Deep in the bedrock, where even tremors from the surface war faded to whispers, Amon sat motionless within his tar-woven armor. The chamber pressed close around him, not just stone, but the weight of what was coming.

  Their enemies closed in. The Mist that cloaked them from the Automatons' relentless gaze, was nearly spent.

  The Caregivers had carved out an expansive chasm at the deepest depths, hollowing the surrounding area until only the unbreakable bedrock remained. A domain the mechanized constructs could not simply tunnel through.

  It bought them time, slowed the Gnomes in pinpointing their exact location. But the machines were not as blind as living beings. Encased in protective enchantments, and attuned with high-level sensory arrays. The constructs navigated the shroud with mechanical patience.

  Swarms of fist-sized floating spheres mapped the area, guiding the closing army of automaton vehicles.

  They were deep enough now, their course ever straight toward the chamber's heart. The Mist could no longer distort their senses, make them circle endlessly, lost in perceived vastness. The guiding Spheres had to be disrupted.

  Caregivers housed within rock and metal suits of their own, acted.

  Forged from materials gathered over years underground. Caregivers fired makeshift rifles, crystals releasing stored energy, launching armor-piercing rounds woven with corroding curses.

  Metal spheres punctured. Dozens, then hundreds destroyed in seconds.

  Mist distorted the noise, keeping sounds from echoing within itself. No mortal army would have known they were under attack, brothers dying all around them. The constructs did not suffer that blindness. The moment the first Sphere was destroyed, the silent march ended.

  Vehicles activated weapons. The Mist burned, not from metal rounds, but bolts of counter-energy, and lines of rending light.

  Indiscriminate fire filled the Mist, orbs of energy and beams spearing through, until their power was spent. Caregivers sent forth their own hails of fire, aiming at the most dangerous parts; laser turrets scything through the Mist. Larger Caregivers—formed into massive moving artillery constructs—focused cannons at the worst offenders, and fired.

  Javelins taller than a man whistled through the air, speared into Automatons, wrecking armor and moving gears.

  Lasers winked out, but quickly replaced by others, and the Caregivers attacks were answered with precise retaliation.

  The Automatons calculated angles of attack, fired in the right direction where Caregivers were stationed. Bolts peppered rune-carved stone. and metal casings of more important tar constructs. Lasers focused, cutting through Mist, puncturing Caregivers.

  The attacks should have been debilitating, but no one in the clash filling his mind was mortal. Once cleansing lasers moved on, portions of tar went to work, pulling suits back together, repairing damage done to runic matrices.

  The Gnomes metal contraptions were similar. Within the vehicles were hosts of smaller machines, spider-shaped, endowed with dexterous hands, and welding tools.

  Turrets would be repaired soon; he saw replacement parts housed within the war machines.

  But they faced Preserverant, and were surrounded by that hallowed substance. Mist that had flowed into inner compartments, condensed, turned back into a physical state. Tar dripped and flowed over inner walls, and sensitive components, cutting, and pulling at wires, slashing at Glyphoses, hampering the movement of Spiders.

  As battle raged outside, Mist took the fight inward, filling damaged hulls, seeking to claim shells as their own.

  A rising screech echoed within breached Automatons. A failsafe triggered. Their cores, protected behind layers of fortified glass, and shield incantations, glowed brightly.

  Then—

  Large explosions filled the Mist. The vehicles self-destructed, thinning the shroud.

  Mist stopped attempting to claim Automatons. Better to cripple them, than to set off their last form of attack.

  Gnomes, uncaring of losses, sent more and larger mechanized machines, which fired bolts into the expanse. Above the chasm, tunneling versions broke through again, but unlike before, where they'd plummeted down. These anchored themselves with spearing appendages.

  Long-barreled turrets fired downward with uncanny accuracy. This time sending etched shells that cracked, and shattered runic metal, then released stored power within.

  Blinding flashes, rending might, and large spheres of cleansing light consumed all within. A second later, Mist rushed back into the void, only for more shells to fire down, starting the process anew.

  Caregivers were erased entirely, nothing left of carved shells. Quickly, the outer defense of Preserverant was losing its means to attack Automatons effectively. This was not a battle to be fought in melee. They needed guns, and the Gnomes were stripping them of that method of warfare.

  He saw and felt why.

  At the outer edges of the Shroud, a different variety of tunneling Automaton arrived. The heads of their worm-shaped forms peeled apart, revealing many-barreled openings.

  Light glowed from them, then out.

  A tide of Dragon-aspected heat burnt at the Shroud, spending its mass, slowly forcing it back. Vehicles followed, a perfectly unified advance as they methodically cleansed the air.

  Caregivers stopped attacking, and retreated to the second defense line.

  The Automatons shots lost focus, their shells and bolts missing marks. Machines halted their own attacks, and a short stillness returned, as constructs calmly marched through a Shroud that only sought to bring peace.

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  Weapon platforms left unused trained sights on those soulless creations. The caliber held within chambers made to puncture enchanted armor. From the second line—a maze of intersecting walls providing cover—the Caregivers began their second assault.

  No sound voiced the attack, everything mute as vehicles were punctured, and blasted apart. Platforms aimed sights high, attacking Automatons anchored on the chasm roof.

  Machines fired back, attacks as accurate as before. Walls became marked with craters, enchanted surfaces barely holding back ammunition. The largest Caregivers moved into place. The strongest artillery cannons they'd forged, focused on the worm-shaped Automatons burning away the Shroud.

  When fired, air pulsed, and the Shroud warped. But it contained the noise, and the Automatons were taken by surprise.

  One moment they assaulted the Shroud, the next, etched javelins—the size of carriages—speared through layers of fortified armor, wrecking components within, unleashing stored wrath. Explosions rocked the local area. Untold Automatons destroyed.

  Artillery fired again before Caregivers reset, moving barrels as fast as they could, re-aiming at new targets. All the while, the chasm was carved into from all sides.

  Larger vehicles arrived, digging monstrosities made to hollow out the realm. The insectoid machines—size of the Battlemechs Tharnells had used—charged into Mist, firing massive ordinances into ranks of the second line, shattering defenses, ruining weapon platforms.

  The machines stopped their paced approach. They rushed forth. A tide of bulking metal invading their domain.

  Insight flowed from Mist.

  The Gnomes were now certain they'd found the main portion of the remnant Scar, ensuring its end.

  Caregivers fought valiantly, stemming the tide, but were forced to retreat to the final line. Machines close behind, the things on suicide runs. Whenever too badly damaged, they exploded violently, burning away Shroud, thinning its mass, forcing it to condense back to the source of the miasma.

  Enough had been learned.

  The elements of the Machines attacks studied, their tunes known. Within the tar dome situated at the chamber's center, where he, and all the Souls were gathered. Shielding devices were attuned and activated. A semi-transparent film spread across the dome, their final defense to grant them time.

  The twelve elements of Mana feeding his Core, which dwelled within the fifth Tier—a legendary Core reserved for entities on the cusp of divinity—was reaching the next stage of development.

  All of his Core's outflow, and ninety percent coming from the Blessings, fed into crystals, the stones converting it into elements they were missing. Their limiter, waiting on them, time running out.

  It felt as though he was racing to meet tribute requirements for the Scales again. Not enough time, too much to do, the preciousness of the moment, whirling past.

  Crystals shined, hummed. They pulled power from them, his Core devouring it all, eager to reach that approaching summit.

  His Soul alight, divinity in reach.

  Bolts and piercing shells struck upon the Shield, both reflected away in random directions. The final defense line gone, Caregivers crushed under a tide of feelingless machines.

  The Shroud condensed again, his sight shrinking. But he saw all too clearly the running horde of metal creatures firing into the mist.

  The only counter-attacks they received, were their own shots reflected back. Shield sending everything away, attunement nearly perfect. It lessened the amount of power it took to keep the Shield going, to hold back elements that sought to rupture its design.

  The hymn of crystals touched his ears. He drank again, felt the building pressure of the Seal, almost at the line few were allowed to pass.

  Running machines, loosely resembling four-legged beasts, slammed into the Shield. Their forms sent hurtling back, bent, and broken from impact. Weapons fire focused on the protection, the army now aware of the anomaly.

  Thousands impacted the protection. Bolts sent sailing off, Machines struck by their own ammunition. The artillery shells though, where they struck, impact was enough to activate demolitions.

  Explosions rocked the Shield's surface, cost increasing, reserves falling. But the protection held. The Shroud though, it was withering, each explosive release burning it away.

  Bolt fire stopped, those attacks ineffective, and inflicting self-harm. Artillery shells rained supreme. The Shield repeatedly hammered, Shroud cleansed, his sight gone.

  Eyes opening, he stared at the device made to give him quick measure of the Shield’s strength. The volume of liquid light slowly fell, lines revealed showing how much power remained.

  With crystals full, the Outflow of the collective went into stones maintaining their defense. Luckily, with his Soul aspect being of Earth, he could directly feed the protection without conversion being required first.

  A precious gift, providing them blessed time.

  Gloved hands drumming against the armchair, he unblinkingly watched the shifting light of the crystal chamber, counting moments, pleading a quickening as they waged war with Machines attempting to spend them. The vial of light rose and fell, the decline hampered but still progressing.

  They were the lesser force being cleansed from the realm.

  Crystals sang, the chamber ablaze with every hue. They pulled power from gems. The multi-spectrum converging into his waiting Core.

  They had arrived, the Seal in full force.

  He leaned forward, hands resting on the Dragon Core before him. A ruby the size of a horse. He pressed power into it, and the crystal shined bright. At the cusp of divinity, it acknowledged him and what was to come.

  He pulled his energy back, and what laid within the Core, flowed with it. The gem shattered, and the entirety of its mass surged into his center.

  He screamed, laughed, cried. Soul alight as the Seal shivered, then burnt away by Dragon might. The shattering of glass touched his ears once more, followed by a rush of progress, his Core ascending. Divinity gained.

  Power.

  So much power.

  It emanated from him, for he lacked the form to contain it. An unyielding tide of black and dark yellow light filled the chamber, the amount condensing into a liquid form that rushed down halls. The mass of Tar and Mist surged in response, feeding on the Death element while it sent Earth into the shielding.

  The vial of light going up, surplus gained, they no longer being erased from the realm.

  He roared and cheered, the rush taking him again. With ease, he broke free from tar chains that tried and failed to hold him in his seat. All the other ascensions were nothing compared to ecstasy coursing through his etheric veins.

  Soul pulsing with an unending tide of might.

  He paced about, how could he not? It took everything he had not to charge from the chamber, to face the machines personally, bring an end to the suffering they sought to unleash upon saved Souls.

  A ringing wail broke his power-induced trance. Head snapping to the source, eyes resting upon the vial once more, he watched, disbelieving, as light within lowered.

  Cold reality drowned the burning fire of action, stilled his mind. He noticed the touch on his hand. Two small ones were holding it. Arbah, who had been trying to bring sense back to him, now attempted to usher him back to his seat.

  Taking her into his arms, he did so, all the while watching the vial. The Preserverant fed his power into shielding matrices as fast as it could, but the flow was not reversing again.

  How he longed to see what form of attack was taking place, the forces arrayed against them. But the protective spell had become thick, their vision muddled, and further hampered by endless light surrounding them.

  There was only the vial, and the abrupt dips in power, as their means to see the magnitude of the strikes being absorbed.

  The chamber shifted, closed in on him. Guardian Caregivers—all wearing Dragon masks—formed around him. They sent their farewells. The Preserverant all too aware of the moment that had come.

  He held Arbah tight as the vial went empty.