The void of the Helios-9 system, once a silent graveyard of drifting gas and starlight, had become a theatre of hidden tensions. The Kyros Hegemony, a Tier 15 colossus that had stood for eons, did not take kindly to the "glitches" that had claimed their scout ships.
To them, Eternia was a rebellious ant hill that had somehow acquired a magnifying glass, and they were finally ready to bring down the boot.
Inside the Imperial Palace, the atmosphere was thick with a double life that Aegis and Bella struggled to maintain. While the High Command moved toward a total war footing, the residential wings were filled with the sights and sounds of a peaceful nursery.
This was the sanctuary Aegis had built at the cost of a thousand years of dilation, and he guarded it with more ferocity than he guarded the planetary core itself.
