Except for the main gates, the city remains in our grasp.
Yet we cannot afford to underestimate Babylonia. Ha! This stalemate... it reminds me of my tactical studies in Kowloong.
My report concludes, Your Majesty.
Dulova... a genuine pity. She was a remarkable talent.
Cold seeps through the cracks of broken columns in the pitch-black ruin of the palace. At its center sits Zack, a melancholy figure almost merging with the hall's darkness. Before him, a hologram flickers: Rumyantsev's mechanical tail sweeps idly across the ground, while Fyodor stands with his gaze lowered, still and unreadable as a stone.
War is the domain of uncertainty. Anyone who rose to the rank of Warlord knew the risks.
As for her vacancy, she was, after all, a transitional appointment during the development of humanoid-hybrids. One could say she has discharged her duty to Sophiasburgh in full.
The words are spoken with casual indifference, mirroring Fyodor's silence. In both their eyes, a comrade's defeat is just a vacant post—something to be filled, not mourned. There is no grief here.
How admirable, to be so cheerful in defeat. Forget the dead woman; those whales are supposed to be superweapons, aren't they? Are you really just going to hand them over?
We may lose a pod of bionic whales, but our strength is not diminished. Besides... they are useless in the enemy's hands.
Anyone can boast. But those rising humans... now they are fascinating. Especially that Gray Raven Commandant.
[player name]... You know that one?
We share an acquaintance. Having seen that commandant today... I am intrigued. Frostheart Emperor, instruct your men to take care. Do not kill that one.
...
Rumyantsev, Fyodor, press the military advance. By your next report, I expect tangible results.
Understood. I will see to it.
By your command. I shall personally greet the enemy's commander.
The projection flickers out. In its absence, a solitary beam of light breaches the dome, barely grazing the floor before the dense darkness consumes it whole.
The battlefield is yours to manage. But my patience wears thin. Is the black box data still not ready?
It requires more time. The Ultimate Amalgamator is... delicate. Surely you can spare that much.
...Time is precisely what I lack. It can forge a lion cub into a king, and just as easily grind a king to dust. Even the mightiest cannot defy its passage.
I never thought to hear an Ascendant speak with such reverence for life.
If I held no reverence for it, I would never have ascended. Hmph... And you? You strike me as no mere glutton for power. What drives you to conquer the world?
Silence reclaims the palace. The only sound is the wind threading through broken window frames, stirring ghosts of dust from the floor.
Slowly, Zack lifts his gaze to the darkened dome, as if seeing through the decay to the starlit sky that once shone here, years ago.
I was once an astronaut... soaring beyond the atmosphere to touch the cosmos. I believed that was my destiny.
I completed my training, rode the rocket through the clouds. When the weightlessness came, cold and metallic, I pressed against the viewport... and I did not see stars.
What I saw... was Earth. Whole. Unified.
Zack's fingertips tremble slightly, a phantom sensation of that viewport's cold still lingering from years before.
That awe crushed me against the glass. My tears struck the surface. My companions marveled at the planet's beauty... but all I could think was: so this is the truth. A single, unbroken whole.
So I returned. Quit my job. Used the little lineage I had to secure a military post.
Later, I volunteered for the leadership's modification trials. Endured the fire in my veins, the agony of rewritten nerves... until I became what I am now. The Ultimate Amalgamator.
As Zack closes his eyes, the darkness fills with familiar shapes—comrades who once shared his dream of an "amalgamated world."
These were the true believers, the ones who gave everything for the cause. He sees them now as ghosts, a silent testament to the vision they all fought for.
Ha! So... a childhood epiphany? Tell me you've outgrown such fantasies.
Children dream of plucking stars from the sky. I... saw all coastlines connect. Saw the scars our conflicts have carved into the Earth. It was too perfect. Too complete. It made every border we've drawn seem a cruel joke.
Since Earth was born whole... I will erase, with my own hands, the divisions mankind has imposed upon it.
