Darrow and his Howlers assault Lady Beatrice, breaching the entrance with Thraxa and fanning out through Glirastes’s mansion. In the museum, they find Alexandar mutilated and dead, while a shattered-jawed Rhonna points upward toward Lysander. Darrow orders Rhonna evacuated as fighting rumbles above and Screwface reports contact.

The team rockets to the upper floors, where explosions rip through the house and a figure with gravBoots escapes. Darrow, Thraxa, Screwface, and Howlers pursue into the city, calling in response teams as Lysander threads through towers under heavy fire. He ducks through a building, rides a gravLift to ground, and sprints north toward the prisoner camp by the Hippodrome.

Lysander hijacks the city’s holoscreens, bathing buildings in his broadcast as explosions erupt along the prison walls and across the city, pointedly sparing the shield generator. Darrow locks missiles onto the gravBoots’ thermal signature, but Lysander bails midair; the missiles obliterate the empty boots while he crashes safely into the Water Gardens’ central pool.

As Darrow banks back, his armor warns of surging electromagnetic fields. A black pupil blooms on the Morning Star, lights die, and darkness rolls over the spaceport and city. Mercury’s shield collapses, fliers and ships lose power, and the Howlers—and Darrow—plunge from the sky as the EMP takes hold.