Gregory delivers the final tactical briefing: main force of 29,000, assault team of 550 under Tam protecting Lyria, and command reserves. Casualty projections are 8,000-16,000. He admits publicly to being terrified but committed.

Sera spends two days testing every alternative to replacing the anchor—mechanical regulation, distributed intelligence, hybrid systems, consciousness enhancement—and all simulations fail.

The accounting. 3,412 dead. Branded corps broken. Lethane aged by channelling walks among the wounded. Ren sits with Nella, Fossick, Callum, and Dael around a fire. Harsk's absence is a hole in the group. Fossick has no jokes. Callum asks: Was it worth it? No one answers.

Ren returns to camp after killing Tik, hollow and changed by the act. The found family gathers wordlessly around him in the dark tent--Nella holds his hand, Fossick brings food, Harsk builds with leather scraps, Callum prays, and Moth appears silently to place a boneglass shard that resonates...

Ren proves his value by advising on the broken wheel repair, stealing food and supplies, gathering military intelligence, and routing the group along a ridgeline to safely bypass a flooded river crossing. Nella formally accepts Ren as the group thief on probation.

Six weeks of grinding campaign compressed into a snapshot of attrition and adaptation. Ren kills his first demon on day nine, then seventeen more across six weeks, each kill easier than the last as combat hardens him. Nella rises from commanding 8 soldiers to 63, proving tactically brilliant.

Compound infiltration. Team breaches Thorne's glass house, confronts both Thorne AND Hale. Malcolm directly confronts Hale with evidence of knowing participation. Lyle discovers co-signed targeting criteria and captures DataCorp dead-man protocol, proving Hale was a knowing architect.

Marcus signs the cessation form at dawn. Factions notified. Reeves spends his last evening writing a letter to Sandra, James, and Lily. The next morning, Reeves arrives in a suit, fifteen minutes early. Marcus reads the authorization aloud. Reeves says "I do" and walks five steps to the threshold.

After the city power grid fails plunging Yellowknife into darkness, James leads a fire attack on the community center sheltering 800 civilians. Twelve die including teacher Margaret Whitehorse and eight-year-old David Clearwater.