The ash storm howled around the Ashfall Vanguard.

Lucifer and Celeste pressed forward through the thick, gray soot. The fifty Void-Breaker Dragoons formed a tight, heavily armored ring around them.

The massive, winged mechanical centaurs fired their purple aether-cannons into the gloom, vaporizing any Abyssal Crawlers that tried to slither close.

"There it is," Celeste called out. She pointed her heavy longbow through a brief break in the swirling ash.

Looming out of the toxic darkness was the Gore-Spire.

It was a monument to absolute horror. The tower was three hundred feet tall, constructed entirely from the fused, melted corpses of the fallen Royal Army.

Thousands of dead faces, locked in eternal screams, stretched across the biological architecture.

Thick, pulsing veins of glowing green magma spiraled up the sides of the structure, feeding power to a massive, fleshy sphincter at the apex.

The sphincter crackled with highly concentrated, anti-air necrotic magic. It was actively charging a shot aimed directly at Zephyria, hovering fifty thousand feet above.

[System Warning: Hostile Siege Structure.]

[Entity: Gore-Spire (Level 65)]

[Status: Charging Anti-Air Barrage. 60 Seconds to Firing.]

"We don’t have time to dismantle it," Lucifer stated smoothly.

He didn’t order the Dragoons to fire. Their aether-cannons would take too long to chew through the dense, fused bone and magma plating of the structure.

"Cover my back," Lucifer commanded.

He activated Zephyr’s Grace. Lucifer sprinted directly toward the base of the towering flesh-spire.

The ground around the structure was a swamp of corrosive green sludge.

Lucifer’s heavy iron boots hissed as he stepped into the muck, but his Void Arcanist core perfectly neutralized the environmental damage.

He reached the fleshy, pulsing wall of the tower.

Lucifer raised his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King crackled with violent, pitch-black lightning.

He didn’t cast a spell. He drove his iron-clad fingers directly into the fused wall of corpses.

"Spatial Rend," Lucifer roared.

He clenched his fist and physically ripped his arm backward.

The spatial fabric holding the biological tower together violently shattered.

A massive, jagged hole, ten feet wide, was torn cleanly out of the side of the Gore-Spire. Corrosive black blood and green magma poured out of the wound, spilling over Lucifer’s dark leather armor.

Lucifer ignored the heat. His void-swirling eyes pierced the gloom inside the open wound.

Buried deep in the center of the tower was the engine. It was a massive, beating, jagged core of pure, unadulterated Abyssal magic. It radiated intense, suffocating death energy.

Lucifer reached into the wound. He grabbed the beating Abyssal Core with his bare left hand.

The core shrieked, burning his palm, but the Warlord did not let go. He ripped the massive, dark crystal completely out of the biological housing.

The moment the core was disconnected, the Gore-Spire died. The pulsing green veins went dark. The anti-air sphincter at the apex withered and collapsed inward.

"I have the engine," Lucifer announced over the comms rune.

He stood in the toxic mud, holding the beating Abyssal Core. But it was highly unstable, leaking corrosive magic that would melt Zephyria’s reactors if he tried to install it raw.

"System," Lucifer commanded. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

[Target Acquired: Abyssal Core (Level 65)]

"Apply the Apex Multiplier. Purify and condense," Lucifer ordered.

[Divine Talent: Apex Multiplier Activated!]

[Applying 10,000x multiplier to Magical Condensation and Purification...]

A blinding, violent pillar of silver and violet light erupted from Lucifer’s hand.

The massive, jagged Abyssal Core violently contracted. The sickly green and pitch-black magic was forcibly overwritten by Lucifer’s Archmage mana.

The core shrank from the size of a boulder down to the size of a human fist. The jagged edges smoothed out.

The light faded.

Lucifer held a perfectly flawless, multifaceted crystal. It did not pulse with death magic. It radiated an intense, limitless, blindingly pure energy.

[System: Item Evolved.]

[Item Acquired: Prismatic Singularity Crystal]

[Tier: Mythic Power Source]

[Status: Infinite Yield.]

Lucifer tossed the crystal into his Dimensional Vault.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently.

"Commander!" Celeste yelled, firing three explosive arrows into the dense fog. "The Spire’s death triggered an alarm! The hive is waking up!"

Lucifer looked past the Dragoons. The gray ash storm was completely parting, pushed away by the sheer physical mass of the approaching horde.

Millions of Abyssal Crawlers, Stalkers, and hulking Behemoths were pouring out of the ruined earth.

They formed a literal tidal wave of black chitin and purple fire, rushing directly toward the small, fifty-man strike team.

Fifty Mythic cavalry units were lethal, but they could not hold off a million heavily armored beasts in an open field without a choke point.

Lucifer didn’t panic. He tapped his comms rune.

"Isolde. Extraction," Lucifer ordered.

"Look up, Warlord," the Winter Sovereign’s draconic voice rumbled through the link.

The sky above them shattered.

A colossal, mountain-sized shape plummeted through the thick, toxic ash clouds. Isolde, in her true Crystalline White Dragon form, dropped like a white meteor directly over the strike team.

She did not land. She banked sharply, pulling up at the absolute last second.

As she leveled out fifty feet above the ground, Isolde opened her massive jaws. She unleashed a torrential, continuous wave of absolute, liquid frostfire.

The blast didn’t hit Lucifer or his Vanguard. It hit the massive, rushing tidal wave of Abyssal monsters surrounding them.

The absolute zero magic instantly flash-froze the entire front half of the horde. Millions of beasts were turned into solid, brittle blue ice mid-stride.

The sheer temperature drop halted the charge completely, creating a massive, frozen wall of dead monsters.

Isolde swooped over Lucifer’s position.

"Jump!" Isolde roared.

Lucifer grabbed Celeste by her armored waist. He didn’t use a spell. He jumped, using his pure Warlord strength to launch them fifty feet straight into the air.

They landed flawlessly between the massive crystal spikes at the base of Isolde’s neck. The fifty Void-Breaker Dragoons immediately engaged their thrusters, shooting into the sky to follow the Dragon Queen.

Isolde flapped her colossal wings, sending a shockwave that shattered the frozen monsters below into fine blue dust.

She angled her massive body upward, rocketing back into the ash-choked sky, carrying the strike team safely toward the floating city.

Lucifer sat perfectly still on her neck. He held Celeste securely against his dark armor. The High Ranger was breathing heavily, but she looked down at the dead world and smiled fiercely.

"We got the core," Celeste yelled over the howling wind.

"We got the power," Lucifer corrected smoothly.

He looked up toward the glowing, iridescent dome of Zephyria waiting in the stratosphere. The Warlord had secured his city’s future. Now, he was going to turn it into an untouchable empire.