In the west of Terra, Victoria — once ruled by the Lion monarchy — has been wracked by the Grand Dukes' struggle for the throne for over twenty years since His Majesty's passing.

Amid that chaos, the Sarkaz from Kazdel swallowed the capital, Londinium, whole. Regent King Theresis's army occupies the city, while outside its walls, the Grand Dukes' armies watch each other warily, eyes fixed only on the ramparts.

This is a war fought by the rootless, each staking their own idea of 'home.' To see the heart of that war for themselves, Rhodes Island quietly makes its way into the city.

1. The Tower That Summons the Storm

In the heart of Londinium, Sarkaz Regent King Theresis plans to control even the storm itself with a great tower and an airship. Completion is ten days away.

At his side is the white-haired sovereign Theresa. She says she can hear the voice of the storm gathering at the tower's peak — the grudges of countless Sarkaz ghosts.

Theresis's dream is simple. Through this war, make sure neither Victoria nor Ursus will dare eye Kazdel again for a hundred years — and finally give the Sarkaz, who have had their home stolen from them every two hundred years, a real home at last.

If the Sarkaz want war, then the Sarkaz are war itself…… and once the war ends, the Sarkaz will surely have a home to return to.

— Theresis

Theresa has no objection. The voices in her head give her no other option. But she quietly asks — when the first bolt of lightning falls, isn't he afraid the flame will burn him too?

And Theresis adds one more thing: Rhodes Island is coming.

2. The Road Home

An abandoned mining site 527 km from Londinium. Kal'tsit's flagship is docked there, and Amiya and the Doctor approach the city with the Operators, disguised as a 'scrap recovery company.'

The advance team is the Glasgow gang: boss Siege, muscle Indra, brains Morgan, and former Tower knight Dagda. For Siege, a Londinium native, this is her first homecoming in five years.

They rescue a Londinium citizen named 'Thomas,' kidnapped by the Dublin rebels — their guide who will get them into the city.

But something's off about Thomas. He treats Amiya, whom he's meeting for the first time, like someone he's long been waiting for, his emotions subtly out of sync. Amiya swallows her unease and heads for the city anyway.

3. Heads Down

As they reach the gate, citizens are pouring out of the city in the opposite direction. Ever since the Sarkaz started knocking on the door, everyone has been risking their lives to abandon Londinium.

Within that crowd is another spark of resistance. Victorian Lieutenant Horn. She pulls captured fellow soldiers out one by one, leading them past the Sarkaz's watch with the words, "Heads down."

Horn's goal isn't killing more enemies. First priority: survival. Second priority: more people's survival. A dying subordinate apologizes to her — sorry, but please, survive.

Now that Londinium, once their home, has become a prison, the soldiers have realized: even an honorable death is a luxury, and living is far harder than dying.

At the gate, a Sarkaz patrol, Dublin, and Rhodes Island collide. A chaotic melee breaks out with civilians caught in the middle, and Siege, unable to just stand by, shifts the operation to rescuing citizens.

Just then, lightning-like cannon fire rains down from the wall. Sarkaz general Manfred has turned the muzzle of the great cannon that once defended the city — the Wall Cannon — toward the city itself.

In that inferno, Thomas vanishes. It's later revealed he was a Sarkaz spy who wears the faces of the dead — he'd faked being 'rescued' to observe Amiya up close, then slipped away pretending to die in the blast.

4. The City's Veins

With nowhere to escape the bombardment, an unknown local appears before Rhodes Island and leads the group underground — into the vast pipelines stretching across the city, Londinium's 'veins.'

The ones who led them here are Fist and Rockrock — the Londinium citizen Vigilante Corps. A resistance of ordinary people that has held on: for every one they take, ten new members join.

Their commander, Clovisia, is surprisingly young. Before anxious fighters in the meeting hall, she rests a slender hand on the table and silences the room with a single sentence.

We never, ever abandon a comrade.

— Clovisia

Still, Rockrock never lets his guard down around the Sarkaz Closure. On the day his father was beaten to death by mercenaries, he saw a white-haired Sarkaz woman whom the group called 'Your Highness.' Rockrock can never forget that face.

Hearing this, Amiya's heart wavers. A white-haired woman with a sorrowful expression. Amiya says quietly that the person from whom she inherited her ideals passed away four years ago.

5. An Old Friend from the Wastes

Meanwhile, the old Sarkaz hero Nachzehrer King visits Kal'tsit's flagship in the wastes, demanding to know what killed the last pure-blooded Wendigo.

Instead of fighting, Kal'tsit gives him an answer: she was a witness to one Wendigo's soul returning to Kazdel. The old vampire accepts the answer and withdraws.

There's only one reason he let Rhodes Island go: Amiya. Even that wily old Sarkaz was curious what the Black Crown's heir would show him in Londinium.

Kal'tsit has no intention of persuading the monarchy. She simply doesn't want to watch war erupt before her eyes, or see meaningless sacrifice continue. Victorian or Sarkaz, enough blood has already been spilled.

On this journey, Rhodes Island also parts ways with a few longtime comrades. Shining and Nightingale go their separate ways to reclaim something they've lost, leaving word that they'll return whenever they're needed.

6. Raid on the Jelly Factory

Joining forces with the Vigilante Corps, Rhodes Island goes to rescue people trapped in an abandoned chemical factory. Inside is Kal'tsit's messenger and the Vigilante Corps's strategist, Heidi.

The rescue comes at a heavy cost. Vigilante Corps fighters fall one by one, and near-massacre-level Originium Arts turn the corridors into a slaughterhouse. Even so, people carry each other forward.

Into that chaos, demolitions expert W, sent by Kal'tsit, appears and pulls Heidi out. And blocking her path is Manfred's mercenary Hoederer. The two are old comrades who know each other far too well.

In truth, Hoederer was once a Babel spy who, alongside now-dead friends, targeted Theresis's heart. But having lost an eye and many comrades, he had already paid the price he owed.

That spy, the Sarkaz who wears the faces of the dead, also appears in another form — the fighter 'Bill,' who was like a brother to Rockrock. But Fist realizes he's a fake because of a toy Metal Crab he'd made as a gift for Bill.

Because the real Bill would never have overlooked that gift. The exposed spy retreats, leaving one last line: Bill wanted all of you to survive. That was his final message.

7. Mandragora's Final Stand

That same night, Dublin commander Mandragora also infiltrates the factory, to rescue an old compatriot held by the Sarkaz — spy 'Killian.'

She's a Taran born in the cracks of the city — people treated as lower than even the Sarkaz, who, once black stone sprouts on their bodies, are thrown into the sewers to become food for Metal Crabs.

Thirteen deaths she has counted. She has endured, vowing to repay those thirteen lives twofold someday, but the 'Leader' she served had abandoned her long before.

Killian, breathing his last in her arms, gives one final plea: don't go to the Leader. Before Mandragora, left alone, Manfred's blade draws near.

Knowing she can't win, Mandragora rises again with her broken Arts unit. Not because of any order.

Simply…… because I want to.

— Mandragora

8. A Bloody Hunt, and a Button

Vampire King Sanguinaire pursues the Vigilante Corps as they retreat underground. Not for honor, not for combat. To him, people are merely prey whose scent of blood is worth recording.

Fleeing, Siege stops and tries to face him head-on, knowing she can't win. If the city above is going to fall, she says, she wants to be the first to embrace it.

In that moment, beneath the dust on the pipe wall, a button glows. The very button she first pressed at age three, carried on her teacher's back. Londinium's veins stretch out once more, toward its future king.

The passage moves upward, opening an escape route. Siege was more than just a Londinium native. She was the true heir the city responds to.

9. The Strong, High Wall

To stop the bombardment, the control room atop the wall must be destroyed. Misery rends space to lift Amiya and the Doctor onto the wall, where Manfred is waiting.

Manfred is not a man who enjoys slaughter. He knows better than anyone the curse of Oripathy, the end of compatriots scattering into crystal. He simply believes Theresis is the only one who can give the Sarkaz a home, and he'll do anything for that belief.

From him, Amiya reads only cold wariness. He doesn't see Amiya as an heir, or as an object of curiosity. He only sees a 'dangerous enemy' to be eliminated.

Even so, Amiya doesn't back down. The fire that has burned in the Sarkaz's hearts for ten thousand years, she says, burns just the same within her own heart now — a fire more real and hotter than any Arts illusion.

Breaking that tense standoff, Victorian soldiers in tattered uniforms climb onto the wall. Horn and the soldiers she's protected, this time with no disguise at all.

To Manfred, who invokes the myth of "impregnable Londinium," Horn laughs. Isn't that legend even more laughable, she says, with a man like him standing right here?

Look. We're still standing here.

— Horn

When her shield breaks, Horn takes up a sword; when she no longer even has the strength to hold a sword, she holds on through sheer will. At last, the control room explodes, a corner of the wall collapses, and the Wall Cannon falls silent.

Fatally wounded and falling from the wall, Horn is caught and pulled up by Roven and Misery. Her fight is not yet over.

Meanwhile, Siege sets Dagda free — don't be bound by an inherited vow, she says, find on your own who's truly worth your loyalty. Dagda, who had left, returns at the decisive moment leading noble reinforcements, opening an escape route for her comrades.

The Vigilante Corps and citizens board the recaptured train, and Rockrock, having gotten his brother Bill back, breaks into tears. The train carries the survivors, racing toward the city center.

10. The One Standing in the Eye of the Storm

The moment the train departs, Amiya freezes at the window. A Sarkaz walks into the ruins. The smoke scatters, the arrows fall silent, and only the wind stirs her white hair.

It was Theresa. The person from whom Amiya inherited her ideals, Rhodes Island, everything. The one she'd thought had passed away four years ago was standing in the ruins, now sovereign of the Sarkaz.

The true nature of the emotion that had gathered at the heart of Londinium and pressed down on Amiya finally comes into focus: the Sarkaz's endless rage, and beneath it, an endless sorrow.

Before Manfred, left behind, Theresa says calmly that she wanted to meet that child but came too late. Wiping the ash from her face, she lets slip an unfamiliar question.

That's right…… why don't I shed any tears?

— Theresa

Epilogue — Questions Left Hanging

In the holy royal palace, Theresis and the Confessor whisper. The one best suited to face a Devil King is another Devil King. They sent 'her' to the wall, and now they mean to get their hands on Amiya as well.

Theresis's true goal is to destroy the Black Crown itself. The Sarkaz must never be enslaved to anyone or anything — and if the Crown stands in the way, he'll tear that down too.

In the shadows, W grabs Kal'tsit and demands to know — how could she just stand by and let Theresa's body fall into Theresis's hands? Kal'tsit doesn't answer.

How could you…… how could you let Theresa's body fall into Theresis's hands!?

— W

Meanwhile, Siege meets Alerdale, daughter of the Duke of Cumberland. It's the moment the city's noble resistance finally welcomes the true king they've spent years searching for.

Alerdale bows in greeting. Welcome home, she says, Her Highness Alexandrina. And she asks the Doctor one thing: does he have a keepsake of Edward Artorius?

Far away in the Ursus tundra, Talulah faces the undying monster Kashchey. She no longer believes killing him will solve anything. Someday, she thinks, the awakened people will cast aside their foolish rulers themselves.

And Talulah follows Nine and Reunion toward Victoria — to pay one visit to the city where the storm gathers, before returning to her final battle.

It feels like a new journey, and also like the very first starting point. The high walls are a prison and a graveyard to some, and a home of the past and future to others. Too many answers, and even more questions, lie sleeping here.

The rootless fought over Londinium, each staking their own home. The Sarkaz swallowed the city to gain a home; the Victorians stood atop a crumbling wall to reclaim theirs. And Amiya walked into the heart of a storm that swallowed both answers and questions alike, toward the person she'd thought she'd lost.