The transition into the Vortex-Core felt like being swallowed by a titan.
The air in the Iron Graveyard's center was thick, tasting of rust and ancient, ionized copper. Here, the gravity was no longer a constant pull; it was a fractured mosaic. One step felt like carrying a mountain; the next made your bones feel hollow and buoyant. Massive structures—shattered hulls of "Era-One" galleons and the skeletal remains of floating fortresses—rotated in a slow, hypnotic dance around a central point of absolute darkness.
"Keep the stabilizers locked!" Lyra's voice was a jagged edge of iron. Her blindfold was soaked through with sweat, her "Sona" senses being bombarded by the thousands of echoing collisions happening around them. "The gravity-ghosts are thick here, Kaelen! If one passes through the hull, the wood will turn to ash!"
Kaelen ignored the warnings. His eyes were locked on the horizon behind them. Through the swirling storm of scrap metal, the Null-Stalker—the Harbinger's ship—cut a path of surgical precision. It didn't navigate the debris; it pulverized it. Every time a stray rock drifted into its path, the sonic emitters on its bow emitted a high-frequency "chirp" that reduced the obstacle to dust.
"He's gaining," Kaelen muttered, his hand white-knuckled on his glass hilt. He looked at Nova. She was standing on the very edge of the bowsprit, her small feet barely touching the wood. She looked entirely at peace in the chaos. "Nova, can you dampen his engines? Erase the friction in his wings?"
"His ship is plated in Null-Iron," Nova replied, her voice echoing directly in Kaelen's skull, cold and clear. "It is a material born from the Miasma. It does not recognize the laws I command. To my eyes, his ship is a hole in the world. I cannot touch what isn't there."
"Fine," Kaelen growled, the indigo light in his chest beginning to leak through his shirt. "Then I'll have to touch it the old-fashioned way."
The Silver-Wing lurched as it entered the Eye of the Silence—the very center of the vortex where the air stopped moving entirely. The sudden lack of wind caused the ship to stall, drifting helplessly.
Behind them, the Null-Stalker slowed to a crawl, its mechanical wings folding back like a predatory wasp. Vane of the High-Spires stood on the prow, his crimson armor shimmering. He raised his spear, the Pulse-Core at its center glowing with a terrifying, golden brilliance.
"You have led us to a fitting tomb, Kaelen," Vane's voice boomed, carrying perfectly through the dead air. "No wind to carry you. No gravity to save you. Just the weight of your sins."
"Sins?" Kaelen laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. He stepped onto the railing of the Silver-Wing. "I was a soldier of the Consensus, Vane. I've seen the 'justice' of the High Spires. I've seen the islands you let fall because they couldn't pay their Aether-tithe. If I'm going to hell, I'm making sure I'm the one driving the boat."
Kaelen ignited his hilt. The Void-blade flickered into existence—a three-foot tear in reality that seemed to drink the light around it.
"Void-Style: Event Horizon!"
Kaelen didn't jump. He erased the friction between his body and the air molecules, essentially "falling" forward at the speed of a projectile. He crossed the fifty-yard gap between the two ships in a heartbeat.
Vane was ready. He swung the golden spear, a wave of sonic pressure erupting from the tip. "Pulse-Core: Repulsion!"
The shockwave hit Kaelen mid-air. It should have shattered his ribcage. Instead, Kaelen twisted his body, using his Void power to strip the friction from the sound-wave itself. The blast didn't hit him; it slid around him, whistling past his ears like a harmless breeze.
He landed on the deck of the Null-Stalker, his boots making no sound.
"You've grown stronger since your exile," Vane rumbled, spinning his spear with deadly grace. "The star-shard in your chest is eating you faster than I expected."
"It's got a big appetite," Kaelen hissed.
They clashed. The sound of the glass blade hitting the Null-Iron spear was like a bell being struck in a vacuum—a high, piercing ring that made the nearby debris vibrate. Kaelen was a blur of motion, his "Frictionless" style allowing him to move with impossible fluidity, sliding under Vane's heavy strikes and appearing behind him in the blink of an eye.
But Vane was a Harbinger. Every time Kaelen's blade got close to the red armor, a micro-pulse of sound would fire, pushing the blade away by a fraction of an inch.
"You cannot cut what you cannot reach!" Vane roared. He slammed the butt of his spear into the deck. "Resonance: Bone-Shaker!"
The entire ship vibrated at a frequency designed to liquefy human organs. Kaelen fell to one knee, blood erupting from his nose. His Void-Core flared bright indigo, struggling to stabilize his internal pressure.
On the Silver-Wing, Lyra felt the vibration through her staff. "Kaelen's losing his rhythm! Nova, if you don't do something, he's going to turn into a puddle on that deck!"
Nova didn't look at the fight. She was looking down, into the dark center of the Eye. "The Engine is hungry," she whispered.
She raised both hands. The silver lines on her arms didn't just glow; they detached from her skin, floating in the air like mercury threads. She wove them together, pointing her finger at the Null-Stalker.
"Collapse."
The gravity in a ten-foot sphere around the Harbinger's ship suddenly multiplied by a factor of a hundred. The Null-Stalker didn't just drop; it was pulled downward with such force that the Null-Iron hull began to scream.
Vane lost his footing, his spear clattering across the deck. Kaelen, sensing the shift, grabbed a railing.
"Nova! Give me five seconds!" Kaelen yelled.
He lunged at the fallen Harbinger, his hand glowing with concentrated Void-light. He didn't aim for the throat; he aimed for the Pulse-Core on Vane's chest. He thrust his fingers into the machinery, unleashing a burst of "Absolute Zero" friction.
The golden light in the spear flickered and died. The mechanical wings of the Null-Stalker seized up, the gears frozen in a state of perfect, frictionless stasis.
"The hunt is over, Vane," Kaelen wheezed, his vision blurring.
He kicked off the dying ship just as the gravity-well Nova had created intensified. The Null-Stalker was sucked into the dark center of the Eye, disappearing into the churning debris field below.
Kaelen floated back toward the Silver-Wing, his strength spent. Lyra caught him by the collar of his coat, pulling him onto the deck as the ship's sails finally caught a stray current of air.
"Did we... did we win?" Lyra asked, her voice trembling.
"We survived," Kaelen corrected, coughing up a mouthful of indigo-tinged blood. He looked at Nova, who was watching the spot where the Harbinger had vanished. "But he's a Harbinger. He won't stay down forever."
"He is not the one I fear," Nova said, turning to look at them. HER eyes were no longer mercury; they were a deep, haunting violet. "The Second Harbinger is already at our destination. She is the one who weaves the Miasma. And she is waiting for us in Scrap-City."
Kaelen closed his eyes, leaning back against the mast. "Great. I love a welcoming committee."