[Sub-Orbital Trajectory - Approaching the Australian Continent, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 03:00 PM]
The ascent from the crushing, twenty-thousand-foot depth of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was an absolute, frictionless mirror of their descent.
Ren simply expanded the Domain of the Abyss, enveloping himself and Chloe in a flawless, zero-point vacuum bubble, and violently inverted the localized gravity. They fell upward through the boiling, Category-Four emerald ocean, perfectly insulated from the millions of tons of highly corrosive terrestrial pressure collapsing in their wake.
They breached the surface of the Atlantic in a massive, completely silent geyser of displaced water, hovering effortlessly up into the open boarding ramp of the waiting flagship.
"The oceanic network is offline," Ren broadcasted across the silent, unified consciousness of the four thousand Praetorians waiting in the sub-orbital fleet. "Set trajectory for the final terrestrial node. We are liquidating the Outback."
