The transition from the lush, data-rich interior of the Sovereign Array to the Western Wastes was like stepping out of a dream and into a furnace. Here, the sky was not the bruised violet of Z-Town, but a scorched, ochre yellow. The "Fracture" overhead was a jagged, static-filled tear that bled golden sand instead of light.
Kael stood at the prow of a scavenged sand-skiff, his Sovereign Vanguard mantle rippling in the abrasive wind. The platinum energy within his veins hummed a low, protective frequency, creating a microscopic barrier that vaporized the dust before it could touch his skin.
"Three miles to the Static Line," a gravelly voice rumbled from the back of the skiff.
Kael turned. Jax "The Iron-Lung" sat perched on a crate of Runic ammunition, his massive, scarred hands tightening the bolts on a heavy-duty hydraulic gauntlet. Every time Jax exhaled, the Runic bellows in his chest emitted a deep, metallic hiss, puffing out a cloud of steam that smelled of heated brass and ancient oil.
"The gravity is already starting to climb," Jax grunted, glancing at a crude mechanical pressure gauge welded to the deck. "Normal men would be feeling their knees pop right about now. My bellows are pulling double-time just to keep my blood moving."
"Stay steady, Jax," Kael said, his voice calm, carrying the weight of his Year 3 authority. "We don't need your strength yet. We need your anchor."
Beside Jax, Sia "The Weaver" was hunched over a holographic terminal, her fingers dancing through a lattice of light-filaments. She looked like a ghost in the desert—her pale skin and silver-trimmed Azure engineer's coat stood in stark contrast to the orange grit of the wastes.
"I've stabilized the skiff's internal dampeners for as long as I can," Sia reported, not looking up. "But the House of Terra isn't just using the Taurus Array for defense; they're using it as a weapon. They've tuned the gravity-well to a 'Rotational Flux.' The weight shifts every ten seconds. It's like trying to sail a boat through a whirlpool of lead."
In the corner of the skiff, almost invisible against the shadows of the rigging, sat Rin. The Mute didn't move, didn't breathe loudly, and didn't emit a single spark of Runic energy. They were a void in the world, a silent guardian whose very presence seemed to dampen the roar of the sandstorm. Rin sharpened a blackened obsidian katar, their eyes fixed on the horizon where the massive, iron-ribbed silhouette of The Bastion sat like a crouching beast.
"Lyra," Kael said, tapping his ear-comm. "Status of the Gemini Link?"
"Stable," Lyra's voice echoed in his mind, clear despite the miles of interference. She was back at the hidden "Sovereign Outpost," acting as the neural bridge for the team. "I'm projecting the Phase-Map directly into your retinas. Watch the ground, Kael. The high-gravity zone has created 'Sink-Holes'—spots where the pressure is so high it's collapsed the earth into pockets of infinite density. If the skiff hits one, you're not just stopping; you're being compressed into a pancake."
Kael looked ahead. The ground was no longer sand; it was a scorched, black glass—the result of a thousand years of pressure.
[SOVEREIGN STAR PROTOCOL: CALIBRATING] [ZODIAC ALIGNMENT: TAURUS — 5.4%] [WARNING: ENTERING THE 3X GRAVITY RADIUS] [SYMPTOMS: LUNG COLLAPSE, BONE FRACTURE, FLUID ACCUMULATION]
"Brace," Kael commanded.
The skiff hit the Static Line.
The sound was like a hammer hitting an anvil. The entire vessel groaned, the reinforced steel frame buckling as the weight of the world suddenly tripled. Sia gasped, her light-filaments flickering as she fought to maintain the internal dampeners. Jax slammed his gauntlets into the deck, his Gravity Anchor trait flaring to life. His body became a five-ton weight, pinning the skiff to the glass floor to prevent it from flipping in the erratic winds.
Rin simply shifted their weight, their "Void-Variant" nature allowing them to slide through the pressure as if it were a light breeze.
But Kael... Kael stood tall. He didn't use the Azure Slipstream to hide from the weight. He used the Aries-Azure Inertia. He stripped the kinetic gravity from his own body, creating a 2-meter bubble where the laws of the House of Terra did not apply.
"Target spotted!" Sia shouted over the roar of the wind.
Emerging from the dust were the Terra-Sentinels. These weren't men in suits; they were biological tanks—Genetic elites whose bones had been reinforced with high-density Runic minerals. They stood eight feet tall, carrying massive "Gravity-Hammers" that pulsed with a dark, tectonic brown light.
"They don't look friendly," Jax rumbled, the steam from his chest-bellows turning into a violent hiss. "Permission to clear the path, boss?"
"Wait," Kael said, his platinum eyes narrowing. "They're not attacking. Look at the ground."
The Sentinels weren't charging. They were standing in a circle, their hammers slammed into the glass floor. They were tuning the gravity.
[WARNING: TECTONIC CRUSH INITIATED] [ENERGY RADIUS: 500 METERS] [GRAVITY INCREASE: 10X... 15X... 20X...]
The skiff's engines screamed. The steel plating began to tear like paper. Sia's holographic terminal shattered.
"Jax, now!" Kael roared.
Jax leaped from the skiff, his massive frame hitting the glass floor with a sound that rivaled the Sentinels' hammers. "TAURUS... ROOT!" he bellowed.
Blue-black veins of Runic energy erupted from Jax's feet, anchoring him into the very bedrock of the planet. He grabbed the front of the skiff with his hydraulic gauntlets, acting as a living pillar. The 20x gravity slammed into him, his Runic bellows glowing red-hot as they fought to keep his heart beating, but he didn't budge. He held the team in place, a lone mountain in a sea of crushing force.
"Sia, find the resonance!" Kael commanded, his obsidian cloak flaring.
"I have it!" Sia shouted, her hands weaving a complex web of gold light-filaments in the air. "They're linked to a central emitter beneath the sand! If we don't break the link, Jax's lungs are going to explode!"
Kael looked at the Terra-Sentinels. They were confident. They were the "Kings of the Earth," and they had never seen a man stand up in a 20x gravity field.
Kael stepped off the skiff.
He didn't fall. He didn't sink. He walked across the glass floor as if he were strolling through a garden. Every step he took left a glowing, platinum footprint that didn't just crack the glass—it unmade the pressure.
[SYNC RATE: 86%] [ABILITY ACTIVATED: ABSOLUTE INERTIA — DIRECTIONAL VECTOR]
"You think the Earth belongs to you?" Kael's voice carried through the 20x gravity like a thunderclap.
He raised his hand, pointing at the lead Sentinel. He didn't use a "Decree." He used the Scorpio Reconstruction. He reached into the gravity-field itself and grabbed the "Weight."
"REVERSE."
In a fraction of a second, the gravity for the Sentinels didn't go up—it vanished. But Kael didn't just make it zero; he made it negative.
The eight-foot-tall biological tanks were suddenly launched into the sky like they had been fired from a catapult. Their 15x gravity hammers, still tuned to high-density, acted as weights that tore their own arms from their sockets as they soared hundreds of feet into the air.
Kael didn't look up to watch them fall. He looked at the massive, iron gates of the Bastion, which were now trembling as the gravity-well he had reversed began to destabilize the entire front wall.
"Rin," Kael whispered.
The Mute vanished. In the "Zone of Silence," Rin moved like a flicker of shadow, sliding past the remaining dazed Sentinels and reaching the gate's manual override. With a single, precise strike of the obsidian katar, the gravity-lock was severed.
The gates of the Bastion groaned and swung open, revealing a city built of heavy stone and misery.
Kael walked toward the entrance, his team falling in line behind him. Jax was panting, his bellows cooling with a loud hiss; Sia was already scanning the city's internal grid; Rin was back in the shadows, a silent ghost.
"Welcome to the Bastion," Kael said, the platinum light in his eyes reflecting off the iron walls. "Year Two starts today. And we're taking the ground back."
[DEAD MAN'S SWITCH: 09:12:45] [LOCATION: THE BASTION OF TERRA — INNER DISTRICT] [STATUS: OVERPOWERED]