The white light that erupted from the Primordial Alpha's scepter did not fade.
It didn't dissipate like the smoke of the forge or the mist of the sea; it
solidified into a pressurized dome of absolute, ancient authority. I stood at
the center of the Great Courtyard, my feet rooted to the diamond floor, the Gold
Ring on my finger pulsing with a heat that felt like a localized sun.
Around me, the world had come to a violent, biological halt.
The six thousand citizens of the Republic—warriors of the Vanguard and omegas of
the South alike—were pinned to the ground as if the gravity of the planet had
suddenly quintupled. Their faces were pressed into the moss and diamond-dust,
their bodies trembling with the instinctive, cellular terror of a creature
standing before its creator. Even Lucien, the King of the Sun-Crag, was on his
hands and knees, his Abyssal fire nothing more than a desperate, guttering
spark.
