Chapter 4: The Voice of Iron

The sphere of white fire didn’t burn; it erased.

It struck the Envoy Bot’s chest not with a kinetic slam, but with a terrifying, hungry silence. The white flame washed over the ablative plating, seeking to unmake the molecular bonds of the alloy. The optical sensors flared white, blinded by the sudden overload of lux. Inside the cockpit, the neural feedback kicked Dan in the chest, a phantom sensation of void that knocked the wind out of him.

“Report!” Dan barked, blinking away the afterimages.

[Structural integrity at 99%,] the AI reported, its voice clipped and fast. [Ablative ceramic plating held. That wasn’t thermal energy, Dan. That was a localized molecular disruption field. If we weren’t shielded, it would have unraveled the chassis at the atomic level. It is weaponized entropy.]

“Magic,” Ambrosio breathed, leaning over the telemetry station, his eyes wide. “It just… deleted the dust in the air.”

“It’s hostile, whatever it is,” Dan grunted. He stabilized the bot, forcing the servos to lock.

On the plaza below, the dust and light cleared. The bot stood scorched but unbroken, the “cold fire” dissipating into a gray haze of static around its feet.

For a heartbeat, the entire city seemed to hold its breath. The citizens watching from the spires leaned out, expecting the metal giant to shriek or dissolve into the viscous black sludge of the Hollow Ones. They had seen this ritual before—the Purifying Light stripping away the false skins of the enemy to reveal the rot beneath.

But the bot didn’t dissolve. It didn’t writhe. It simply stood there, the superheated ceramic plating ticking audibly as it cooled.

Matriarch Valerius did not lower her hand immediately. She stepped closer, her amethyst eyes narrowing as she scanned the scorch marks on the chassis. She was looking for the tell-tale bleed of shadow.

There was nothing but clean, scarred alloy.

Valerius let out a breath she seemed to have been holding. The tension in her shoulders dropped, the amethyst glow in her eyes dimming to a softer hue. She looked up at the machine not with fear, but with a sudden, profound relief.

“My apologies for the test,” Valerius said, her voice amplified by the acoustics of the crater city. She bowed her head—a slight, measured incline. “The Shadow… the ‘Hollow Ones’… they mimic form, but they cannot withstand the Purifying Light. They crumble. You, Sky-Walker, stand firm.” “The Shadow… the ‘Hollow Ones’… they mimic form, but they cannot withstand the Purifying Light. They crumble. You, Sky-Walkers, stand firm.”

She gestured with her staff toward a towering obsidian archway behind her, a gateway carved with spiraling bioluminescent runes. “You have proven your substance. Come. I shall lead you to the Courtyard of the Sun. Your vessel is too vast for our audience chamber, but the Courtyard will accommodate your… shell.”

Dan watched her on the main screen. She was pivoting, taking control of the interaction. Leading him like a guest.

“She wants to move us,” Dan said. “Tuck us away in a courtyard.”

“It’s a diplomatic gesture,” Ambrosio argued, looking up from his datapad. “She’s accepting us.”

“She’s managing us,” Dan corrected. “She attacked us, failed, and now she wants to set the venue. If we follow her like a puppy, we look weak. We look like we’re just happy to be allowed in.”

[Agreed,] the AI chimed in. [Psychological profile suggests a matriarchal hierarchy based on strength and spiritual dominance. Compliance now establishes subservience.]

“So, what? We shoot something?” Ambrosio asked nervously.

“No,” Dan said, his hand hovering over the throttle. “We make them come to us. We establish that we are immovable.”

He toggled the external speakers. “AI, translate this. And drop the pitch. I want it to rattle their bones.”

[Ready.]

The bot’s speakers boomed, a sound deeper than thunder, vibrating the glass spires of the city.

[THE COMMANDER ACCEPTS YOUR APOLOGY.]

The crowd went silent. Valerius paused, turning back to face the machine.

[HOWEVER,] the voice continued, [WE DID NOT CROSS THE VOID OF STARS TO BE LED THROUGH BACK DOORS. WE ARE NOT PETITIONERS. WE ARE ENVOYS.]

Dan unlocked the safety on the main vertical thrusters. He didn’t engage the flight gyroscope; he just opened the fuel valves.

“Watch this,” Dan muttered.

He ignited the afterburners.

The bot didn’t lift off. Instead, Dan vectored the thrust output upwards through the dorsal vents, sending a twin column of blue, chemically pure flame roaring into the twilight sky.

The sound was cataclysmic—a raw, industrial scream of burning hydrogen that tore through the melodic silence of Aethelgard. It wasn’t the silent, elegant magic of the locals; it was the dirty, violent power of a civilization that had conquered physics through brute force.

The heat wave rippled out, distorting the air. The Matriarch’s robes whipped violently in the sudden gale. The guards stumbled back, shielding their eyes from the blinding blue glare.

Dan held the burn for five seconds. Long enough to turn the air dry and acrid. Long enough to make the ground tremble.

He cut the engines.

The silence that rushed back in was deafening.

[IF YOU WISH TO SPEAK,] the AI intoned, the translation matrix adding a harsh, metallic resonance to the words, [YOU WILL ASSEMBLE YOUR COUNCIL HERE. IN THE OPEN. UNDER THE SKY WE BOTH SHARE.]

Matriarch Valerius stood her ground, though her knuckles were white as she gripped her staff. She looked at the smoking vents of the machine, the heat shimmering off the metal skin, and then up at its glowing red optical sensors.

She realized, perhaps for the first time, that this was not a golem of magic. It was a monster of fire and steel.

“It shall be as you say,” she called out, her voice steady despite the ringing in the air. “We will convene the Circle. We will speak here.”

“Good,” Dan muttered, relaxing his grip on the controls. “Now, let’s make them wait.”

He toggled the remote link. “AI, put the bot in Sentry Mode. Lock the joints. Kill the running lights. Let it stand there like a monolith until we decide to wake it up.”

[Going dark,] the AI confirmed.

On the plaza, the bot’s optical sensors dimmed from a menacing red to a lifeless, abyssal black. The hum of the reactor faded. It stood frozen, a silent, terrifying monument of metal in the heart of their ancient city.

Dan pulled the VR headset off, rubbing the sweat from his eyes. The bridge of the Epilogue felt impossibly quiet compared to the sensory storm he had just orchestrated.

“First contact established,” Dan said, leaning back in the command chair. “We have the floor.”

“You terrified them,” Ambrosio noted, though there was a hint of admiration in his voice as he reviewed the telemetry. “That thruster burn… the local atmospheric readings show a 10-degree spike in the plaza.”

“Fear,” Dan said, looking at the frozen image of the alien city on the main viewport, “is a universal constant. They respect power, Ambrosio. Now they know we have it.”

He turned to the AI’s camera interface. “Start analyzing those linguistic patterns from the crowd’s reaction. I want to know what they were whispering when the fire stopped. And Ambrosio?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some sleep. We have a council meeting in the morning.”