A Familiar Feeling
We charged down the hill and into the battlefield.
A horde of Voidborns blocked our path, but we didn't stop.
Asherah pushed ahead, sweeping aside whatever stood in the way.
Out of my way!
The Voidborns fell as we drove into the thick of the battlefield.
The Liberators who spotted us stared in surprise, but we had no time to care.
The Western Liberators tried to regroup, but once their line broke, the battlefield descended even further into chaos.
Liberators and Voidborns were locked in combat everywhere. I couldn't even tell where Ceres was.
All I could do was cut down the Voidborns in front of me.
Captain, over there!
Following Asherah's gaze, I spotted the Voidborn Ceres had referred to as Olberos.
It lowered its massive head toward Ceres like a beast eyeing its prey. Then, slowly, it straightened to its full height.
It then raised a sword in its hand.
This isn't good. That's...
Void energy began to gather around Olberos's raised sword.
It was a dense darkness unlike anything I'd ever seen from Executors. It was far more primal, far more twisted.
The air around us turned deathly cold, as though everything had frozen in an instant.
Ceres!
I shouted as loud as I could, but my voice was easily swallowed by the roar of the battlefield.
...!
Olberos brought its sword down, and a razor-edged wave of Void energy shot toward us.
With a deafening blast, a massive shockwave swept across the battlefield.
A single swing of its sword shattered the Liberators' barely reformed defensive line.
Kgh!
After the dust cleared, I saw Ceres slumped on the ground, barely keeping her sword raised.
It looked like she'd managed to block it with her sword, but just barely.
Commander...
I'm... sorry...
Besta!
The Liberators who had barely been holding on began to fall, one after another.
*Huff...* *Huff...*
Olberos moved once more.
Void energy began to gather once more at the tip of Olberos's sword.
It was far thicker and heavier than ever before.
Everyone, fall back and—
As she gave the order, Ceres seemed to realize that almost no Liberators were left to hear it.
I watched her slowly rise and grip her sword again.
Ceres...!
Olberos's sword began to descend toward Ceres.
I ran.
Without even feeling my feet touch the ground, I just ran.
Ceres looked back at me.
I think our eyes met.
But I couldn't see what came after.
The moment I thought Olberos's sword was about to reach Ceres...
Everything went white.
A light I couldn't tell was hot or cold swallowed everything around me.
...
...
It was the same sensation I'd felt in the dreams I'd been having ever since coming to Lavistar.
A floating sensation in a space with no up or down, neither sinking nor rising.
A strange sensation, as if every single cell of my body were being torn apart and put back together.
Then, from somewhere far away, a familiar voice called out to me.
...Captain!
Asherah...?
As I slowly opened my eyes, a familiar landscape came into view.
Red earth.
Twisted trees.
A coppery wind.
...Where am I?
Captain... are you okay?
Taking Asherah's hand, I got to my feet and looked around. Endless red earth stretched before us.
A coppery scent drifted in with the dust carried on the wind.
Leafless trees stood barely upright upon the twisted earth. Withered branches reached into the empty sky.
A landscape where death had taken root, the likes of which I'd never seen in NOA or the Duchy of Monastir.
There were no Voidborns.
There was no Olberos.
No Liberators in sight, either.
Where... are we now...?
A familiar headache, quiet lately, began to throb dully inside my skull.
Looks like we landed somewhere in the middle of the West...
I don't see the others anywhere.
And the train we were on is gone too.
...What?
The throbbing in my head intensified with every passing moment.
The others, the train... I don't see any of them anywhere. Did that rift from earlier swallow them up?
This is...
I couldn't believe it, but we were back again.
Back to when the train first crashed and we landed in the West.
...No, maybe...
Captain, are you really okay? You don't look so well.
Maybe it wasn't [us] who had come back, but [me alone]...
...I'm fine.