Russell felt an overwhelming sense of relief big enough to equal his despair from moments earlier. He’d taken a massive risk, and it looked like it was paying off. The moment he’d seen the dragon, Russell knew the situation was far worse than they’d thought.

In his time with the Revolution, Russell had been posted at an ether harvesting site on a border continent, one that was so far from the Pillar that the entire territory of the Central Authority could fit within its borders. The Pillar even seemed dimmer, something he’d never experienced before.

As with most supermassive continents, its weather was…strange. Islands and continents closer to the Pillar tended to have normal, consistent weather. The landmass would be tropical, a desert, a swamp, or anything in between. Some were cold, some were hot, but they had a consistent atmosphere.

The farther one got from the Pillar, the less that applied. Some super continents could rain rocks and have rivers of ice-cold mud. Some had mountains of solid flame and forests of trees whose leaves dripped molten metals. The Starry Sea seemed to contain ever more magical and strange sights the farther one got from the pillar.

Russell had even seen in passing a patch of the Starry Sea that was a rich, even blue rather than its usual deep black scattered with cosmic vistas. He later learned that the area was a continent, but one entirely submerged. Despite the whole landmass being below sea level, the land still rejected the presence of the Starry Sea, so the whole thing was covered in normal water.

The continent Russell had been posted on was a frozen and flat wasteland that was constantly pelted by a stream of razor-sharp snow that shredded anything without a thick, tough hide or proper protective gear. It was a miserable, dangerous place. However, it also happened to have vast reserves of various ether types deep underground. And the Revolution had the ethertech to make extracting it viable, even in the hostile environment.

It was at the very beginning of his time with the Revolution, when Russell first joined after his small village was devastated by a conflict between two rival families of shrouded. Two younger members of each side decided to duke it out in the center of town. Few survived. Among the dead were every member of Russell’s extended family and the woman he one day wanted to be his wife.

He had been terribly young and angry, and the Revolution was the perfect outlet. He’d been shipped out to one of the most productive ether mines on the Starry Sea. A combination of advanced mining technology and a dedicated workforce produced more ether per hour than most mines made in a week.

But Russell’s job had nothing to do with any of that. Instead, he was posted in a protective suit inside a small bunker just barely below the surface with a series of tiny windows looking in all directions across the frozen continent. Russell started his time with the Revolution as a lookout. Because the weather was not anywhere near the most dangerous thing on the continent.

A larger continent meant more powerful monsters. This was a fact even the youngest children learned; it was just common sense. In only the first day of his watch, Russell saw monsters that would have slaughtered the two young shrouded that ruined his life. And that was within a day.

Funnily enough, Russell learned that monsters that had no other life to target would actually fight each other. Not those of the same kind, but other monster types were fair game. He had a front-row seat to battle after battle between monsters whose strength boggled his mind.

It was over a month in when Russell saw a scene that changed his entire life.

In that time, Russell had seen a great number of battles. Many of them potent enough to shake the walls of his little bunker. Despite that, none were considered reportable incidents. There were several instruments in the bunker that measured various aspects of a monster to divine their strength. Russell’s job was to point those instruments in the right direction and make sure the equipment didn’t malfunction.

It amazed him that these battles, filled with such displays of power that he would sometimes see them in his nightmares, were considered unworthy of note to the mining operation below. He couldn’t understand why they mattered so little. That is, until one day, when he saw real power for the first time.

The cutting snow had been denser than usual that day, bordering on a true blizzard. The poor visibility hadn’t mattered much since, even then, monsters seemed reluctant to be out and about in the slowly worsening weather.

After hours of seeing nothing of note, and just after his lunch, Russell was contemplating calling below to be relieved of his post. The weather was only getting ever worse, and scratches had started to form on the glass of his brick-sized windows. The potency of the snow seemed to be growing alongside the density of the downpour. If the windows breached, Russell wasn’t sure his suit would protect him.

Besides, he’d seen nothing this entire time. What monster could even survive in the open under such dire conditions?

He found out a moment later as a massive shadow moved in the far distance. Through the snow and slowly darkening sky, Russell initially thought he was just seeing things. But he wasn’t about to bet on it, so he pointed his instruments in that general direction. Instantly, every single one lit up, blaring every alarm they had and showing measurements that went literally off the scale.

Then a second shadow moved.

Both monsters were just vague shapes through the storm, but that alone was enough for him to know that they were each large enough to crush an island with a single massive foot. Russell could only watch on in stunned silence as the two behemoths approached each other. The instruments continued to throw up alarms as he stared. The monsters were here to fight each other; he had no doubt in his mind.

When they finally clashed, it caused a pressure wave so powerful that the very weather was blown away. The snow, so dangerous that every other, lesser, monster hid themselves, was cast aside by the force of their clash. A tsunami of snow rushed across the wasteland in an expanding bubble around the pair, leaving clear air behind.

When the wave reached his bunker, Russell flinched as every single window was blown out. The only reason he didn’t die then and there was because the cutting snow was blown away, preventing it from shredding him to pieces. A bunker designed to withstand an incredibly harsh environment was breached in an instant from the mere aftershock of a battle thousands of miles away.

With the windows shattered, Russell finally felt it. A sensation like the hands of death crawling up his spine and seizing his throat. The eyes of an apex predator staring into his soul. Russell could, and had tried to, describe the sensation a hundred different ways, and all fell short. He started shaking violently, dropping the still-blaring sensors to the ground.

He’d run then, alerted the mining operation to the battle above, and they promptly evacuated. A call he’d insisted on despite many cries against. He was so passionate and persistent, so terrified that the leader of the mining site couldn’t ignore him.

A call that ended up being proven correct a month later when the mining crews returned, only to find the entire topography of the continent changed. Mountains and valleys existed where there had previously been flat land. Many mining sites were buried under several million tons of rock or exposed to the cutting snow.

Everyone who saw knew they all would have died if they’d stayed. His insistence that day had started Russell’s rise through the Revolution. And another thing remained with him from that day. Russell never lost that sensation, that creeping doom that ran up his spine. Seeing what he had unlocked something in his body, in his soul.

Ever since that day, Russell had an uncanny ability to gauge the strength of anything or anyone he saw. It wasn’t perfect, especially on shrouded. His sixth sense couldn’t account for human cunning, only raw power. A smart shrouded with a weak shroud might feel less dangerous than an unimaginative shrouded whose only redeeming quality was raw power, despite the former being more dangerous in actuality.

Russell had found himself more than a little surprised by the two flying shrouded, as their efficacy did not match the feeling he got from them. His only conclusion was that they were incredibly skilled for their power level. That, and the pair seemed to have just the right ability set to counter etherships.

None of that nuance mattered when he looked at the dragon. That fact was only reinforced once he saw the aftermath of the Vengeance’s explosion. Despite having the entire armament cache and ether engine explode in its face, the dragon looked more annoyed than hurt. Its metallic scales glowed a molten orange around its face that rapidly faded away, revealing not a single nick or dent.

All this confirmed a fear that he’d held the moment the massive monster started attacking. It seemed to have surprisingly low strength compared to the absolute dread he felt from it. Looking at the sinuous form was the closest he’d ever gotten to the sensation he’d felt back on that cold continent in his little bunker.

But the dragon’s attacks didn’t match that fear. Now, Russell could guess why. The dragon wasn’t a strong attacker, despite the almost contemptuous ease with which it destroyed a power combat ethership. No, most of the dragon’s strength lay in those scales. It was a flying, fire-breathing fortress that had shrugged off an explosion strong enough to put a dent in the Liberation’s shields. An explosion that happened right in its face.

That kind of defensive ability was beyond anything Russell currently had on hand. And while he hadn’t known it at the time, Russell had a gut feeling that they couldn’t beat the dragon as soon as he saw it. So he made a risky choice. He’d fully gone around Travis’s command and directly contacted Revolution HQ. He could be stripped of his command and even killed outright for ignoring the chain of command. But he’d be damned if he let Travis touch this battle and fuck it all up. It had become far too dangerous for that.

Because Russell wasn’t sure if that dragon couldn’t take down the Liberation itself.

But luck was with him for the first time that day; HQ seemed to realize that he wasn’t kidding around. He had no idea what they were sending to deal with that dragon, but whatever it was must have been the big guns.

Russell wasn’t an idiot. He knew that the Revolution top brass was holding out, even now. He’d seen technology far beyond even what most of the Revolution used one too many times to not know that they were hiding just how advanced they truly were. The Revolution held weapons in reserve that could make the Vengeance seem like the chew toy the dragon had treated it as.

For a moment, he was worried that the reinforcements wouldn’t come fast enough. After all, the dragon was still there, completely uninjured. It could carve a path through every single ship on its way to the Liberation. Russell wasn’t sure if their entire fleet could take down that one monster. They simply weren't equipped to deal with a monster on that level, having not expected to see one this close to the Pillar.

The weapons needed to face a powerful monster were completely different than those useful against shrouded. But the spies present at the Tournament of Powers had information on all bonded monsters present, and none were overly powerful. With the suppression field active, no shrouded should be able to create a creature on the level of this dragon.

So, they weren’t ready. And that's why Russell was so relieved when the dragon showed no interest in attacking further. It shrunk to an absurd degree, becoming so small that their sensors had trouble tracking it before heading straight toward the ground.

At the same time, the Gateway opened once more, much smaller than when the Liberation came through. One of the techs on the bridge threw up a live image of the emerging ship. It was small, smaller even than most of the ships currently fielded. Its design was unlike anything Russell had ever seen, far more angular and sharp than other etherships.

It was also pitch black, looking like someone had taken a black blade and turned it into a ship. Glowing lines of ether in several colors followed the lines of the ship. There were no obvious doors or windows on the ship nor any visible weapon emplacements; it was a near-featureless vessel.

“Sir, the reinforcement vessel is hailing us.” A tech spoke up.

“Respond,”

“Commander of the Liberation, this is Experimental Vessel 73. We are here to engage resisting elements. A sitrep has been derived from your vessel's sensor array. Disengage all forces from the targets and resume normal operations.” The communication cut out a moment later without even giving him room to respond.

Russell wasn’t surprised. He’d realized the moment he heard the first words that he wasn’t talking to a fellow revolutionary, not really.

Experimental Vessel 73 was crewed entirely by Ethermen.