(Babaluno)
Even from the City School, now near Earth's southernmost point, we could just barely make out another celestial body that was not the moon...
The immense Ring World was slowly emerging from the wormhole that obscured the moon.
"Oh! My God, did that damned Supreme Council move their entire world here?"
When we had fought in that ring world before, I had never realized that the Last Ark was such a colossal structure, like a towering mountain range in the sky...
That was what it meant to be too close to something to see its true scale.
Although the Ring World was smaller than the moon, its mass was still considerable. Something like that floating in geosynchronous orbit would inevitably alter Earth's tides and might even have severe effects on the natural world.
But none of that was the main concern...
The enemies aboard the Ring World were far more troublesome than the structure itself.
"This is the Supreme Council's signal for the final battle."
A brief silence fell over the City School's temporary command center before SpiCa gritted her teeth and issued her orders.
"Stop cleaning up the battlefield, and set aside all nonessential work. Everyone, recover as best you can where you are... We... have to go back into battle."
We had not even caught our breath, and the Other Side had already come knocking with everything they owned in tow.
But I had a question, too.
"How exactly did they get through the wormhole? What happened to its restrictions?"
Earth's firewall should have blocked this enormous, hostile invader, yet it had let the whole thing charge through unscathed...
"The wormhole's restrictions have stopped working."
Miss Terra answered from inside my head. "The Corruption Rate of darkness has exceeded the critical threshold. Matter from the Other Side