Void's mind raced.
Something had collapsed the rift from outside.
That was the only explanation, but it no longer mattered why it had happened. No. Instead, he was focused on how.
Elsie was guarding the portal. If the attack managed to get through her, then the situation in Freehold was worse than I thought.
He ran the possibilities, and none of them were good. There were far too many variables and not enough answers.
Void's eyes darted to the blade.
"Zamyr. What do you know?"
The pale light along the blade pulsed. «I only know what you know, and only see what you see. I do not know what happened outside.»
"Can you open another rift? Get us out?"
Zamyr paused, a second longer than he usually did.
«No.» His voice lowered in tone. «That is a level of control I cannot yet exert on the world. It is beyond my ability.»
Void's jaw tightened.
«However.» Zamyr's gravelly voice reverberated in Void's ears.
«Right now, my senses are running wild. There is a presence here. Hiding in the crevices of space. Hiding in the folds between realities.» Something shifted in Zamyr's voice; it was old and curious, playing with the words it voiced out, as if solving a puzzle.
«I see. I see now.» Zamyr's voice rose a pitch, «There is a way out, O brother mine. A way that neither you nor I could have ever thought of. A rift out of here? It's possible, but only with him.»
Void frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Zamyr chuckled, his voice now barely a whisper, «It would seem that, unbeknownst to the two of us, O Brother, there was another. Another who survived.»
"Another what?" Void's voice turned solemn.
«Follow my lead, now! We cannot let it hide away again.»
The pale light along the blade shifted direction, orienting toward the Garden's eastern expanse.
Void stared at it for a moment. Then he moved.
"On me," he called back to the players ", We're moving."
"Moving where?" Waffles stepped forward. "The exit is literally gone. So where exactly are we—"
"To find a way out. Let's move."
The six players looked at each other, and curiosity burned in their eyes. What kind of event were they involved in now? The raid seemed genuinely over with the last fight, but with the exit gone, it had developed towards something no one had really expected.
The players didn't dally and followed Void into the Garden's depths.
-
"THE RIFT IS GONE!" Pahanin's voice cracked across the comms. "Void is trapped, the rift is gone, we need to—"
"STOP." Tevis stepped directly in front of him. "Stop."
"Tevis, he's—"
"I HEARD YOU." His voice sharply overwhelmed the noise. "Panicking won't open the rift; lock it down and fight. We figure the rest when we're still alive to figure it out."
Levi pulled Pahanin back by the shoulder. His own face was tight, jaw set, as he focused on swallowing his own thoughts that he didn't dare voice out right now.
Because right now, around them, Freehold was coming apart at every seam.
Omnigul drifted above the crater's centre, her ascendant fog thickening across every surface; Cabal soldiers dropped in clusters where it settled heaviest. The Vex were fighting tooth and nail, but even the Vex Mind seemed to be suppressed against Omnigul.
Shaxx and Wei Ning were bleeding energy fast against the Ogres, the two Gargantuan bodies only growing more furious with every exchange. Even with their two best titans, they could at most squeeze out a draw versus those monstrosities.
Aside from them, Kinox and Voshyr continuously suppressed the guardians. The Hive Knights behind them were grinding forward through everything the Guardians sent at them.
Tevis read the field in one sweep.
"Tuyet fireteam." He opened the channel. "We need to group. You're in. Praxic Fire, all of you, Eriana, Sai Mota, now. Group back, we'll need to push and find a way to reposition or retreat."
Eriana's voice came back without hesitation. "Finally."
"We can't move now." Gallida's voice was sharp. "If we abandon containment, the Gate Lord breaks out; we have no idea what happens after that."
Alemyr chimed in, his voice strained against his throat. "She's right. If we drop our guards, this thing will break out, and trust me, it won't be nice."
The voices grated against his ears. Tevis went still.
His eyes cut across the field. Omnigul and her fog. The Hive advances. The Daughters. The Ogres. Guardians holding on by margins that kept shrinking with every second.
Something shifted behind his expression.
"Say that again," he said quietly.
"If we leave containment, the Gate Lord—"
"Breaks out." Tevis's eyes widened. "And what happens to the Vex when their Gate Lord breaks free?"
Silence fell across the channel.
Alemyr grasped his words and turned slowly from the prison. Across from him, the Stoic's grimace deepened into something that wasn't quite agreement but was moving toward it. Isodel looked between them; Uzoma said nothing.
"The Vex are getting pinned," Tevis said. "The Hive have their number right now; their Gate Lord breaks free, and the Vex respond with everything they have. Spatial rifts, Minds, full force. The Hive have to contest that." He paused. "A Vex escalation is exactly what we need right now."
"If it gets loose, we will never get it back," Uzoma replied, "F*ck, there's a chance this thing will just turn on us right now and kill us first."
Tevis chortled. "I hear that. But if we don't release it, I guarantee we'll all get buried in this crater. Between you and me, if it really is a gamble, then I am damn well willing to take my f*cking chances."
"I don't care what other reasons there may be," Tevis spoke again, this time turning towards the chaotic battlefield. "But you better make a decision. Now."
Alemyr and The Stoic shared a long glance; they understood what they risked. They understood everything. Finally, the Stoic exhaled through his nose.
He gave a single nod.
Both Alemyr and The Stoic released the containment at the same time.
The prism shattered, and the spectral chains dissolved instantly. The astral prison's walls collapsed inward as the light across its surface died. Inside, when the Gate Lord registered the absence of constraint, its shriek tore through the crater without warning, shaking the stone, shaking the ruins, shaking the bones of every Guardian in Freehold.
A fraction of a second later, the Gatelord vanished, dissolving into space, and reappearing above Freehold.
It shrieked again. This time, with a strange lattice power that spread across the crater. The Vex responded immediately.
Every rift above the crater tore wider at once, each one bleeding violent light into the smoke-choked air. Three Vex Minds crossed through in rapid succession, their chassis radiating the cold authority of Axis constructs deployed at maximum priority; their arrival reconfigured the Vex formation across the entire battlefield within seconds.
The Gate Lord now crossed into the Hive lines, bending space along its lattice barriers and creating small gaps in space that collapsed inwards with a sharp snap.
Omnigul's fog rippled and contracted, her attention pulling from the destroyed rift toward the Gate Lord as it tore through her fog and slaughtered her army. Kinox and Voshyr's chains loosened; the Daughters pulled their power back, fracturing their suppression across the Guardians to respond to the new threat cutting through their army.
The pressure on the Guardians eased by a fraction.
But Tevis didn't celebrate it; he watched the three Vex Minds anchor their formations around the Gate Lord and drive into the Hive lines with a coordinated force that the Hive hadn't encountered from the Vex until this moment. The Cabal, given breathing room for the first time since the Tomb Ships descended, reformed their tanks and opened fire into the chaos from range.
The balance of Freehold had shifted again; now, the Hive itself faced an ancient enemy. An enemy that could counter even their ascendant magic and was entirely unaffected by their wicked illusions.
As the Hive and Vex cut at each other's throats, Levi leaned against a wall, chest heaving, and watched it all churn across the crater. Beside him, Pahanin and the others were focused on getting the injured guardians away from the front lines.
He glanced at the rear; warlocks like Eriana had already set up their healing formations, doing their best to nurse the wounded. Levi's breath settled, and he looked back to Tevis, anxiously awaiting new orders.
It was then that he noticed that Tevis's eyes were glued to the sky. He paced towards Tevis, but as he neared, his steps slowed, and his eyes drifted upwards.
"Huh."
Levi looked up. Hundreds of Warsats hung above Freehold, covering one edge of the crater to the other, and only one word came to mind.
"Motherfu—"
-
A/N: Throw stones! If I get a few shiny ones, I will upload a new chapter tomorrow.