A crimson glare bled across the stratosphere, painting the cloud deck the color of fresh arterial blood.
High above the floating fortress of the Blood-Star Citadel, the orbital Star-Array reached ninety-six percent of its maximum charge. Its continent-glassing focus lens, three miles wide and forged from polished star-crystal, descended through the upper atmospheric veil with a low, planet-shaking hum.
The targeting reticle locked onto the northern sea and the distant continental mainland.
On the docking tiers below, one million allied cultivators looked up from their barricades, shielding their eyes from the scorching celestial glare.
The heat radiating from the descending lens boiled the upper mist into clouds of white steam. Across the two hundred and twenty-two warships, cold-iron warding plates glowed dull orange under the intense thermal wash.
“Look at that lens,” Princess Valeria whispered, tightening her grip on her short-swords. “If that beam strikes, the entire archipelago will be turned to glass.”
Elder Sterling wiped black blood from his heavy broadsword, his old jaw set like granite. “Then we make sure the gun never fires. Valeria, hold the docking arches. Do not let a single Sanctuary reinforcement slip behind our lines.”
Deacon Vane stepped up to the parapet, leveling his spyglass toward the upper citadel. “The automated ballista turrets on Sector Zero’s outer perimeter are locking onto our vanguard. I have forty heavy mortars trained on their embrasures.”
