In the throne room, Rigelus reveals he watched Bryce through the Harpy’s eyes and anticipated the team leaving the Northern Rift open as an escape route. As brimstone missiles from the Asterian Guard hammer Hel’s forces outside the city, Rigelus announces he sent three legions to the Rift to strike Hel while its armies are deployed in Midgard. Realizing the danger, Bryce teleports herself and Hunt out of the palace to the hills beyond the Eternal City to warn Aidas and trigger their next move.

Inside the palace, Ruhn and Lidia search corridors and dungeons for Lidia’s abducted sons but find nothing. Lidia switches into the Hind’s cold focus and leads Ruhn down into the mystics’ hall, where she shoots the withered attendant at the desk and rapidly types the same question into multiple mystic interfaces: where her sons are. The mystics’ answer points to Pollux holding the boys under the palace, in the hall with the firstlight core beneath the archives.

Ruhn tries to slow Lidia, insisting the location is likely a trap; Lidia refuses and threatens him with her gun, determined to go anyway. Fearing Lidia will die rushing in, Ruhn makes a brutal choice to stop her: he shoots her in the thigh (avoiding major arteries), then sprints ahead alone while Lidia, bleeding and furious, vows she will never forgive him.

Elsewhere, Tharion navigates the hostile, lifeless waterways beneath the Eternal City, guided by the current as he carries a bag of sealed antidotes. He pries open a riverbank grate and surges through a dark tunnel toward the Asteri’s palace, using an aquatic headlamp to push onward unseen.

On the hills, Bryce meets Aidas as Hel’s armies press toward the city walls and the Asterian Guard advances with mech-suits that slaughter demons. Naomi and Isaiah join Hunt and Aidas for “Phase Two,” revealing Rigelus’s Rift gambit will backfire because a significant portion of Hel’s army remains behind to meet the legions sent to Nena. After Declan is prompted to act, the mech-suits abruptly fail; Bryce dons the Mask and commands the Fallen’s souls to inhabit the disabled machines and nearby corpses, creating an undead “Risen” force under Isaiah and Naomi’s leadership. As the Risen march on the gates, the Asteri themselves approach the battlefield, and Hel’s Princes of the Ravine and the Pit stride forward to meet them.