Fleet Commander-Xao did not need eyes to see the perimeter of the Liuli Expanse. Standing on the bridge of the jade dreadnought Celestial Anchor, his stark white, sightless eyes were fixed on the bulkhead, but his mind was woven into the heavy, petrified roots integrated into the ship's core.
Through the Great Tree, Xao felt the absolute, mathematical perfection of the Expanse. He felt the orbit of the moons, the gentle flow of the artificial atmospheric currents, and the precise, predictable heartbeats of the billions of citizens below. It was "The Script"—a flawless equation guaranteeing survival, stretching years into the future.
For ten thousand years, the math had never failed. The Dominion could not surprise them because their future was already calculated.
Then, a localized variable appeared. A rust-stain of chaos deep in the Jingjie Sector.
Before the Court's Enforcers could surgically prune the anomaly, the microscopic tear in the tapestry of fate violently ripped open.
Xao gasped, his frail hands gripping the jade railing of the command deck. The math didn't just glitch; it shattered. The predictable currents of the future suddenly dissolved into blinding, suffocating white noise.
"Commander?" his adjutant asked, stepping forward.
"The void," Xao whispered in horror, blood dripping from his nose as the psychic backlash hit him. "The void is screaming."
A fraction of a second later, the physical universe caught up to the broken math.
Directly off the bow of the Celestial Anchor, space warped with a deafening, cosmic groan. The void tore open, and a massive, brutalist armada dropped out of hyperspace onto the Expanse's outer boundary.
Thousands of Chiyou Dominion ships—jagged, forged from dark iron, and bleeding crimson exhaust—materialized like a swarm of mechanical locusts.
They did not hail. They did not maneuver into tactical formations. They simply opened fire.
"Shields!" Xao roared, but his voice was drowned out by the apocalyptic sound of kinetic bombardment.
The perfect, artificial sky of the Liuli Expanse began to burn. Spiritual weapon batteries across the jade perimeter ignited in frantic response, sending colossal, blinding beams of plasma tearing through the Dominion swarm. The sheer scale of the orbital exchange sent concussive shockwaves rippling through the Expanse's atmosphere. The Dominion ships weren't trying to breach; they were simply ramming the perimeter in a suicidal wave of raw, overwhelming destruction.
Down in the Heavenly Court's primary staging hall, the serenity of the Emperor's domain vanished, replaced by the frantic geometry of war.
Ash-gray Diviners rushed across the white stone floors, their sightless eyes wide as they desperately calculated the trajectories of the enemy dreadnoughts. Holographic tactical maps flared in violent reds and golds across the ancient, petrified roots of the Great Tree.
Sitting in the furthest, darkest corner of the staging hall, Darian watched the sky bleed through the high windows.
He hadn't cleaned his armor. The rust stain from the underground camp remained smeared across his chest plate, oxidized like dried blood. The absolute silence surrounding his corner of the room was infinitely worse than being yelled at.
Across the hall, Ravion stood rigidly near the heavy jade doors. The towering prince hadn't looked at Darian once since returning from the underground. Zeri sat on a supply crate, wincing as Gideon administered localized painkillers to her fractured ribs. When Darian offered her a ration pack an hour ago, she had just stared at him with such profound, hollow disgust that he physically recoiled.
He had saved their lives by sacrificing the camp. He made the cold, corporate, calculated play. And in doing so, he had destroyed the only real team he ever had.
"Captain Halden, look at this," Toben's voice cracked, echoing over the ambient alarms.
Darian looked up. In the center of the room, Instructor Jax and Captain Halden stood over a massive hololith projection of the orbital battle. Toben, Squad 5's data analyst, was frantically typing on his pad, his thick glasses reflecting the fiery data streams.
"The Dominion's offensive... it doesn't make any tactical sense," Toben said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "They're throwing everything at the Eastern Jade Gate, but they aren't deploying boarding craft. They aren't targeting the shield generators. It's just a raw, suicidal output of overwhelming firepower."
Jax leaned over the console, rolling an unlit match to the corner of his mouth. His heavy chrome arms gleamed under the tactical lights. "They aren't trying to win, kid. They're trying to send a message."
The Master Diviner, leaning heavily on her twisted wooden staff, stepped up to the console. Her blind, white eyes ceased their frantic darting, locking onto an unseen horizon beneath her hood. "The tapestry of fate remains clear, even through this fire," she murmured. "I see a hand reaching into the dark. They are coming to rescue a prize... an asset of immense and terrible value."
Halden slowly removed the unlit cigarette from her lips. Her dark eyes narrowed, sweeping over the chaotic holographic map. The exhaustion from the underground bunker was gone, replaced by the razor-sharp focus of a Captain.
"Halvek," Halden breathed.
"What about him?" Jax asked, adjusting his dark sunglasses. "He blew his lab and vanished."
"No, he didn't vanish. He just needed a bigger distraction," Halden said. Her fingers flew across the hololith, zooming past the burning armada to focus on the Expanse's chaotic inner airspace. "He's using this opportunity as a smokescreen. It's the perfect way to escape without anyone noticing."
"The sky is so full of exploding dreadnoughts and scrambled radiation that our sensors are completely blinded," Jax finished, grim realization settling over his scarred features. "He's slipping right past us."
"Toben," Halden barked. "Look at the civilian lanes. Find me any ship that's trying to leave the planet."
Toben's hands blurred over his pad. The hololith shifted, stripping away the massive warships until only the panicked, scattered streams of civilian transport skiffs remained. Thousands of them were diving deeper toward the Shenmu Core for safety.
Except for one.
A tiny, unregistered cargo skiff was burning hard toward outer orbit. It wove through the orbital crossfire, using the exploding wreckage of a Dominion cruiser as a radioactive smokescreen to slip past the Expanse's inner blockade.
"Got him," Toben whispered, his face going pale.
Jax stared at the trajectory line projecting from the rogue skiff. It wasn't aiming for the deep void. It was locked onto a small, jagged celestial body orbiting the very edge of the Expanse's gravitational pull.
"The Gonggong Lunar Black Site," the Master Diviner gasped, her frail hands trembling so violently her staff rattled against the stone floor.
"Diviner," Halden demanded, turning on the old woman. "What is actually on Gonggong?"
"It is a prison," the Diviner whispered, her voice dropping to a terrified rasp. "It is where we put the worst criminals. Warlord Bai, the traitor Xue... and General Taotie."
Yue let out a stifled, ragged gasp, her face instantly draining of color at the mere mention of the General's name.
"His trajectory is too shallow for a slingshot," Toben interjected, double-checking his data pad. "He's decelerating. He's docking at the Black Site."
"Why is he heading there?" Jax frowned, tracing the trajectory with a heavy metal finger.
The Master Diviner's sightless eyes widened. "They may have come to rescue General Taotie. He could be a turning point in their war."
Halden locked eyes with Jax. The pieces slammed into place. She stared at the blinking red dot slowly approaching the jagged moon on the hololith. "He's not running. The Dominion didn't just attack randomly—Halvek made a deal with them. They provide the distraction, and he disables the Black Site's internal security from the inside so they can extract that general."
She turned away from the console, her dark eyes flashing with cold, absolute command. "Jax. Get the squads ready."