Darrow drives his depleted, irradiated column through a blinding sandstorm toward Heliopolis, low on water, ammunition, and power. From a ridge he sees Ajax’s legions breaching the storm wall and fears the city’s fall will let the Ash Armada reinforce across the south. As Screwface scouts, precision fire and cloaked killers descend from the cliffs, slaughtering Darrow’s Drachenjäger pilots. The Fear Knight captures Darrow and orders his rape and execution, intending to film it.

At the brink, a gravity shadow from the approaching Morning Star nullifies weight. Colloway’s taunting broadcast cues Darrow to fight in near-zero-G; he kills the Obsidians and survives the Fear Knight’s shot when falling debris intercepts it as gravity returns. The Morning Star bursts from the dust, paving a path through the Waste, and the First Army arrives en masse. Thraxa strikes the Fear Knight with a missile and rescues Darrow as Rhonna returns his slingBlade.

The battle rages through a furnace-hot afternoon. With most of the Morning Star’s cannons damaged, it serves as a support platform while ripWings and infantry flood the field. The Iron Leopards’ line finally breaks; bodies choke the breaches and are crushed under retreating armor. The Terran legions refuse to surrender, rallying under Ajax even as they are pressed against the shattered walls.

Darrow ranges the whole front, burning through starShells and stims as he blunts breakouts and duels heavies in the hills. By sunset, Ajax is cut off and escapes with a cadre of Peerless, beyond pursuit as Darrow and Thraxa run dry on power. The First Army and Harnassus’s defenders finish the rout inside the city.

On the storm wall, Darrow’s body fails; Harnassus and Rhonna force him to stand down while a medic steadies him. Ferried to the Mound of Votum with Howlers shielding his weakness, he listens as the battle winds down. In the night, Thraxa and legionnaires heap captured Gold standards before him and she declares, “Victory.”