A low, unpleasant undercurrent of muttered words and breathy sentences entered Aziz’s ears as the world built itself back around him. The red sky shone down on him, untouched by the grey tint that had surrounded the Central Continent, and Aziz realised that they had escaped from what essentially would have been a one-sided slaughter.

“We’re back,” Aziz muttered, “but at what cost?”

Marie stared at him. “The outcome would have been the same either way. Against such a force, we wouldn’t have lasted more than five minutes at close range. We were outnumbered at least ten to one, without any force multipliers in our favour.”

“What’s going on over here?” A presence pressed down on everyone present as a person with long golden hair, clad in golden robes, descended from the skies. Her skies scanned through the crowd, which was currently engaged in cordoning off the teleportation formation. “Why has the garrison at Camp Starfall returned?”

Her eyes lingered on Marie. “Marshal Marie, right? What happened?”

Marie narrowed her eyes. “You lot never received the news?”

“What news?” Speaker Sephira asked, before staring at the crowd. “Camp Starfall has been overrun? Does that mean that the expedition fell in battle?”

Marie glanced at Aziz, her eyes alight with a faint deliberation. “Speaker Sephira, I’ll trouble you to gather everyone of importance here. I’ll debrief everyone present as to what is going on, since apparently no news has reached you guys yet.”

Speaker Sephira, who had a pale complexion to begin with, turned positively white. On an ordinary day, Aziz would have felt some glee at the fact that the first amongst equals of an enemy nation was feeling dismayed, but this wasn’t one of these days.

“What happened?” Speaker Sephira took a deep breath. “Tell me.”

Marie locked gazes with the Speaker of the Southern Assembly. “The expedition was defeated by a single speech of the Abyss Sovereign. From what I can tell, he apparently stirred up memories of the infantry troops, and then exploited all these weaknesses to sway them over. After that, he did something, rendering useless all Shot artefacts, as well as the guns of the North’s Locomotives.”

She pointed at the grey dome that occupied a good half of the northern hemisphere. “In there, no Shot artefacts apparently worked.”

“…Which must have meant that defending Camp Starfall was impossible,” Speaker Sephira replied.

“I’m glad we are on the same page. It didn’t take long for the spectres to tear through the barrier; if we had dallied, half of us wouldn’t have made it out.” Marie took a deep breath. “But that’s not the problem. The problem now is that almost all of our top-level personnel are stuck inside the Central Circle, as well as whatever remains of the Five Lands’ troops.”

“That’s how it is, eh?” Speaker Sephira nodded. “I’ll help convene a meaning; it’ll be at that building, in the conference room on the top floor.”

She was about to walk away, when a small jerk ran through her body. The Speaker turned back and looked at Marie. “Marshal, we might have had our differences, but for now, I will put them aside. I hope you do the same.”

“Already done,” Marie replied. “I’ll see you in the conference room.”

As Speaker Sephira stalked off, Aziz found himself letting out a sigh. The reckoning hadn’t begun, but the colonel harboured no illusions. The only reason why the two of them were still at liberty with their rank was due to the fact that the expedition had been utterly crushed by the Abyss Sovereign. Once all this was over…

He shook his head.

It would be nice if they forgot all about it, but that was a hope he wasn’t holding out for, and—

“Aziz.” Marie tapped his shoulder, before pointing to the south. “There, over there. Do you see it too? A grey tint that colours everything we see there?”

“A grey tint?” Aziz asked, squinting his eyes. It took him around five seconds or so, but after a while, he did pick out that the sky to the south of their current location was indeed coloured in an odd shade of grey. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m not seeing things, then.” Marie narrowed her eyes. “It should be the countdown thing the War Council talked about. When it reaches the centre of the Central Circle, at that stupidly tall tower, Celestia’s creation would be complete.”

“A countdown, huh?” Aziz clicked his teeth. “What’s going to happen at the point of creation? Would we all be destroyed?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Marie took a deep breath. “Let’s not dwell on that too much, though. Just thought we shouldn’t go too close to that grey border of sorts…and it’s even closing in to boot. Definitely not good for us.”

She shook her head, and then approached the group of junior officers, who had been shaking in their boots when Speaker Sephira appeared. Aziz couldn’t blame them for reacting that way, since Paragons really were a rare breed, and it didn’t help that quite a few of these officers were actually from the Southern Assembly.

Marie issued a few instructions, bidding them to take charge of the lost sheep that were still standing around the area, before making her way to the conference room Speaker Sephira mentioned. Given that the marshal was still recuperating from her injuries back then, there was no way he was going to let her out of his sight.

“…The others, will they be alright?” Aziz asked, saying the first thing on his mind. “The kids were at the…”

“I hope they are,” Marie replied. “But there’s literally nothing we can do now. The only thing they have going for them is that you trained them, long ago, on how to use knives in a fight.”

“No swords, nothing,” Aziz added. “I should have taught them that too. The basics of melee combat. But I didn’t. Thought a knife was enough and all.”

“Who could have guessed that the Abyss Sovereign could do something like this?” Marie asked. “It’s not your fault. Not even the Demon Sovereign had done that. No one could have seen this coming.”

She rubbed his head, and then pointed at the building Speaker Sephira had pointed out. “Come on. It’s time to…face the others, come what may.”

An underlying sense of surrealism, the kind that Aziz had experienced only in times of great shock, flooded his mind at those words, and the colonel allowed himself to led dumbly away.

After all, he still couldn’t bring himself to believe that all these had happened in the past two hours alone.