Ascended chapter 2 part 2

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Grogu sat with his back against a sparking terminal, fingers flying over a holographic interface patched into the city’s soulgrid. Every few seconds, it jolted his limbs with arc-light feedback, but he didn’t flinch. “I’ve got pressure building in the lower soulstream nodes,” he muttered. “The energy’s coiling like it’s alive. Like something’s. feeding on the city’s breath.” Azriel’s voice came low and steady. “How long?” Grogu glanced back, eyes pale with spiritlight. “Whatever it is… it’ll arrive before the grid can stabilize.” Silas said nothing. He stood near the shrine stone at the center of the rooftop, his long chains coiled around his forearms, the etched names along each link glowing faintly. They were not weapons. They were memorials. With every breath, the air around him shimmered not with heat, but with presence. He didn’t need to speak. His silence was command enough.Then, without a sound, Iana stepped beside Azriel. She was a vision of calm wrapped in moonlight. Her hair, streaked with silver threads of spiritual attunement, caught the wind like liquid starlight. Her presence alone seemed to soothe the tower’s tension less like magic, more like gravity. When she placed her hand on Azriel’s arm, he finally moved. He looked at her. She nodded. And that was all they needed. There had been a time, lifetimes ago, when grief had almost broken him. When he knelt in silence, drenched in the blood of someone he could not save. Iana had found him—not to lecture, not to console but to sing. A song of stillness and sunrise. Since that night, they had been inseparable. Not bound by title or confession just present, always. Destiny had once muttered, “If you two ever kiss, the entire city’s going to reboot.” Iana had only smiled and said, “We were never promised tomorrow.” Azriel had said nothing. They had fought together for centuries. Faced quakes and rifts, spirit-wars and soulstorms. They had stood between the living and the divine, between fate and free will. The city knew their names in prayer and in whispers. But they never called themselves anything more than comrades. Still, the world called them The Silent Ascended. Six godlike protectors who never claimed a throne. Clarissa’s threads flickered. She rose to her feet, eyes wide. “The timelines are shivering.” Destiny caught her coin. “That’s never a good sign.” Grogu’s screen surged red. “Grid failure in Sector Nine. The pressure’s rupturing.” Silas’s chains lifted on their own, reacting to something none of them could see. Iana looked toward the horizon where the sky was starting to split.
“It’s beginning,” she whispered. Azriel didn’t respond at first. He was watching the soulstream spires crackle. Listening to something none of them could hear.Then he turned to the others.
“This is it,” he said. “We move to positions.” Clarissa summoned her threads into a veil of gold. Destiny strapped her fate coin into her belt and cracked her knuckles.