Crestfall sprawled beneath Jarek's iron gaze, its six worlds and splintered outposts beaten into submission. The Pale Crest Empire—once a bloated relic of the Star League—had crumbled, Rageclaw's head a trophy in the dust, Edgehold's ashes a footnote. Eight months of war, sealed in the twelfth Forge Year's dying days, had forged Jarek's first galactic scar. A system chime pierced the silence of Crestspire's command spire, its rebuilt frame humming with Living Steel:
"Galaxy claimed: Crestfall secured."
"Strength index: 10,000."
"Forge boon: Tech lottery granted."
Jarek's eyes glinted, cold as the void. "Spin it," he growled, voice echoing off the spire's walls.
"Acquired: Riftgate Lattice Technology."
He summoned the blueprint, holo-lines weaving a lattice of possibilities. Living Steel—metal that pulsed like a living thing—had armored his fleets through Crestfall's grind. Pale Crest cannons roared, but hulls resealed mid-battle, a dance of resilience that kept his losses to a whisper. Three thousand ships—First, Second, Third—had carved through, shedding barely a hundred wrecks. That endurance was a blade, honed and unyielding. But Riftgate Lattice? It whispered of something grander—a lattice of tears in the fabric of space, a defiance of the galaxy's vast, cruel sprawl.
The tech wasn't ripe for fleets—not yet. Folding space to hurl ships demanded precision beyond Redstone's labs, a dream for another year. Soldiers, though—Steelborn Ribs—could cross it. Jarek's mind churned, replaying Crestfall's brutal slog. Edgehold's tunnels had bled him slow—four months chasing Black Crest vermin after Rageclaw's neck snapped. Billions of them, rooted in stone, against his fifty million, stretched thin across ships' holds. Space was a tyrant, capping his reach. Riftgates could shatter that—gates blooming like wounds, Ribs spilling out, Pulse Rifles singing death. No more bottlenecks, just instant steel where he willed it.
"Ribs—forge it," he snapped, voice a whipcrack. Steelborn scientists—minds Ascension-sharpened—swarmed the lattice data, their labs on Redstone buzzing ten light-years distant. Jarek paced Crestspire's deck, the city below a haze of cranes and dust. Year Thirteen of the Forge Era had dawned, and Crestfall's skeleton was being recast. Pale-trunked elites—Rageclaw's pampered ghosts—sat stripped, their spires hollow, their Star League loot untouched. Mercy, perhaps, but only because their bleating didn't rate a bullet. They hissed defiance—until Ribs rolled in, neutron bombs thumping, silencing their tongues. Black Crest masses, the empire's sinew, bent under the new yoke, their eyes dull with surrender.
Reconstruction clawed forward. Shatterpoint's orbitals rose anew, Living Steel plating forged in belching foundries. Crestspire's wounds—gouged by the Third Fleet's wrath—sprouted angular barracks and weapon pits. Pale Crest idols—temples to their Emperor, Rageclaw's looming statues—toppled like hollow gods. In Duskwind, a seventy-meter effigy of the Emperor crashed, its serene face splitting as Ribs fed it to the smelters. Jarek watched, arms crossed, the acrid tang of molten alloy in the air. Other players might wail—sacrilege against a mythic League—but Steelborn knelt to no one. No deities, no relics—just the hum of steel and the logic of force.
A rare lull dragged him to the player lattice—Absolute Loyalty, a scrappy web of alien lords dodging the League's long shadow. Voices crackled through:
"—stumbled on Astartes in a dead system," one rasped. "They hit my ship—guess what?"
Astartes: the League's forged titans—organs doubled, lungs tripled, clad in ceramite skin. A thousand could shred a million souls.
"Never met one," another said. "Heard they're unstoppable."
"Unstoppable? Hundreds boarded me—thousands of crew, gone, chained in a blink."
"Harsh. Then what?"
"Burned every thruster—fled. Empty space saved me. My core worlds? They'd have gutted them."
"No rush—League's splintering. War's brewing again."
"Got it from a loyalist—some twenty-fifth-tier fanatic—says factions are dueling for the Emperor's favor. Clashing steel."
"That sermon-spewer? Still breathing?"
"Yeah, pure zealot. Fails every trial, still spared."
"Why not dust him?"
A new voice surged in, bright. "Hold—League's fraying? We strike—unite, gut them!"
"Calm down," a rough one barked. "One Astartes cadre'd mulch us. Let them choke on their own blood."
"My Kheltar could lead—void singers, ancient as the stars. Know the First Chorus?"
"Prove it, we'll march."
"What, no faith? Kheltar sang with the Chorus—eternal echoes!"
Jarek's lip curled, muting the chatter. The League's fracture was a ripple—Riftgates could make it a wave. Astartes were a storm, but gates could shift the wind—Ribs dropping from nowhere, catching those giants cold. He saw it: portals flaring over a League bastion, Steelborn flooding, millions strong, rewriting the odds.
Crestspire's forges roared—Living Steel slabs piled, Ribs rigging Riftgate frames from lattice specs. Redstone signaled—probes pierced test gates, emerging whole, their hulls gleaming. Soldiers were next. Jarek strode the deck, holo-maps spinning Crestfall's new arteries. "Scale it," he growled, voice low thunder. Steelborn didn't rest; they hammered. Edgehold's grind—billions of foes, months of blood—burned in his memory. Riftgates promised a cut: Ribs on dirt, instant, a tide without end. His fleets—three thousand hulls—loomed over Crestspire, their shadows long, guns primed but still.
The lattice flared again. "Chorus this, singers that—show me," a voice jabbed. Jarek ignored it—steel proved, words faded. A Rib pinged—first soldier test live. A gate snapped open in Crestspire's proving yard, air warping, a Steelborn stepping through, Pulse Rifle steady. Jarek nodded, sharp. "More." The Forge Era surged—Riftgates were the next edge, a lattice to thread the galaxy's veins.