed on the floor behind him. Slowly, his eyes scanned the room before settling on Atasaiah. There was mild surprise, but mostly the man just looked tired. Defeated.
"Hello?" Atasaiah asked. "Where… Where are we?"
"You are exactly where you left yourself," the old man said. "Your mind has become lost in the stream of Blade data somehow, and you wound up here, but your body is still in…" He paused for a moment. "Spessia, judging by your last known location."
"Am I dead?"
"I wouldn't think so, no. Dead Blades get archived, and something about you refused to be archived. I would have looked into such an anomaly, once upon a time, but…" The old man sighed. "There's not much point in that anymore. The whole system's fallen apart."
"You…" Atasaiah thought for a moment. The holes in the pillar were shaped exactly like the Aegis cores. Was this…? "Are you the Architect?"
"I suppose I am," the old man said. Atasaiah stared at him, dumbfounded. He hadn't been much of a believer, but the existence of the Aegises at least proved something was at the top of the World Tree. He just never imagined it would look like this.
"You're Klaus," Atasaiah continued, recognizing something in the man's face. Despite his age, he bore a resemblance to the young professor he'd seen in his vision. Which meant that wasn't a vision of some strange, secretive Ardainian military project. That was a vision from a time when humanity still lived in Elysium.
"It has been…" the Architect paused. "A very, very long time since I've heard that name. I take it the Zohar decided to share some of my past with you, then."
"I don't know what it showed me, but… I saw you. In here, with a woman and a military official. You… You're not a god. You're just a man, like the rest of us."
"I never claimed otherwise. It was your Praetorium that decided the Divine Architect of Alrest must exist, not I. It just so happens that I more or less served in that role once upon a time. But I am very much human. I have no more sway over the affairs of Alrest than any of you who inhabit it. In fact, I seem to have rather less, these days."
Those words seemed to break something in Atasaiah. When the Praetorium had come after the refugees, he's simply accepted that they'd made themselves enemies of the Architect somehow. That eventually, they would have to fight him too. It had made a kind of sense. The Architect had sent the Aegis to wipe them out, and now that the Aegis was dead, the Praetorium would do the job in his place. But now he realized the Architect hadn't sent a damn thing. The Praetorium had done all that on their own.
"Then why!?" Atasaiah growled. "Why are they killing people in your name? Why did the Praetorium slaughter my friends? My family!? Why did everyone have to die!?"
"Humans do what they have always done." The Architect shrugged. "I suppose it is in their nature. I have no power to stop them. There would be no point in trying. Even my so-called followers seem obsessed with their own destruction. The one man who came to find me was so blinded by his own hatred he did not notice my presence. Either that, or the Zohar kept me from his sight for fear he might kill me. When he found this place empty, he stole the objects you call Aegises and left."
"No… No, there has to be a reason. Why would the Praetorium kill so many innocent people unless it served some kind of goal? What are they after? You have to know that much."
"They seek death," the Architect said, as if it should have been obvious. "The man who stole the Aegises was so full of hatred that it has consumed him, and now he cannot conceive of a world without it. He cannot live in a world without it, and he resents the idea that anyone might try. So he has decided to inflict his suffering on others to justify his emptiness."
"That sounds… Rather specific."
"I am speaking from experience."
"How do I get back, then? How do I stop him?"
"You cannot. This is simple human nature."
"Fuck that," Atasaiah said. "I didn't lose everyone I cared about to simply give up just because some sad-sack like you told me it was going to be hard. Now tell me how to get out of here."
"If you really wish to stop the Praetorium, then…" The Architect looked back at the Zohar. "I dread to suggest it, but the Zohar has been a source of immense knowledge for me. Knowledge it would have been impossible to acquire otherwise. If there is a way at all for you to stop the Praetorium, the Zohar will know. It is just a matter of convincing it to tell you."
"Alright…" Atasaiah studied it for a moment. "How do I get to it, then? You going to open a window?"
"You aren't even physically here, remember? Your mind has transferred throughout the station. You are already in the Zohar's chambers. You simply need to visualize yourself there."
Atasaiah still didn't quite buy his story about his body still being in Spessia. He could feel his arms and legs, for one. But it was at least worth a shot. He closed his eyes and imagined himself inside the Zohar's chambers. And when he opened them, he'd moved. He now stood directly in front of the massive, glowing cross. It pulsed, ever so slightly, but otherwise it was basically inert.
As he reached out to touch it, though, something began to happen. It flared up the closer his hand got to it. And as he made contact, it suddenly began glowing brighter and brighter. Hotter and hotter, too, threatening to burn his palm. And as the light enveloped him, he could feel himself being dragged somewhere.
He found himself in a vaulted marble hall, lined with intricate columns and glasswork. Not unlike the stories he'd heard about the Praetorium. But the glasswork and the murals depicted scenes completely alien to him. A vast sea surrounded by mountains. People with wings adorning their heads bowing down in worship to a human-shaped Titan he didn't recognize. Skies full of creatures that resembled a blend of insect, bird, and deep-sea ray. None of it made any sense. Mor Ardain was supposed to be the only humanoid Titan still around, and he certainly hadn't heard of a continent populated by bird people.
Had the Zohar transported him to some lost continent? A Titan that had broken from its path around the World Tree, maybe? He'd wanted the Zohar to give him a way to fight back against the Praetorium. Were there allies here he could call upon? It was possible, but convincing a group of outsiders to join his cause wouldn't be easy. If he could even communicate with them at all.
As he moved through the halls, a circle inscribed in a nearby alcove began to flash. It glowed a bright blue, and a moment later, two people appeared, as if out of thin air.
One was a woman with large wings adorning her head, just like the figures in the murals. She wore an intricate red and silver outfit, with long frills flowing out to either side and a waistcoat covering one, but not both, of her legs. Her hair, also silver, had been put up in a bun, though it was hard to see behind her wings. And her shoulders were adorned with wing-shaped ornaments that reminded Atasaiah a little of the strange creatures from the murals.
Her companion, remarkably, was a human man. Ardainian or Tornan, by the looks of him, though with silver hair. Not exactly a common trait, but not impossible either. His outfit was much less ostentatious than the woman's. A simple blue coat, albeit lined with fur, and a pair of white leather boots. Did the other nations have some contact with these people? That would make negotiations go smoother.
As they stepped out of the magic alcove, however, Atasaiah noticed two things. Firstly, neither person seemed to notice his presence, despite the fact that he was standing right in front of them. As they moved through him, his suspicions were confirmed. Wherever he was, he was still only here in a spiritual capacity. His body remained in Spessia. More concerning, however, was the necklace around the man's neck. A red cross, the same exact shape as the Aegis's core.
Was he a Blade? Atasaiah couldn't feel any resonance from him, but he also couldn't feel the ether at all. Probably a side-effect of not currently having a body, but it meant there was no way to know for sure. There had been three cross-shaped impressions in the Architect's room, and yet there were only supposed to be two Aegises in Alrest. One, now that Malos was dead. Was this man the third? Was this the ally he could use to defeat the Praetorium? There was only one way to find out. Now he just needed to find a way to contact the man. To that end, he followed them as they walked through the halls.
"That ungrateful bastard!" the woman shouted. "We've served the imperial family for generations, and all it takes for him to kick us out is one dissenting opinion?"
"Careful," the man responded. "You wouldn't want anyone to overhear us."
"Let them," the woman huffed. "Honestly, I'm tired of waiting around. The High Entia get less pure with each passing generation. A few more centuries, and they'll barely even be High Entia anymore. And where will that leave us?"
"Have a little faith, Lorithia. You and the Bionites have bought us an incredible amount of time, but the consort system constrains us greatly. Honestly, I'm surprised it took until now for the imperial family to finally do away with the Order."
"What do you suggest we do, then? Without pressure from the Order, Emperor Lumian will choose the second consort's daughter. One more step toward oblivion for all of us. We'll have three generations to act, maybe four, before it all falls apart."
"Plenty of time."
"Plenty of—" Lorithia scoffed. "If that old buffoon would hurry up and find a suitable Heir, we wouldn't be in this mess. What are we supposed to do if the time comes and we've got no Telethia left?"
"Ose Tower is still sealed." the man said. "But it will open when the time is right. I forsee the Machina will set plans in motion against the Bionis. Once Egil is finally confident enough to begin his assault, the Tower's override will trigger. He'll do the rest. You just need to have a little patience."
"Bloody machines. I say we march our forces there and put an end to them now. If we force their hand, it'll get us what we need, and we won't have to worry about running the clock down."
"What army do you suggest we fight them with? The Homs colonies? They can barely manage to put together decent firearms. And we've lost so much of the old technology, while the Machina still have all their machines left to throw at us."
"What do you suggest we do, then? Wait for them to wipe us out? Are we really going to let Meyneth's rats win?"
"I very much doubt Meyneth has any say in their actions anymore. But if you're so concerned about our chances, then why don't you do something about it? The Ministry of Research could use a firm, guiding hand. Perhaps you could develop new weaponry for when the Mechonis begins its assault?"
"I'd love to, but the Emperor just exiled me, remember?"
"Well…" The man smiled. "I'm sure if you plead your case, convince him that you've had a change of heart and abandoned the Order, then he might be willing to let you back into the fold."
The woman stopped, glaring down at him. He smiled up at her, a very genuine smile.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"It is simply what I have foreseen. As blessed as the three of us have been, we are still tied to the motions of the ether. You will earn your place back into the imperial court one way or another, of that I am confident."
"Bastard. I ought to send you back to the backwater colony we pulled you from."
"It'll do you little good, I'm afraid. You aren't the only one fated to remain by His Majesty's side."
"Of course." She sighed. "Are you at least going to help me?"
"I'm afraid I have a prior engagement. But I have the utmost confidence in your abilities. You'll be head of the Ministry in no time at all."
"The things I do…" Lorithia shook her head and started heading further down the hall. "I expect you to keep me updated from now on, alright? No more surprises."
"No more surprises," the man agreed. He waited, watching Lorithia disappear into another circle, before turning around.
"So," the man said, glancing over at Atasaiah. "To what do I owe the pleasure of a visitor like yourself?"
"Me?" Atasaiah asked. "You can see me?"
"I can see the future. Reading your presence in the ether is comparatively trivial."
"What is this place? Who are you?"
"It seems rather rude to ask such things without introducing yourself first. This is the Imperial Palace. Manners are to be expected at all times. Wouldn't you agree?"
"I… I guess so. My name's Atasaiah." He stretched out his hand, realizing a moment later that the man wouldn't be able to shake it. Except he did. He reached out and gripped Atasaiah's spectral form with ease, giving it a firm shake.
"Alvis," the man said. "And what brings you here, Atasaiah, in such a form as this?"
"It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best. I'm a survivor from Addam's militia. We were attacked by the Praetorium, and I'm not sure how many of us made it out. I've been looking for a way to take the fight to them and get some payback."
"Praetorium?" Alvis asked. He frowned. "That's curious. I'm not familiar with such a group."
"You guys don't have the Praetorium out here? How long have you been separated from Alrest, exactly?"
"Alrest?"
"You don't know what Alrest is?"
"I cannot say I am familiar with the term."
"Alrest is the world. Or at least it's what we call the world. Your Titan must've wandered off course somehow, but I'd figured you had to have some contact with the others since… Well I don't mean to be rude, but you're clearly not like the others. The bird people."
"The High Entia," Alvis corrected him.
"Right. You've got to be Ardainian. Or Tornan? I'm not sure. But you're human, at least, so—"
"Human," Alvis said, cutting him off. "That is a word I've not heard in a very long time indeed. You think I'm human?"
"Well, at I'd figured you were a Blade, given that." He pointed to the Core Crystal hanging around Alvis's neck. "Though I guess it isn't yours. No Driver aptitude?"
"You know what this is?" Alvis asked, lifting the necklace up.
"It's an Aegis Core. I've spent the better part of a year helping one Aegis to stop the other from leveling every continent in Alrest. Honestly, how far isolated are we?"
"Much further than you realize, I suspect. It is not often that something occurs beyond the scope of my perceptions, which is why I was so eager to talk to you. I think I am beginning to understand, now. Tell me, how did you arrive here, exactly?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"I have a feeling I will."
"Well… I've been having something of an out of body experience, which is why… This." He motioned at himself. "I met the Architect—turns out he's just some old man—and he told me that I might find a way to defeat the Praetorium if I talked to this thing called the Zohar. It's kind of like a giant cross made of light. So I tried my luck, but when I touched it, it spat me out here."
"I see." Alvis nodded. "So the other side survived intact after all. I'd always hoped that was the case, but it's good to know for sure. And it is a relief to know humanity has survived. I hope things in your Alrest have been going well."
"Other than the war that nearly destroyed the world? Or the Praetorium massacring all my friends? I suppose I can't complain."
"War, is it? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It almost seems inherent to human nature." He sighed. "I wish I could help you, but I must remain here. There are still answers I must find here."
"You won't help?" Atasaiah asked. "No, that's not—You can't! You have to help! Why the hell else would the Zohar send me out here!?"
"That is a good question. I have not known the Zohar to take frivolous action. Perhaps…" Alvis studied him for a moment. "I see. Perhaps I could read your future and find the answer?"
"You can do that?"
"I can do a great many things. Reading the flow of the ether is simple enough. Your presence acts as a bridge to your side, so I should be able to read your future as I would any other. But the Zohar is muddling my vision, so it will be somewhat limited in scope."
"I'll take anything," Atasaiah said. "I'm not giving up until I put the Praetor in the ground myself. If you can give me any kind of advantage, then do it."
"Very well."
Alvis reached out, placing his hand over Atasaiah's eyes. There was a bright flash of blue light. And then Atasaiah began to see visions.
Titans dying in droves. The new Praetor using his power to slowly choke the world. The Aegis Malos returning. A second Aegis War raging across Alrest. The Paragon of Torna climbing the World Tree with Malos to kill the Architect. The Aegis Mythra destroying them at the cost of her life. The World Tree collapsing. The Architect and the Zohar vanishing. The Titans forming one giant continent. And finally, the fall of the Praetorium.
He felt a twinge of sadness. If this was his future, then where was he in these visions? Was he not able to destroy the Praetorium? Would he spend the rest of his life struggling in vain, waiting for the Aegis to save them? The Aegis who didn't care whether they lived or died? The Aegis that had run away? Fuck that.
He nearly told Alvis to stop, but the visions continued, and he saw new developments. The Blades formed their own nation, rallying around Gwynn's Blade, Clíodhna. She led them valiantly, but ultimately the human nations did not permit their existence. The collapse of the Praetorium sparked innumerable conflicts, and as humanity struggled against itself and the Blades, they were unable to recognize their impending doom.
He saw the Cloud Sea dry up, and soon after, the last of the Titans died. Then, without the ether to sustain them, the Blades began to die as well. A great loss of life swept through the ruins of Alrest, and with it an equally great loss of civilization. Without the ether, human societies collapsed, driven back to a primitive age. Without the Titans to sustain them, they eked out a miserable existence in the wild lands left behind. And slowly, they too were driven to extinction.
After that, time stretched on into eternity, crushing everything he knew and loved into oblivion. The Sun grew red and bright in the sky, slowly engulfing the world. But eventually it too gave out, leaving behind only a bright cloud of gas and a white-hot speck. After uncountable time, that speck lost its light too, and then the world was truly inert. There weren't any stars in the night sky. There wasn't even a sky at all. There was just cold reality. And that was how it would end.
Except… Atasaiah could not see himself in these visions. Where would he be, as the Blades died and humanity collapsed and the universe slowly ground to a halt? Those visions came to him last.
Atasaiah saw himself wandering. Gathering resources and strange objects to his side. An old machine from the ruins beneath the World Tree. The Eye of Genbu. The inert Aegis Core. A curious Ardainian device. The details of how he came by these objects flew past him, too fast to properly understand, but he could follow those through-lines, at least. And as the world expired around him, he used these objects to enact some kind of plan. He couldn't save the world from its own destruction, but he could save himself. The Ardainian machine could convert the Titans into pure energy. The Eye of Genbu could control the Cloud Sea, allowing Atasaiah to draw the Titans to him. The old-world machine was able to connect the two, creating one large stream of controlled energy. And the Aegis Core contained the data he'd need to put it to use.
The Architect had speculated that summoning the Zohar took an incredible amount of energy. The device Atasaiah saw in his vision generated more than enough, converting the mass of every Titan into raw power and directing it all into a single point. With the data the Aegis possessed on the Zohar, he was able to tune that energy in a precise manner. Though he didn't understand the process, he could feel himself enacting it in the vision, and committed as much as possible to memory. When the process was complete, the Zohar stood before him. And he stepped through it, vanishing into a realm beyond death.
The visions ended, but the images were burned into Atasaiah's mind. He had little doubt they were the truth. The world would end. But he would refuse to end with it.
"Disappointing," Alvis said, taking his hand from Atasaiah's face. "I had hoped that side would suffer a better fate than this one, but it appears I was mistaken."
Atasaiah stared at him, unable to properly put his thoughts into words. He still reeled from everything he'd seen. He wanted to know more. Was there anything he could do? Was this the only course of action left? What about everyone else?
Before he could ask, however, he felt the Zohar begin to pull on him again.
"It appears your time here is up," Alvis said. "I am still unsure which of us was brought here to help the other, but… I dread to think what might happen should that future come to pass. You should know that my visions aren't—"
Whatever Alvis was about to say, the Zohar pulled Atasaiah back before he could finish.
Atasaiah awoke back in his body—his real body this time, encased in a shell of stone. He didn't know how he'd managed that. Maybe it had happened involuntarily, as his body reacted to Morent's core. He looked down to see his own Core Crystal had changed dramatically. Black veins, almost like a darkened core, had grown over much of it. But he was still alive.
The others weren't so lucky. Morent was dead, his body slowly fading, and Hasmehd had expired too. The Tornan boy was gone, though, along with Jibril and Haze's cores. Either he'd escaped or been taken by the Praetorium. Whichever one it was, it didn't matter much. Nothing mattered anymore. He realized that now.
He always knew he would die one day. But facing not only his own death, but every death, had left him empty. Getting revenge on the Praetorium seemed so trivial, now. There was no point in trying to enact justice when humanity itself was doomed to die. There was no point to any of their struggling. They might as well have let Malos finish what he started.
Fortunately, he had a way out. The world might have been doomed to die, but he wasn't going to die with it. He would summon the Zohar and escape the death that awaited the rest of reality. The visions, though brief, had assured him of that. And he had a plan for how to do it, too. He just needed to put it in motion.
Part of him felt guilty. Going through with this would mean letting the rest of his visions come to pass. The Titans would die. The Blades would die. Humanity would die. Eventually, the whole world would die. If there was a way to help everyone escape death, then it might have been worth pursuing. But if such a thing were possible, he would have seen it in those visions. The reality was, he would go through with this plan and save himself, because at the end of the day, he had to come first. He was going to escape this absurd reality, no matter the cost.
They moved quickly, tunneling through the flesh of Sthenos until they reached its head. The Titan's apex, from which they could control the rest of it. So long as they stuck to the plan.
It had taken unfathomably long. Many years were spent in meditation, reviewing the visions he'd seen and gleaning new details from the blinding rush. Many more were spent in preparation, ensuring the necessary pieces fell into place. Saving Strix from the Praetorium. Ingratiating himself with the Spessian government. Building the machine that further clarified his visions. Now, five hundred years of preparation were about to come to a head.
He had every piece he needed, now. The Morythan machine had bound itself to the Eye of Genbu. The Aegis Core was in his possession. And Dr. Jenal's machine was nearly complete. The team had not finished their final tests, but with the Banshee Queen closing in on him and Sthenos suspecting his betrayal, he could not afford to hesitate.
So, with every necessary piece in hand, he propelled himself and Kalarau to the head of Sthenos. To the head of the only remaining continental Titan capable of movement.
"Do you remember the plan?" Atasaiah asked.
"Do you?" Kalarau asked. "You only saw it in a vision."
"Once was enough," Atasaiah said. "So long as you play your part, then this will all be over soon."
He had lied to countless people in the course of conducting this plan. Lies that wouldn't ultimately matter, once he succeeded. But he had never lied to Kalarau once. The man wasn't interested in life or the future. He had no reason to stop Atasaiah. So he alone knew the full scope of what would occur here. And so long as it destroyed Sthenos in the process, he was willing to assist.
As they emerged atop Sthenos's head, the Titan let out a great roar, alerting its servants to their presence. They would need to move quickly. But so long as they stuck to the plan, they had nothing to fear.
He set the Ardainian machine between Sthenos's eyes, taking a moment to gaze out at the vast wilderness beyond them. Soon, this would all turn to dust. As lush as it appeared, it was fleeting. Impermanent. Destined to be erased one day. A beautiful, tragic reminder of the necessity of what he was doing.
Quickly, repeating the actions he'd seen dozens of times in his memories, he connected the Morythan machine to the Ardainian device, linking their ether streams into one large, interconnected network. A pulse of ether into the machine would force the Eye of Genbu to react accordingly, and with that, he could direct the Cloud Sea however he pleased, if somewhat crudely. But he did not need precision for what he was about to accomplish.
Legend held that the Eye of Genbu was Tantal's most powerful weapon, but Atasaiah knew it was more than mere legend. Hailing from a time before Tantal's independence from Torna, the Eye had been used by the Tornan royal family to direct the motion of their Titan. And to undo the seals on its power, should the need arise. It did this by controlling the Cloud Sea itself. The blood of the Titan. All it required was enough signal to direct the whole of the Titan's blood simultaneously. During the height of the Tornan Empire, they had possessed an amplification device for just such a purpose. But though that device was lost to time, he had found a suitable replacement.
The Aegis Core was continually receiving data of all kinds from every Titan and Blade in Elysium. Data that Atasaiah could still faintly perceive, if he focused his attention. With the proper tuning, he brought the Eye of Genbu into resonance with that signal, using the Aegis Core's data stream to broadcast his control over the whole of the Titan. Gaining precise control would be a process of trial and error, and during this period, he would be vulnerable. But after it was complete, he would have total mastery over Sthenos. And once that was complete, extending that control would be a trivial matter. He would be able to gather every remaining Titan to himself. And with the Ardainian machine to convert them to ether, he would finally be able to bring about the Zohar's return.
"Incoming," Kalarau muttered, manifesting his bow. Behind them, the rest of Sthenos's Handmaidens began to gather, here to kill them and take control of the device for themselves. He had led them to believe it would make Sthenos immortal. But that was a lie. It could do nothing for a Titan. They were simply its fuel source. But that would not stop these witches from trying regardless. Sthenos was desperate to forestall its demise, as were they all. He respected that drive to survive. But he would not let himself be undone now, when he was so close.
"Buy me time," Atasaiah said. He erected a series of spears, prepared to cast them out into the crowd of Handmaidens should the need arise. But Kalarau was his primary defense, here. The man had spent millennia in hiding. Stewing in his hatred of this place. And of these people. Now was the time to unleash the full force of that fury.
Kalarau unleashed a blast of pure, blinding ether into the gathering swarm. It disrupted their motions and delayed their response, and the longer the fight dragged on, the more ether he unleashed. It bought the necessary time. But eventually the Handmaidens reached their position, forcing Atasaiah to unleash his spears and cast his ether out to disrupt their efforts as well. But it only served as a distraction. The real threat was Kalarau. He fought with rapid intensity, tearing through the Handmaidens with his bare hands. And no matter what manner of spells they unleashed on him, he forced his way through regardless, his fury overpowering anything their magics might be able to conjure.
Until eventually, with a great bellow, Sthenos submitted, and Atasaiah had his control. With a thought, he cut off the Handmaidens' ether, dooming them to oblivion against Kalarau's unrelenting fury. He tore his enemies apart and feasted on their residual ether, but now that the fight had reached its natural conclusion, Atasaiah no longer paid it any mind.
With a wave of his hand, Sthenos began to lumber forward, sliding its serpentine body along the landscape. And Atasaiah directed it toward its final resting place.
Toward the Gardens.
Where he would finally bring an end to this farce.