Contents
Chapter 75: The Eleventh Hour
Overview
Valka, Pallino, and Crim hold the line until Prince Aranata corners Valka. Crim wounds the prince, but Hadrian miraculously returns, decapitating Aranata and stunning allies. As the Garden stirs, SOMs awaken under Suzuha—now Kharn Sagara—and annihilate the Cielcin while avoiding humans. Shaken, Hadrian notes uncanny duplicates and faints.
Summary
Valka, low on plasma and shielding, fights beside Pallino and Crim against Aranata’s scahari near the lakeshore. After cutting through several foes, Valka and Ilex fall back among megaliths as Aranata advances with Hadrian’s sword. Aranata singles Valka out, confirming her link to Hadrian.
Valka’s last shots fail, and Aranata raises the blade to kill her. Crim’s thrown knife impales Aranata’s hand, dropping the weapon, but the prince draws Raine Smythe’s sword to finish Valka. Hadrian suddenly reappears, impales and beheads Aranata with Olorin’s sword, saving Valka.
Shocked allies—Valka, Crim, and Bassander—struggle to reconcile Hadrian’s resurrection and missing left arm. Hadrian pockets a ring from Aranata’s hand and confirms Smythe’s sword is recovered by Crim. A resonant hum sweeps the Garden as lights return and the vessel groans awake; Valka identifies the approaching green-lit figures as SOMs.
Bassander orders a retreat to the lake, but Hadrian, barely standing with Valka and Crim’s support, senses they are not the SOMs’ target. At the water’s edge, Hadrian discovers a severed right arm in his own white armor—implying duplicates of himself and of Olorin’s sword existed—then kicks it into the lake, disturbed by the Quiet’s unknown intervention.
The SOMs surge down the hill, silently rending the remaining Cielcin while avoiding human soldiers. Behind them stands Suzuha—now Kharn Sagara—in golden robes, steadied by the golem Yume, directing the horde. Recognizing the shift, Hadrian orders weapons lowered and, spent, collapses into darkness.
Who Appears
- Hadrian MarloweMiraculously returns from death, kills Prince Aranata, retrieves a ring, observes eerie duplicates, and orders weapons lowered before collapsing.
- Valka OnderraHolds the line, faces Aranata, is saved by Hadrian’s return, identifies the awakening SOMs, and supports the weakened Hadrian.
- Prince Aranata OtioloConfronts Valka with Smythe’s sword; wounded by Crim’s knife, then slain and beheaded by Hadrian.
- CrimLieutenant who distracts and wounds Aranata with a thrown knife, returns Smythe’s sword, and supports Hadrian and Valka.
- Bassander LinLeads Red Company defense, witnesses Hadrian’s return, orders a perimeter and fallback toward the lake.
- Pallino of TriesteVeteran centurion who holds scahari at bay with his lance, covering allies during the melee.
- IlexDryad homunculus fighting beside Valka; urges withdrawal and helps shoot down a charging scahar.
- Suzuha (Kharn Sagara)Awakens as the new Kharn; commands SOMs to destroy Cielcin while sparing humans.
- YumeGolem attendant supporting Suzuha as Kharn during the SOMs’ advance.
- SOMsReactivated machines that flood the Garden, annihilating Cielcin and avoiding humans under Kharn’s control.