This is the tail end of the war, where over Victoria's capital Londinium the Grand Dukes of Victoria and the Sarkaz army of Kazdel faced off across a single wall.

Everyone thought that once the war ended, they would all go home. But for some, that journey home was another beginning.

Some crossed these ruins to give orders, some to atone for their sins, some to meet the person they had sought their whole lives — accompanied by a certain voice that vowed to end everything in fire, in the end.

We, feebler than a single mote of dust, gave an order to a Grand Duke

Reed is the small leader of the Tarans who have followed her all the way from the Scáthana fields. Yet at the Londinium battlefield, she says she will leave them all at the camp and go alone.

Even though the people who came saying "We came to fight" feel hurt by it. Reed knows that her own strength is feebler than a mote of dust. Still, there was someone she had to face. Her sister.

Where Reed headed was the Duke of Wellington's high-speed warship, the 'Gastrell.' But instead of her sister, the Duke of Wellington came out, treating Reed — who spoke of peace — as a mere canvasser, and cutting her off with "On the battlefield, a plea means nothing."

So Reed set aside her plea and, for the first time in her life, gave an order.

In the name of Tara, I command you. Save the Victorian citizens within the city.

— Reed

The Duke obeys without resistance. He says the reason he had stayed outside Londinium all this time was not because of Reed's sister Eblana — the 'leader' of Dublin — but because Reed had shown the will to give a command.

While Eblana's purple flames swallow the wall and clash with the Nachzehrer King Netzsalem, Reed turns her back on that grand 'performance' and returns to the people waiting for her. "Let's go home," she says.

To atone for her sins — and of all places, back to that pure-white snowfield

Meanwhile, in the back alleys of Londinium, there was an Infected unit sheltering Sarkaz with nowhere to go. It was the new Reunion led by Nine.

Nine wants to overturn the injustice before her eyes right now, while Ch'en, the operator who came to keep watch over them, clashes with her, saying "This is Victoria, so use a safer method." The two had different ideas of what 'fairness' meant.

The one who had long kept silent between them was Talulah. To the Infected who don't know the truth, she is a Draco revered as a hero.

Talulah rarely opens her mouth, but she sets their destination. Ursus. She says she will return to that snowfield where she committed her sins and face true judgment.

I will throw this body into the true flame and let it burn away — until the cruel snowfield melts.

— Talulah

She tells them to witness Reunion's end, and the something new that will be born from its corpse. Ch'en decides to accompany them as a watcher, and the three head for Ursus.

The person he had sought his whole life — he lost her just before they could meet

There was a man who entered blockaded Londinium to search for someone. It was Nowell. He was searching for the being who had made his body undying — the legendary 'Lord Protector' said to grant wishes.

While covering the evacuating citizens, Nowell meets the vigilante leader Clovisia. But then a cave-in happens. Clovisia, holding the red-haired child Olli in her arms to the very last moment, falls into the earth.

Nowell digs through the rubble and rescues Olli, but from within the darkness that voice echoes. Speak your wish, it says, and I will grant you a reward. Nowell refuses. Getting the child out comes first, he says.

Only after coming outside does Nowell learn the truth. That Clovisia had already breathed her last in the ruins. And that the being he had devoted his whole life to finding... was the very Clovisia he had just lost.

From that moment on, Nowell's wounds no longer healed. Though his body had once been undying.

Even as he pours out blood and falls to his knees, instead of tending to his own wounds Nowell says this: right now, he must save more people.

From the blood of the dead, she read a final farewell

A guest arrives after a long while at the Rhodes Island safe point that Kal'tsit guards. Entelechia — a vampire of 'Rose Riverside' who reads the blood of the dead to draw out their memories.

In exchange for opening a passage in and out of the city, she wants clues about her long-lost sister 'Noble.' And with her companion 'Brainy,' who moves alongside her, she watches over her the old way, across the radio.

But when she returned after clearing the command center, 'Brainy' was lying in a pool of blood, clutching the receiver. Someone had preserved at least her final dignity.

As the blood cools and the memories fade, something hard touches her fingertips. Entelechia's own blood-colored crystal — the starting point and the vow of Rose Riverside. It was something the vanished Noble had returned to her.

Perhaps Noble had come not because of this war, but simply to say goodbye. Entelechia entrusts 'Brainy's' petal to Kal'tsit to send it to her homeland Kazdel, and departs once more into the river of blood in search of her sisters.

The god of war chose to die by his own hand, within the war he himself had raised

After the wall was breached, the battlefield moved to the western hall of the Sacred King's Palace. For Netzsalem had turned the entire plaza into a swamp of death with a thick fog of decay.

Within the corroding fog, everyone endures in their own way. Margaret and Nightingale save even one more person to cut off decay's nourishment, and Vina — Victoria's returned monarch — leads the people.

On the Sarkaz side too, Hoederer, Ines, and Wiš'adel seize the command center in the name of 'Babel,' and Delphine of the Paragon unit clears the way, saying "These Sarkaz have the same goal as us."

And Netzsalem, it turns out, had not come to fight.

It matters not. This war — the one that raised me, and the one I raised — has already ended.

— Netzsalem

He says the purpose of the war repeated over a thousand years has been fulfilled, and for the first time the Sarkaz hold their own destiny in their hands. For the lingering echo that remains — the war itself, now without even a purpose — he offers himself up to death.

What rose where the fog cleared was not victory, but a cold sunrise pouring down like blood over the mountain of corpses.

Over the road home, a catastrophe never seen before rose into the sky

With the war over, the Sarkaz begin a large-scale withdrawal toward Kazdel, taking even the elderly, children, and wounded. Hoederer knows that the moment this column looks weak it will be torn apart, so he says they must show strength.

That means was terrifying. The Sarkaz crown power 'Amnamn' raised catastrophe clouds over the capitals of every nation. Zwillingstürme, Laterano, Montelupe... all of Terra looked up at that shadow. It was both a threat and a demonstration.

But before the fleet that came to stop that catastrophe-bearing column, a small Cautus girl steps forward. Amiya, the leader of Rhodes Island.

It was the moment Amiya, who inherited the black crown from Theresa, revealed her true identity for the first time. Even as the fear and madness of the Sarkaz surged into her mind, she held the barrier.

The cycle of resentment has come to its time to end.

— Amiya

One fleet finally turns away... and at that moment Amiya hears a voice, strangely vivid.

A revelation not yet unveiled

It was Laterano's Pope Evangelista XI. Sensing that a being resembling himself had made a choice of her own, he poses his first question to Amiya. "Who are you?"

The two speak of a long journey. Letting go of resentment will take a very long time — but what if Terra does not have that much time left?

At the same time, a person follows certain footsteps into a frozen void. But the one he sought had already departed to a place beyond his reach. He had to accept that he was too late.

The voice that had vowed to end everything in fire vanished along with the battlefield. But catastrophe clouds trailed above the column heading home, and the Pope said that a crisis unlike any faced before had already arrived.

It has drawn near, right before our eyes.

— Evangelista XI

In the place where one war had barely died down into ash, the next ember — one no one had yet given a name — was just beginning to flare up.