[The Grand Cathedral of the Earth God]
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Raymond stepped back from the marble altar. The crushing weight of the cathedral's architecture perfectly mirrored the burden resting on his shoulders. He turned to the Grand Master of the Order of Earth and Stone.
"Gather what remains of your paladins," Raymond ordered, his voice cutting cleanly through the heavy silence of the nave.
"Muster them at the lower concourse. I want your Order armed, blessed, and ready to march to the vanguard in exactly thirty minutes."
The Grand Master gave a crisp, metallic salute, his heavy plate armor groaning with the motion. He did not ask if they were marching to victory or to the grave. He simply turned and strode out of the cathedral, his heavy boots echoing into the dark.
Left alone at the altar with his personal aides and high priests, Raymond closed his eyes. As the Supreme Commander of the Six Scriptures, he stood at the center of a rapidly collapsing web. He visualized the tactical board in his mind.
Sunlight was held in reserve, a fragile shield for the inner sanctum. Windflower and Clearwater were blind, reduced to internal policing and maintaining structural wards. Firestorm was fighting a bloody, desperate delaying action in the Middle City, burying Death Knights under tons of sabotaged masonry.
Ash and Dust were already deep underground, guiding the chosen people through the dark. And the Black Scripture, the strongest among them, was divided between the deepest vaults and the final extraction points.
We are fighting a god with broken glass, Raymond thought grimly.
Around him, half a dozen high priests and scribes moved with frantic, hushed efficiency. They were packing the last of the operational maps and burning decryption ciphers in a bronze brazier, filling the air with the smell of scorched parchment.
The heavy oak doors of the sacristy creaked open.
Benedict Naghya Santini, the Cardinal of Fire, slipped inside. She didn't announce herself. The scent of her arrived first, singed hair and the acrid, metallic smell of embers clinging to her crimson robes. Her face was composed, a mask of iron discipline, but Raymond saw the fine tremor in her hands as she walked toward the map table.
"Raymond," she said. It was a breath, not a greeting.
"Benedict." Raymond turned, keeping his face impassive.
"Report."
"The evacuation of the chosen people is proceeding," Benedict said, her trembling finger tracing the subterranean route on the marble map.
"But there are gaps. The Sinensis family hasn't reported in. The southern collection point is entirely silent. I fear the green fog has seeped into the lower ventilation grates."
"Casualties?"
"Unknown," she admitted, her voice tightening. "But the noise, Raymond. The booming from the north... it sounds like the earth itself is cracking open.
The Middle City is no longer a battlefield. It is a slaughterhouse. They are not just killing our soldiers; the necromancers are butchering them and sending them right back to the front lines."
"The Grand Marshal is holding the line," Raymond said, though he didn't look at her. "He has the reserves."
"And the others?" Benedict asked, stepping closer. "The other Cardinals? The Paladin Grandmasters?"
"Deployed," Raymond said vaguely, focusing on the map.
"Some are with the Marshal at the Vanguard. Some are protecting the primary vaults. Others are shepherding the flock."
He didn't tell her that he had lost magical contact with two of the Grandmasters an hour ago. He didn't tell her that the "shepherding" on the surface was rapidly becoming a chaotic rout, barely held together by the Firestorm Scripture's explosives.
Benedict looked at him, her dark eyes searching his face for the truth he wouldn't speak. "Will we see Beren again?"
The question was naked, stripped of titles and political protocol. It was the voice of a woman asking about an old friend.
Raymond reached out and placed a heavy, calloused hand on her shoulder. The thick fabric of her robe was warm from the ambient heat of the burning city.
"He stands where men must not falter," Raymond said.
But men do falter, Benedict. Even iron breaks under enough pressure.
"He knows his duty," Raymond added, squeezing her shoulder gently. "Have faith. We are preserving the bloodlines. As long as the chosen people reach the Sanctuary, humanity will have a tomorrow. We are buying that tomorrow with today."
Benedict took a deep breath, visibly steadying herself. She looked down at the tactical map, her eyes locking onto the empty spaces where their strongest assets should be deployed.
"What happened, Raymond?" she whispered. "In the Sanctum. The ritual."