The metallic floor of the Tri-Helios command center reflected the emergency lighting in long streaks of red and white, the overhead panels casting harsh shadows across the faces of the few researchers who had not yet retreated to their quarters or the evacuation bunkers.
Valerius's office had become a tomb in the hours since she had listened to the recorded interview. Its wall has never been so thin. Discordant voices were heared even across the Argus Steel walls arguing and shouting to one another, the sealed room holding the weight of a species' extinction like a glass holding poison.
She punched the wall. The impact sent shockwaves through her arm, the bones in her knuckles compressing against the reinforced alloy with a sound that echoed off the bare walls.
Pain lanced up to her elbow, bright and sharp, and she welcomed it. Pain was something she could control. Pain was something she deserved.
The first researcher assigned to monitor Nulls had called her four hours ago, his voice shaking despite years of training in containing existential threats.
He had played the audio of Nulls describing the slaughter of the uncontacted tribe, the casual recitation of thousands of deaths, the calm explanation of how he had used the screams to locate the survivors.
Valerius had listened to the entire recording without speaking, without moving, without breathing.
The second researcher had called two hours later with satellite images of the island. The before picture showed a thriving community, huts arranged in a circle around a central plaza, fishing boats drawn up on the beach, gardens laid out in neat rows.
The after picture showed grey ash and the geometric lines of a pentagram carved into the earth, the bodies already decayed by the power of whatever ritual Nulls had performed.
She punched the wall again. Blood sprayed from her knuckles, dark against the grey metal, and she felt the bones shift in a way that promised fractures if she continued.
The pain was sharper now, more precise, and she used it to push away the image of the child's body dissolving into ash, the memory of Nulls's voice describing how he had kept the girl alive until the final moment of the ritual.
The third researcher had called thirty minutes ago with analysis of the remaining ash. The isotope ratios confirmed that Nulls had performed the Rite of Reclamation, the same ritual that had been described in the sealed archives of the Temporal Division.
He had converted the lives of thousands into power, and now he was stronger than ever, and three Archon-class leviathans swam in the waters off the island, waiting for his commands.
Her fist struck the wall a third time. The bones in her hand gave way with a sound like dry twigs snapping, and the pain became a white sheet that covered everything else.
She drew her hand back and raised it for a fourth strike, her teeth clenched, her breath coming in ragged gasps that fogged the metal surface in front of her face.
A hand caught her wrist. The grip was firm but gentle, the fingers wrapping around her arm just above the shattered hand, holding her in place without squeezing.
She looked up and saw a man she had seen only twice before, once at a briefing on temporal anomalies and once at a funeral for a researcher who had worked herself to death.
Sion's face was pale in the emergency lighting, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his eyes ringed with exhaustion that matched her own.
He wore the same grey uniform as every other officer in the facility, but his collar bore no rank insignia, no division markings, nothing that identified him as anything other than another survivor of the end of the world.
"Look, Val, I know we are in the end times," he said, his voice low and calm, carrying none of the panic that had infected the rest of the facility, "but please keep your dignity."
She stared at him for a long moment, her arm still raised, her hand still dripping blood onto the floor. The anger in her chest had not faded, but something else had joined it, something that felt like shame and relief and exhaustion all mixed together.
Behind them, the air split with the sound of a gutted animal. The rift opened without warning, a tear in the fabric of reality that bled violet light and the smell of ozone.
Sion stepped through it without looking back, pulling her with him, and the world lurched around her as they passed from her office into the main conference room of the Tri-Helios facility.
Every available researcher had gathered there, their faces pale, their hands trembling, their eyes fixed on the holographic display that dominated the center of the room.
The display showed a map of the island where Nulls had performed his ritual, the three leviathans marked as red blips, the ash of the village a grey stain on the land.
Directors from every division sat around the conference table, their uniforms immaculate despite the hour, their expressions carefully blank.
Sion guided Valerius to her chair at the head of the table, his hand still on her arm, his presence a steady anchor in the chaos of the room.
She sat down heavily, the impact jarring her broken hand, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Sion sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched, and she felt the warmth of his body through the cold fabric of her uniform.
The director of the Tri-Helios facility stood at the opposite end of the table, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a mask of professional calm.
He had been a researcher once, decades ago, before the weight of command had aged him into something harder and sharper. His eyes swept the room, taking in the fear and the panic and the desperate hope that clung to every face.
"As all of you know," he said, his voice carrying easily to every corner of the room, "an Armageddon-class entity designated Nulls has escaped containment. In addition to his own considerable power, he has weaponized three Archon-class leviathans, entities that our records indicate should have been immovable, incapable of being controlled by any force in this reality."
A researcher near the back of the room raised a trembling hand. "The leviathans have the highest regeneration rates of any recorded Morbus. Even among other Archon-class entities, their ability to recover from damage is unprecedented. If Nulls can command them, if he can direct their attacks..."
"We are aware of the regeneration rates," the director said, cutting off the researcher gently but firmly. "Given the unprecedented nature of this situation, Commander Valerius's trial for the loss of the Grand Attractor task force has been temporarily halted. Her tactical expertise is needed elsewhere."
Valerius felt the eyes of the room shift to her, and she straightened in her chair, ignoring the pain in her hand, ignoring the blood that had dripped onto her uniform, ignoring the exhaustion that pulled at her limbs. "The priority is information gathering. We know Nulls can recharge his Nexus reserves through mass sacrifice. We know he can control the leviathans through some means we have not yet identified. We need to know more."
"Does the manuscript of the Temporal Division have anything to say about this specific set of circumstances?" the director asked, turning to a cluster of researchers who had gathered around a secondary display.
Valerius raised her uninjured hand, palm out, cutting through the murmur of desperate speculation that filled the conference room.
Her fingers trembled, the fine tremor visible even from the far end of the table, and she pressed her palm against the cool surface of the table to steady herself.
The holographic display flickered, casting blue light across her face, illuminating the dark circles under her eyes and the blood still drying on her split knuckles.
"The manuscript is useless," she said, her voice cracking on the second word. She stopped, swallowed, forced herself to continue. "This timeline—this specific configuration of events has never happened before."
A researcher near the holographic display leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "Commander, the Temporal Division recorded over a thousand distinct branches. They documented every possible variation of Nulls's escape, his containment, his interactions with the leviathans. There must be something—"
"There is nothing." Valerius's voice rose, and she heard the edge of hysteria creeping into it, the sound of someone who had been holding herself together with willpower and coffee and the desperate hope that the next report would contain good news. "In every recorded timeline, Nulls stayed in containment. The farthest he ever got was fleeing from the leviathans when they breached their own containment cells. Fleeing, not controlling them. He ran from them like every other creature that ever encountered those things."
The director's expression shifted, the mask of professional calm cracking just enough to reveal the fear beneath. "He ran from them?"
"In every single branch," Valerius said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The leviathans were the apex. The Temporal Division recorded timelines where Nulls was contained for decades, where he was studied and dissected and eventually died of unknown cause. They recorded timelines where he escaped and destroyed entire cities before being brought down by combined arcanist forces."
She paused, her breath catching in her throat.
"But they never—they never recorded a timeline where he escaped containment, gained control of the leviathans, and performed the Rite of Reclaimation. Those things are supposed to be impossible. The leviathans are supposed to be uncommandable, their animalistic nature is unpredictable and somehow he has them to be his servant."
Her hand slipped from the table, and she caught herself on the arm of her chair, her fingers digging into the upholstery. Sion reached out, steadying her, but she shook him off.
"We are in uncharted territory," she said, forcing the words out past the lump in her throat. "Everything we thought we know about what was possible and impossible in this war—it's all wrong."
A researcher near the window spoke up, his voice hesitant. "Commander, are you saying that Nulls has somehow deviated from every recorded path so completely that we cannot trust any of our data?"
"I am saying that I don't know what I am saying." Valerius pressed the heel of her uninjured hand against her forehead, pressing hard enough to leave a red mark. "The leviathans are supposed to be immovable, it took every Rapax Morsatra's Arcanists in this side of the planet's hemisphere just to contained them. Never once we are in control of them, even when they are chained at the bottom of the ocean."
The director's voice cut through the murmuring, sharp and precise. "Commander Valerius, with all the respect I have left for you, we need actionable intelligence. If the manuscript is useless, we need to know what alternatives exist."
Valerius laughed. It was a broken sound, wet and ragged, and she heard the researchers flinch at the noise. "Alternatives? There are no alternatives. We have three leviathans that we spent decades trying to contain and prevent them from breaking containment, and now they belong to him. We have a billion people who are going to die, and we cannot stop it."
She pushed herself to her feet, swaying, and Sion stood with her, his hand hovering near her elbow.
"The only thing we have," she said, "is time. His goal is our extinction, 20 billions of humans. That is a lot of killing, even for something like him. He will have to travel, hunt, and perform the ritual again and again. That takes time. Days, weeks, months. Maybe even a year, if we are lucky."
She looked around the room, meeting the eyes of the researchers, the directors, the few soldiers who had gathered at the edges of the conference room.
"We use that time to find a weakness. We search the manuscript for anything we missed, any scrap of data that might give us an advantage. We study the leviathans, their behavior, their regeneration, their vulnerabilities. We look for other entities, other powers, anything that might help us."
"And if we find nothing?" a researcher asked, her voice small.
Valerius shrugged, the gesture costing her more effort than it should have.
"Then may the Almighty have mercy on us all."
The director folded his arms across his chest, the fabric of his uniform pulling tight across his shoulders. His eyes fixed on Valerius with an intensity that made the other researchers lean back from the table.
"Commander, you are the only person in this facility who has full access to the Temporal Division's manuscript. The document itself is a script hazard. Any attempt to copy its contents destroys the medium and drives the copyist to madness. Those who receive verbal briefings forget everything within an hour. But that device on your head..."
He gestured toward the steel spheres orbiting Valerius's temples, each one no larger than a marble, their surfaces etched with sigils that pulsed with faint blue light.
The spheres had been implanted by an Echelon Five mechanist years ago, a gift from the Temporal Division in exchange for her service. She had forgotten what the original agreement entailed. The spheres remembered for her.
Valerius reached up and touched one of the spheres, her bloodied fingers leaving red smears on its cold surface.
"The machinery allows me to retain the manuscript's contents indefinitely. I know things about Nulls that no one else in this room knows."
"Then tell us."
Valerius took a breath, the air rattling in her chest. She pressed her back against the chair, using its support to keep herself upright.
"Nulls is currently at the pre-tribute stage of his Codex's tenth echelon. The lowest possible rung. He has not yet fullfilled any tribute to fuel his ascent through the ranks."
The room went still. A researcher at the far end of the table dropped his stylus. The sound echoed off the bare walls, sharp and loud, and no one moved to pick it up.
Another researcher pressed both hands against her mouth, her eyes wide. The director's mask of professional calm cracked further, his lips parting, his breath coming faster.
"The tenth echelon is the lowest," a researcher whispered. "How can he do all of this while still being at the lower echelon?"
Valerius shook her head, the motion slow and heavy. "Nulls is already at the threshold of the tenth. He has not yet paid the tribute required to access its full power, but he stands at the gate. Everything he has done so far—killing four Echelon Five arcanists, controlling the leviathans, performing the Rite of Reclamation—he did that while still barely echelon 10."
The grey-haired woman with the tablet spoke, her voice trembling. "Four Echelon Five arcanists?"
"Nulls killed four of our strongest operatives. The Grand Attractor task force was our best, and he slaughtered them like animals. The leviathans were supposed to be the backup plan. And now he controls them."
A young researcher, barely old enough to have graduated from the academy, raised his hand. "What is his tribute? What does he need to gather to advance?"
Valerius closed her eyes. The steel spheres orbited faster, humming with stored knowledge. "One billion souls. Killed with malice. Their deaths must be horrific, drawn out, soaked in terror. That is the price of his next step."
No one spoke. The holographic display flickered, showing the grey ash of the island village, the three red blips of the leviathans, the small white dot that represented Nulls sleeping on the beach.
The director cleared his throat. "What about his innate knowledge? The manuscript must contain something about the powers he wields."
Valerius opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, at the emergency lights that had not dimmed since the alarm first sounded. "The manuscript agrees on one detail across all timelines. His innate knowledge is pure mathematics. He summons his creatures by graphing them into reality, like equations plotted on a grid. His beasts are equations given flesh."
A researcher with a shaved head and thick glasses spoke up. "What is his weakness? There must be something. Some vulnerability we can exploit."
Valerius laughed again, the sound softer this time, almost sad. "Holy attributes. Things blessed by religious rites, regardless of the faith, cause him intense suffering and burning sensations. Holy ground reduces his power to half its original value. If we could lure him into a consecrated space, we might have a chance."
The director's eyes narrowed. "If you knew this, why did you not integrate holy artifacts into his containment at the Ocean Scylla facility? The cube, the chains, the talismans—why were none of them blessed?"
Valerius raised her injured hand, showing the blood and the swelling, the fingers that would not close properly.
"I did. The satellite readings from the time of his capture showed a high concentration of Aetherion within his body. The holy attributes failed to affect him because his own power insulated him. The same way a fire burns hotter than a lit match, his Aetherion overwhelmed the blessings."
Another researcher, a woman with a scar running from her temple to her jaw, leaned forward.
"Then why did you not equip the four Echelon Five arcanists with religious artifacts or phantasms before sending them into the pocket dimension? If the holy debuffs work on him, they could have turned the tide."
Valerius pressed her uninjured hand against the table, the steel spheres humming louder. "I did. Adam's light creatures were blessed by a local priest before the operation."
The director's voice cut through the room, sharp and accusatory. "So you contradict yourself. You claim holy aspects weaken him, but Adam and his team were killed by creatures that are supposedly weak agaisnt holy aspects. Despite being blessed by a priest. So which is it?"
Valerius met his gaze, her eyes red-rimmed, her face pale. "The religious debuffs only affect Nulls himself. His creatures are not extensions of his body. They are independent entities, graphed into existence through his mathematical knowledge. Holy energy burns him, but it leaves his summons untouched."
She slumped back in her chair, the steel spheres slowing their orbit, and the room fell silent.
Sion rose from his chair, the movement slow and deliberate, his eyes fixed on the holographic display showing the three leviathan blips circling the island like sharks around a sinking ship.
He walked to the edge of the table, his reflection ghosting across the polished surface, and turned to face the assembled researchers.
"We have other Morbuses," he said, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. "Plenty of Archon-class entities in containment, and even an Armageddon-class. If we cannot kill Nulls directly, we can at least match his firepower with firepower of our own."
A researcher near the secondary display shook his head, his expression grim. "The Armageddon-class entity you are referring to is a Codex. The only way to utilize it is through bonding. It has rejected every host we have ever offered it, and the rejections have been... messy. Since Nulls arrived in this world, the Codex has grown stronger. We still do not know why."
Sion waved a hand dismissively. "Then we find a suitable host. There are eight billion humans on this planet. One of them must be able to bond with it."
Valerius leaned forward, her broken hand cradled against her chest, her uninjured fingers tracing patterns on the table's surface. "We could build an artificial lifeform to bond with it. Half Morbus, half machine. The Temporal Division conducted experiments on non-human bonding with Codices. Most of those experiments ended in disaster, but the blueprints exist. We only have to refine the method."
The researcher with the grey-streaked hair frowned. "The process of creating such an organism would take weeks, even months. And we do not have a Morbus with the intelligence required to bond with a Codex. That has never happened before."
Valerius spread his hands, palms up, a gesture of frustrated concession. "Then we summon a Morbus. We know what attracts them. We just need a high-echelon Arcanist to serve as bait. Let Nulls and the Arcanist clash somewhere with no barriers, no containment fields. The resulting energy release would attract hundreds of Calamity-class Morbuses. If we are lucky, an Archon. If some deity decides to show us mercy, an Armageddon."
The director of the Tri-Helios facility spoke from the head of the table, his voice cutting through the murmur of speculation like a scalpel through flesh.
"We have already lost four Echelon Five arcanists. Four. And Nulls killed them before he transformed into that crimson abomination, before he gained control of the leviathans. Putting another Echelon Five in his path would be catastrophic."
"Then we send Echelon Fours," Valerius said.
The director's expression hardened. "Absolutely not. The Echelon Fours are the heart of our civilization. There are only five of them, and losing even one would change the world permanently."
Valerius pushed herself to her feet, swaying, and Sion moved to steady her again. She waved him off, her eyes locked on the director. "They do not need to kill him. They just need to clash with him for a moment. Draw his attention, create enough energy to attract the Morbuses, and then withdraw. Of the five, Aaliyah is the best candidate."
Sion turned to face her, his expression a mixture of surprise and concern. "Aaliyah is currently rearranging icy planetesimals in the inner Oort Cloud. She is clearing objects that could collide with our planet. Do you understand how important she is, Val? If she is gone, we have to go back to flinging nuclear warheads at those asteroids. Both options require immense amounts of time and money, resources we cannot spare."
Valerius met his gaze, her eyes hollow. "If Nulls kills all of humanity, there will be no need to deflect asteroids. The most hazardous object currently on a collision course with Gaia is estimated to hit in 3.8 eons from now. Humans will be extinct by then, either by Nulls or by something else. There will be smaller asteroids, yes. They will hit our neighbors' backyards. But is that a worse fate than extinction? Is the loss of a few billion dollars and a few years of inconvenience worth the survival of our species?"
The room went silent. Sion stared at her, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out. The researchers exchanged glances, fear and uncertainty written on every face.
Valerius sat back down, her legs giving out beneath her, and pressed her forehead against the cool surface of the table.
"We are out of options," she said, her voice muffled by the metal. "The only thing we have left is desperation so let us be desperate, even if that desperation may caused the lost of millions of lives."
She raised her head and looked at the director.
"Summon the Morbuses. Use Aaliyah as bait. Let Nulls fight her, and let the energy of their battle draw every hungry thing in this sector to that island. And when they come, when they tear each other apart, we survive. Maybe not as a species. Maybe not as a civilization. But as something. As anything."
The director stared at her for a long moment, his face unreadable.
"You are asking me to sacrifice one of our most valuable assets on a gamble."
"I am asking you to trade a piece on the board for a chance to keep playing the game," Valerius said. "Checkmate is coming either way. This is just a delay but a delay is better than a loss."
The director turned to the holographic display, his eyes tracing the paths of the three leviathans as they circled the island.
"Contact Aaliyah," he said. "Tell her to come home. We have work for her."