Chapter 94: Starfall

Chapter 94: Chapter 94: Starfall

The battle had ended at noon. By evening, the Glass Field north of the wall was still too hot to walk on.

Donald sat in the TIG War Room with his left arm in a sling and a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched. His legs ached every time he moved them. His regeneration was working, but it was slow.

Aris stood across the tactical table with her tablet.

"Damage report," she said. "No deaths on the wall. Fourteen injured, all C-Rank and D-Rank, all expected back on duty within the week. The north section of the wall has three cracked plates. The shield is at 100%."

"And the money?"

Aris looked at him over her glasses. "You tell me. You’re the one who spent it."

Donald pulled up his interface.

[Current Balance: 360,000 System Credits.]

[Passive Income (Golem Miners): +150,000 per day.]

[Archangel Orbital Strike Array: Cooldown 68:41:12.]

[Sylvia’s Stored Assets: Containment pedestal (1). All other vault assets liquidated.]

"Three hundred and sixty thousand," he said. "We emptied a Demon King’s treasury to hold one wall."

"And the wall held," Aris said. "The markets don’t care what it cost. TIG stock is up forty percent since noon. Three Capital investment houses have asked for meetings."

"Turn them all down for now."

Aris nodded and made a note.

Donald leaned back. He thought about Azgalor’s last words on the glass. The Circle will not come one at a time.

Azgalor had lost his army and his treasury. He would spend months rebuilding. The other four Kings had lost nothing. They had only watched.

That was the part that worried him.

---

Garrick’s forge was in the second basement level, under the Mana-Forge. It was hot and loud, and it smelled of burnt metal.

Evelyn sat on a steel stool in the middle of the room with her right hand wrapped in gauze. The white blade lay across a workbench in front of her. Garrick was bent over it with a pair of tongs, fitting a grip made of black leather and silver wire around the bare hilt.

"Hold still," Garrick said, though she wasn’t moving. "And don’t touch it until I say. The metal’s still eating ambient mana. The leather is lined with void-steel thread to keep it off your skin. Without it, your hand will burn every time you swing."

"It’s been burning since noon," Evelyn said. "I stopped noticing."

"You’ll notice when the skin doesn’t grow back." Garrick tightened the last wire and set down the tongs. "There. Now pick it up."

Evelyn stood and took the sword by the new grip.

Nothing burned.

She turned it in the light. The blade was long and straight, with a narrow fuller down the center and no guard. The edge, set during the fight, gave off a low, steady white light. When she moved it, the light didn’t flicker.

Donald came down the stairs as she lifted it. He stopped at the bottom and watched.

"How does it feel?" he asked.

"Like it was made for my hand," Evelyn said. "Which it was." She looked at Garrick. "Thank you."

"Don’t thank me. Thank the star it came from." Garrick wiped his hands on his apron. "It needs a name. A weapon this strong will settle better with one. Old forge rule."

Evelyn looked down at the blade for a while.

"Starfall," she said.

Garrick nodded once, as if that was the answer he’d expected.

[Item Updated: Starfall]

[Rank: S-Rank]

[Wielder Bound: Evelyn Vance.]

[Effects:]

[Absorbs hostile mana on contact and converts it into holy damage.]

[Indestructible under 500 Strength or less.]

[Conduit: Amplifies Divine Pulse by 40%.]

[Notable Limit: Will not absorb holy or neutral mana. Weak against non-magical physical force alone.]

Donald read it twice. Indestructible under 500 Strength. Azgalor had been well over that when he hit the shield. But Azgalor would be weaker for a long time now.

"Starfall," Donald said. "Good name."

Evelyn smiled at him. Then she slid the sword into the tattoo on her wrist. The winged-blade mark glowed for a second and went dark.

"Now," she said. "Sit down before you fall down. You look terrible."

"I’m fine."

"You’re walking like a hundred-year-old man."

Donald sat down on the stool she’d left.

---

Aris found him an hour later, back in the War Room, reading the Chokepoint Grid reports.

She put a thin gray folder on the table in front of him.

"The Association seized Dragonheart’s Capital records this afternoon," she said. "They shared a copy with us under the Vanguard Clause agreement. Most of it is financial. Bribes, shell companies, the usual. But there’s one file I think you should see."

Donald opened it.

The first page was a sealed research order, stamped with the Dragonheart crest. Below the stamp was a single line.

Subject: Gate Closure Theory. Research classified. Author’s license suspended. Author to remain under watch.

The second page held a photograph of a woman at a lecture podium. The third was her file.

[Name: Helena Cross]

[Rank: A-Rank Arch-Mage]

[Field: Dimensional Gate Theory]

[Status: License frozen. Banned from Capital Academy. Relocated to Genesis City.]

[Note: Husband, Thomas Cross (B-Rank Guardian), killed in a gate breach at her laboratory. Breach classified as accidental.]

Donald read the date on the breach report. It was the same week Dragonheart had sealed her research.

"Accidental," he said.

"That’s what it says," Aris said. "But look at the title of the paper they sealed."

Donald turned the page.

On the Artificial Construction of Dimensional Gates, and the Anchors That Hold Them Open.

He sat very still.

There was a Dimensional Tear Anchor wired into the reactor three floors below him. There was an open rift at the bottom of the Abyssal Gate that led into Azgalor’s lands. Nobody in Genesis City, including Garrick, understood either of them.

And the only person who had ever written about them was living somewhere in this city.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"Sector 4," Aris said. "A boarding house on Weller Street. She teaches basic mana theory to children for room and board."

Donald stood up. His legs complained. He ignored them.

"You can barely walk," Aris said.

"Then I’ll walk slowly."

---

The boarding house on Weller Street was three floors of old brick, four blocks from Donald’s old apartment. He knew the street. He had cleaned armor two doors down, years ago, for pennies.

The front room had been turned into a classroom. Eight children sat on the floor in rows, copying shapes from a chalkboard into their notebooks.

The woman at the chalkboard had her back to the door.

She was tall, almost as tall as Donald, and full-figured in a way her plain gray dress couldn’t hide. The dress was too tight across her wide hips and pulled at the buttons over her heavy chest, as if it had been bought for a smaller woman years ago. Her ash-brown hair was tied up in a loose knot, and a few strands had fallen against the soft line of her neck. When she reached up to write at the top of the board, the dress lifted at the back of her knees and showed her full, pale calves.

She turned around.

She had a round, kind face with faint lines at the corners of her eyes. A pair of reading glasses sat low on her nose. Her fingers were stained with chalk and ink, and there was a smudge of chalk on her cheek that she didn’t know about.

Donald’s [Valuation Eye] opened on its own.

[Target: Helena Cross]

[Class: Arch-Mage (A-Rank)]

[Level: 52]

[Current Status: License frozen. Core underused (mana capacity at 34% of potential).]

[Current Deficit: Grief. Stolen life’s work. Living under watch.]

[Investment Potential: Exceptional.]

[Required Investment (Next Step): Recover her sealed research from the Capital.]

Helena looked at the gold mask, then down at the sling on his arm.

The children had gone quiet.

"Class is over for today," Helena said to them gently, without looking away from Donald. "Take your notebooks home. Same time tomorrow."

The children packed up and filed past him out the door. One of them stared up at the mask as he went.

When the room was empty, Helena took off her glasses and folded them.

"You’re the Investor," she said.

"I am."

"I watched the battle from the roof." Her voice was calm and low. "I saw the rift open two miles out. I saw how wide it was, and how long it stayed open." She set the glasses on the desk. "A gate that size doesn’t open on its own. Someone held it open from the other side. That means the Demon King has a second anchor somewhere close to this city."

Donald said nothing.

"And you," Helena went on, "have a first anchor wired into your building. I can feel it from here." She looked at him steadily. "You have no idea what it is, do you?"

"No," Donald said. "That’s why I came."

Helena was quiet for a long moment.

Then she pulled out the chair behind her desk and sat down, as if her legs had suddenly gotten tired.

"Then sit down, Investor," she said. "Because if you keep that thing running the way you’re running it, you’re going to open a door into this city that you can’t close."