The transit was a blur of calculated expenditure. The Lionhart Legion's greatest logistical asset was its network of modified, military-grade Dimensional Gates—artifacts Kaelen had personally invested years and fortunes into acquiring and stabilizing. It was faster than any airship and more discreet than marching ten million soldiers, but each jump cost a fortune in specialized focusing crystals and mana-fueled stabilization spells. For five thousand troops and five Grandmasters, they were burning through cash reserves at an exponential rate.
Kaelen spent the entire journey—a compressed forty-hour nightmare of gate hops and brief reorientation pauses—in a portable command chamber, reviewing Belos's final schematics. He was less concerned with the Grandmasters around him and more with the numbers: the decay rate of the Residual Will's projected energy field, the calculated ambient mana flux in the Wastes, and the structural integrity of the newly modified device.
Just hours before the final hop, Belos presented the artifact. It was the Resonating Focus Lens, now barely recognizable. The smooth, concave dish that once focused explosive kinetic energy was replaced with a cage of hastily welded metallic components and a pulsing crystal matrix that hummed with nervous energy.
"It works, Lord Vayne," Belos announced, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. "We achieved the continuous, low-power vibration pulse. It's generating a resonant frequency that aligns with a three-hundred-thousand-year-old atmospheric mana signature we pulled from the ruins' geological reports. It's a calculated guess, but it's the only variable we could target."
Kaelen took the device. The weight was familiar, but the energy output felt dangerously unstable—like a massive boiler running at twice its intended pressure.
"The safety buffer?" Kaelen asked, not looking up.
"Non-existent," Belos admitted, wringing his hands. "It will burn out after twenty minutes of continuous use. If the internal crystal matrix is destabilized by an external force—say, the Vault's defense—it will detonate with the force of a full-scale Master-grade Mana Bomb. We barely encased it in enough shielding to protect the holder."
Kaelen simply nodded. A six-month job done in forty-six hours meant sacrificing safety for speed. This was the cost of his Legion's survival. If the device failed, he, a Legend, would be facing a Mythic-era defense alone while simultaneously dealing with a Grandmaster-grade explosion. The risk was acceptable.
The final dimensional gate shimmered, its massive frame humming as it deposited the strike team onto the frozen plains. The contrast with the humid chaos of Crossroads was immediate and chilling. The Frozen Wastes lived up to their name: an endless, sterile white expanse under a pale, sickly sun. The wind howled a constant, grinding noise, carrying particles of ancient, frozen dust.
In the distance, an impossible blackness rose from the white ground—the Shattered Vault of Aerthos.
The ruins themselves were massive, an inverted mountain of obsidian and polished black steel, half-buried in the tundra. But it wasn't the ruin itself that commanded attention. It was the Will.
Above the structure, visible even from miles away, was a vertical column of shimmering, colorless energy. It wasn't lightning; it was silent, constant, and impossibly dense. It looked like pure space had been compressed and heated, creating a crystalline curtain between the world and the Vault's entrance. This was the Residual Will—the ultimate expression of a Forge Master's final protection, the Mythic-era algorithm set to run until the end of time. It exuded an aura of impersonal, cold perfection that made the Legion's five thousand perimeter troops instinctively keep a distance of several kilometers.
Lira approached Kaelen, her elven eyes narrowed in grim recognition of the raw power. "The Syndicate's people are already here, Lord Vayne. Hidden behind that ridge. They're watching to see if we incinerate ourselves."
"Let them watch," Kaelen said, strapping the modified Resonating Focus Lens to his off-hand gauntlet. It whined softly, the crystal matrix beginning its low, preparatory pulse. "Belos, Lira, your team remains one kilometer back. No one advances until I'm inside. If I do not return within one hour, you activate the Legion's 'Contingency Alpha' plan: full liquidation of all non-essential assets and an immediate, structured retreat from the continent's eastern territories."
It was the cold, efficient language of a corporate bailout. His two trusted Grandmasters understood: Don't try to save me. Save the company.
Kaelen took his stance, his simple gray sword resting easily in his primary hand. He didn't focus on the Mythic power, or the Legendary defense, or the half-a-billion gold Crowns. He focused on the memory of a boardroom, of a system designed to keep the sixth son eternally subservient. That system was an algorithm, just like this one. And algorithms had loopholes.
With a speed that defied the frigid air, the Legend Kaelen Vayne moved. He didn't fly or jump; he simply ran, the single, unadorned blade held ready as he charged headlong into the perpetual, silent storm of the Mythic-era Will.