The sudden appearance of the figure in the sky acted like a localized freeze-frame on the chaos of the Skyfield Forest. Below the smoldering ruins of the battalion’s defensive line, hundreds of soldiers and metahumans stood paralyzed, their eyes tracking the newcomer with a mixture of terror and existential confusion. It wasn't every day that a man chose to treat the empty atmosphere like a paved sidewalk in the Capital City.
The man looked as if he had been pulled from an ancient, ink-wash painting of the era before the The Great Collapse. He was draped in tattered, charcoal-grey robes that fluttered in the high-altitude winds, looking more like a homeless hermit than a warrior. Yet, his presence was so heavy that the ambient Spirit Air seemed to bow away from him, creating a radius of p
