The sharp snap of Dylan Brooks’ fingers cut through the air with decisive clarity.
The sound itself was not loud, yet it carried an authority that seemed to ripple outward, as though it had struck something unseen. Almost instantly, dozens of Empyreans stepped forward from both sides of the road. Each of them bore a sword on their back, the hilts aligned at the same angle, their movements precise and synchronized to an almost inhuman degree.
Their boots halted at the exact same moment.
Then, in perfect unison, they spoke a single word.
“Ha.”
The syllable did not echo.
Instead, it pressed downward—heavy, absolute—like a seal being driven into the ground.
An invisible structure awakened.
For days, the Empyreans had been quietly preparing, embedding formations beneath the earth, ancho
