I arrived near the structure on the second layer they were calling the Arx-9 base.
Even before getting close, I could tell this place was different.
The security density around it was noticeably higher than anywhere else on the second layer. Patrol routes were far higher in number than other places. More importantly, a spatial shield wrapped around the entire structure, thin but extremely precise. It wasn’t flashy or aggressive, but it was sophisticated.
This was the first place I had seen on both the second and third layers that bothered to isolate itself from space entirely.
That alone told me enough.
I didn’t rush in. I let my perception slide along the edges of the shield first, feeling the way space bent and folded to reject unauthorized entry. Whoever designed this knew exactly what they were protecting.
Then I pushed my perception through.
Inside, the structure was massive, extending far deeper than it looked from the outside. Floor after floor stacked vertically, each one dedicated to treatment, recovery, or containment. The Essence inside was dense, heavy with healing laws.
It didn’t take long to find him.
Left commander Rael was on the 37th floor.
His presence stood out immediately not because it was strong, but because it was unstable. His Essence fluctuated unevenly. Half his body was wrapped in bands, while specialized healers worked methodically around him.
He was alive.
Barely, just as they had said.
As I continued scanning, I realized Rael wasn’t the only one.
There were several Transcendent demons in the building, each on separate floors, each undergoing a different form of treatment. These weren’t fresh injuries. They were the kind that came from repeated exposure to the rift. Law erosion. Essence backlash. Damage that didn’t heal cleanly, no matter how powerful the healer was.
This was a special medical base. It was where the war’s strongest survivors were being held together long enough to return to the front.
The reason I came here was simple. I wanted to understand how important Left Commander Rael truly was.
My scan told me he was level 391.
That alone told me enough. Anyone that close to the upper boundary of Transcendent rank was not replaceable. And the level of security surrounding him confirmed it. Even this deep inside the defensive layers, Arx-9 was protected like a fortress within a fortress. Spatial shields, layered detection fields, constant patrols. Saleos was not careless. He guarded his key pieces well.
I crossed the spatial shield without resistance and arrived directly on the thirty-seventh floor.
I waited.
Healers moved in and out of the room. No wasted words. No unnecessary gestures. When the last of them finally left, I stepped inside.
Rael lay unconscious on the medical bed.
His body was massive, scarred, and broken in places that told a clear story of prolonged combat. But what caught my attention immediately was not the physical damage. It was what lay beneath it.
Deathmist.
An alarming amount of it.
It clung to his organs, seeped into his blood, and wrapped around his muscles like a slow poison. Worse, the laws mixed into the damage were foreign. Close enough to ours to interact, different enough to resist natural rejection. This was not random injury. This was deliberate.
I tilted my head slightly, considering my options.
Taking him for interrogation would have been easy. Useful, even. But this was not why I was here.
Instead, I placed my hand on his chest.
Deep inside my dawn core, the Star of Origin trembled softly.
The deathmist responded instantly.
It tore itself away from Rael’s body as if pulled by an invisible force, streaming toward me in threads. I controlled the flow carefully, drawing it into myself, letting the dawn core devour it piece by piece. I stopped once roughly half of it was gone.
Enough to pull him back from the edge.
I withdrew my hand and stepped back.
After that, I moved through the base, floor by floor, scanning other wounded demons. The pattern repeated again and again. Severe injuries layered with deathmist. Law-infused wounds that resisted healing. Physical damage was not the real killer here.
This battlefield was designed to rot its defenders from the inside. And now I understood exactly why they were struggling to hold the line.
I spent a few more minutes scanning the Arx-9 base, slowing my perception and checking every corner for anything unusual. Aside from the heavy concentration of injured Transcendents and the lingering traces of deathmist, there was nothing out of place. The healers were competent, the security tight, and the flow of people carefully regulated.
So I left.
I moved away from the Arx-9 medical base and headed toward the command base of the second layer.
From a distance alone, it was clear that this structure was different from everything else around it.
Where the barracks and infirmaries were broad and utilitarian, the command base rose vertically like a black spear driven into the void.
99 floors, each one reinforced with dense Essence plating and layered laws. A spatial shield wrapped around the entire structure.
I slipped through the spatial shield without resistance and arrived inside.
The first few floors were dedicated to logistics. Endless projections hovered in the air, moving maps of the battlefield, shifting troop lines, casualty markers blinking in dull red.
Demons stood in groups, arguing quietly over supply routes, reinforcement timing, and reserves. I saw requests being sent to headquarters in real time. Requests. That alone told me how stretched they were.
Higher up, the floors shifted purpose.
Mid-level floors handled coordination. Command tables made of solidified light floated at the center of vast halls. Every few seconds, projections adjusted as new information arrived—ambush zones, collapsed formations, Phantom movements that appeared and vanished like ghosts.
I kept moving.
On the upper floors, I found records. Long ones. Logs stretching back decades. Failed offensives. Saints deployed and countered. Fleets erased in controlled exchanges. Everything was recorded.
And then I felt it.
A faint trembling in the Star of Origin.
I slowed my movement and extended my perception carefully to check why it happened.
One presence. Then another. Then two more.
Four demons, spread across different floors, all carrying the same residue. It was subtle, buried beneath controlled Essence, but I recognized it instantly. The same twisted fluctuation I had felt during my battle on Peanu. The same law-scarred echo that didn’t belong to our universe.
My eyes narrowed.
I had arrived late to the battle on Peanu, but I still remembered it clearly.
After Saturn Max died, the space around his corpse had twisted, and a portal had torn itself open. From that opening, Phantoms had arrived. I hadn’t seen the portal form from the beginning, but I had felt what it left behind. The residue of its existence had clung to the area like a scar that refused to heal.
That same fluctuation was present here.