Phaenora leaned over the seats, careful not to jostle them too much, and lightly tapped Vastarael's shoulder with two fingers, then Asenane's forehead right between her horns.
"Hey, wake up sleepyheads. We're here."
Vastarael stirred first. He yawned before instinctively tightening his arm around Asenane until awareness fully caught up with him. Asenane made a soft, displeased noise. Her tail flickered once before she reluctantly surfaced from sleep. Her eyes fluttered open. She realized where she was and who she was leaning on and promptly froze. Face heating up despite herself.
Phaenora smirked. She loved that reaction. Vastarael slowly exhaled, then sat up, rubbing the side of his neck.
"Already?"
"Yes, already. And you're going to want to see this."
That was enough to fully wake him. The moment he looked out through the massive observation windows of the Praesit, his expression changed completely.
"This is probably not a good place to be in."
Asenane followed his gaze and stopped breathing for half a second.
The Praesit had come to a dead halt. Ahead of them rose a structure so vast it distorted perspective itself. It was a Praesit station covered by nothing but crystal.
An enormous building was covered entirely of translucent crystalline masses. The tracks disappeared straight into it, swallowed whole by yet unnervingly precise crystal formations that blocked further movement. The crystal wasn't opaque, nor fully clear either. They hadn't returned to normal size after disembarking, meaning they stood at a scale where mountains felt like peers and yet even then, the station dwarfed them.
Veneri's Omniphage was reacting.
"There's an energy source in there. A massive one."
"How massive?"
Vastarael didn't answer immediately.
"Its too much that it's suspicious."
Without hesitation, he raised his hand and invoked the Divinity of Protection. Barriers covered their bodies. He then drew a lot of Protection Runes that embedded on their skin and vanished
"Stay close.
They stepped off the Praesit together. Up close, the station was… unsettling. It wasn't ancient in design, nor was it overtly alien. In fact, the moment they crossed the threshold, it looked painfully familiar to him.
Platforms stretched out in clean lines. Wide concourses opened into branching paths. Suspended holographic signs flickered overhead, revealing arrival boards, transit maps and platform assignments, glitching softly as though struggling to function without whatever system once sustained them. Shops lined the sides. Some holograms still looped advertisements in broken fragments, repeating half-phrases before dissolving into static. The floors refracted their reflections into fractured silhouettes. The walls glowed with a soft, white luminescence that replaced the need for artificial lighting. There were no visible light sources.
Even at their current size, the crystals towered over them. Pillars thicker than cities rose into ceilings that disappeared into refracted haze. They realized that if they had returned to normal scale, they wouldn't even qualify as dust here. They walked carefully. Their footsteps were oddly swallowed by the crystalline floor. Phaenora was about to comment—some half-joke about the place being weirdly aesthetic—when Vastarael stopped.
His eyes widened.
Before Phaenora could ask what was wrong, he moved instantly, covering her lips with his hand and pointed upward with the other.
Her eyes followed his gesture.
Below them, far below the elevated concourse. hung thousands upon thousands of creatures of gigantic bats.
Each one was easily the size of a fortress with their wings folded tightly around their bodies as they clung upside down to the vast crystal understructures beneath the station platforms. In realistic terms, they were upright since the Hidden Citadel is upside down...
Their forms blended eerily well with the environment. They had crystalline fur. They were also asleep. The air vibrated faintly with the sound of mass breathing. It was so deep that they felt it through the soles of their feet.
Asenane's tail went rigid. Phaenora didn't move.
Vastarael lowered his voice to a near-silent murmur.
"If they wake up…"
He didn't finish the sentence but they knew what would happen. They would be dead. But of course, Vastarael's Bane and Destiny took effect at that exact moment.
A sharp, piercing shrill ripped through the station. The luminescent walls trembled. The holograms overhead glitched wildly, exploding into static and fractured light. Vastarael felt it punch straight through his skull and rattle against his soul. Phaenora's hands covered her ears. Asenane staggered half a step. Even Vastarael's Divinity of Protection flickered. A shape detached itself from the crystal shadows above the platform. Its eyes burned faintly with pale luminescence, fixed directly on them.
It was a bat scout.
The bat's mouth opened and the shrill intensified. Below them, the sleeping mass stirred. Thousands of colossal wings twitched. Low, thunderous breaths turned to squeals as they began to wake.
"Each bat is at the Sixth Enlightenment? Just how strong are these bats?"
Asenane sucked in a sharp breath. "We're only Third."
Phaenora moved first.
Sapphire erupted from nothingness, forming directly inside the bat's open mouth that forced its jaws wider than they were ever meant to go. The bat let out a choked, distorted screech. Its sound turned into a wet, crystalline grind as the sapphire clogged its throat.
Before it could recover, Asenane hurled her arm forward. An ice spear manifested mid-motion as it tore through the air and slammed straight into the bat's torso. The impact echoed like a cannon shot, sending the creature hurtling backward into the crystal structures beyond. For half a second, it looked like it might have worked.
The ice spear exploded into fragments, scattering like glittering snow against the bat's chest. The creature barely reacted. Its wings snapped open mid-air, stabilizing instantly.
"It didn't even flinch?"
All around them, massive forms peeled themselves from the underside of platforms. Crystal dust rained down as thousands of bats detached at once.
Vastarael clicked his tongue sharply. "Ingenious Prince is still on cooldown. We are flying deeper."
He didn't wait for agreement.
Sapphire circles ignited beneath his feet in rapid succession as his body lifted instantly off the platform. He grabbed Phaenora around the waist mid-motion, pulling her close to him. Asenane summoned her wings in a burst of frost and draconic energy as she launched herself after them.
Behind them, the bar followed. The air itself seemed to buckle under the force as the swarm surged forward. Their speed was extremely horrifying for creatures of that size. Vastarael pushed his Flight Circles to the limit. Crystal pillars blurred past. Platforms became streaks of white light. The station's glowing architecture warped into elongated reflections as they tore through it. Phaenora twisted in his arms and threw her hand back. A sapphire wall erupted behind them, covering their flight path.
The first bat hit it head-on and the wall shattered instantly. The force barely slowed down the bat as it smashed through and kept coming.
"They're insanely durable!"
"I noticed!"
Vastarael snapped back, dodging sharply as a claw the size of a tower scraped past them, carving sparks out of crystal support beams. Asenane flew beside them as she narrowly avoided another bat surging up from below.
"Phaenora! Can you sense them?!"
She closed her eyes for a split second, focusing through the panic and the noise.
"Yes! Shimmer and Runner are deeper inside! We have to follow the tunnel!"
"What tunnel?"
"The Praesit tracks!" Phaenora pointed ahead. "They go straight through the station! Follow them!"
Vastarael didn't hesitate.
He turned sharply downward as they dove toward the massive rail tunnel carved straight through the crystal heart of the station. Behind them, the swarm followed.