Inside the Haven, the lower chamber stood empty, its vast silence almost deafening after months of constant footfalls and clashing steel.
Every troop had ascended.
The Greater Chamber stretched endless beneath twin suns that never moved, an ocean of pure white clouds rolling like slow tides beneath a sky of flawless rose-gold. Upon those clouds, in perfect parade formation that covered horizons, stood one hundred thousand Veloran elites.
Each soldier radiated the newborn pressure of fresh S-rank power; the air itself trembled with the weight of their combined presence. At the very forefront, elevated on a floating dais of crimson marble veined with white flame, stood the twins Caelan and Kael.
Though the Haven refused to age them, their newly awakened physiques had stretched their bodies and sharpened their features until they looked sixteen (tall, lethal, and beautiful in the way only divine blood can sculpt mortals).
