The first platform is now safe, but its door leading to the inside of the Zeppelin has been locked from the inside. Mathias tries to pull several times in the lock, but it has been reinforced, impossible to open and the steel of this door is too solid even against submachine guns.

(Mathias): "Shit! What are we doing now?"

(Elizabeth): "Look ...."

She points her finger in the direction of an overhead rail running along the zeppelin side, and sliding towards the top. The rest of the group guesses what Elizabeth has in mind. A very risky and perilous plan, but they have nothing better to propose.

(Cornelius): "Equip your Skyhooks. We'll do some aerial racing."

The soldiers obey and equip each their grapple firmly to their wrist. Mathias proposes to pass first, in the case where. Elizabeth agrees, but want to stay behind, to keep an eye on him. The rebel group does not oppose it. Mathias equips his grapple, and approaches the edge of the platform. Do not look down, especially do not look down, he repeats himself in his head, heart beating. And in a momentum, he jumped with all his strength above the void, under the eyes of Elizabeth, very worried, but who is reassured by seeing the young man clinging to the rail with his grapple, and begins to slip to the top . Elizabeth does not hesitate, jumps in turn and begins to follow him by sliding on the track, followed by Cornelius and his men, in single file.

The icy wind at full speed whips their faces as they slide at full speed on a single iron rail, hung with one hand, suspended above the infinite emptiness drowned by the sea of fierce black clouds. Mathias often looks over his shoulder to see if Elizabeth and the others are still there. Around them, the aerial battle between the forces of the Prophet Comstock and the Vox Populi continues to intensify in the violence, to such an extent that it is almost impossible to distinguish between missile explosions and Lightning. Mathias watches a flaming and smoking wreck of a shuttle Vox Populi falling from the sky, passing just beside the zeppelin. The group could almost feel the heat of the flames.

Shoots are blowing in their direction. A shuttle of comstock has just targeted them and follows them, the soldiers on the deck of the flying craft, shooting with their weapons to try to kill the group in flight. One of the last rebels in the line is hit on the suspended arm, causing him to let go and fall screaming in the void. The group knows that it can not stop and continues. Mathias and Cornelius are the first to retaliate, weapon in one hand and the other holding the hook. The gusts rain en masse. Mathias shoots one of the assailants in the head, and sees him falling overboard. The balls miss them less and less. Elizabeth has the idea to concentrate her energy, reaches her hand to the sky, above the shuttle, to try to open a dimensional door. The landscape rips in two, magically dropping an enormous rock, which crashes violently on the shuttle, crushing the cockpit and driving the craft in its fall. Before falling, one of the soldiers of Comstock tries a last shot, misses Mathias of very little, but the bullet comes to destroy the grapnel of Elizabeth, which begins to fall in the void. Mathias immediately reacts and drops his submachine gun in the void to grab Elizabeth by the hand and prevent her from falling. Elizabeth finds herself suspended in the air, held by a hand, and gasped as she looks down, seeing the endless void and the raging battle of shuttles.

(Mathias): "Don't look down!"

(Elizabeth): "Aaaaaaaah! I try!"

The rail finally brings them to the next platform, larger than the first, and almost resembling docks as in a port, but for shuttles. But on their arrival on the floor of the platform, the group sees that the fighting preceded them. Two Vox Populi shuttles landed, and their crew, armed and equipped, dumped on the platform, confronting the present forces of the prophet, in a murderous and noisy shooting. Elizabeth is no longer armed, Cornelius decides to give her his Skyhook so that she can defend herself in melee. Without losing a moment, the small group begins to run towards the barricades of fortune to take shelter. Mathias and Elizabeth remain together, almost holding by the hands, crouching behind a table of iron overturned. Cornelius went to see one of his men, wounded, and made sure that he still breathed, while ordering the others to fire without stopping.

Behind a barricade a little further forward, a rebel prepares a grenade launcher and shoots. The projectile creates an explosion that threw three enemy soldiers into the air. In response to this, a comstock man throws a grenade in the direction of the barricade, exploding it into pieces and spraying all the rebels hidden behind in its burst of flames. Almost every thirty seconds, a man collapses, dead, his body riddled with bullets and pouring his blood on the ground. Mathias shoots a few bullets with his pistol, but his shoulder is scratched by a bullet, snatching him a little cry of pain and forcing him to hide again. A grenade comes rolling right next to him and Elizabeth. The young lady reacts immediately by making the grenade disappear in a small vortex, and makes it reappear at the feet of a group of men of the prophet. They do not have time to realize that the explosion triggers, reducing them to bloody lint.

The men of the Vox Populi seem to take advantage, but suddenly the air finds itself invaded by an aggressive and infernal heat. Mathias and Elizabeth look in their eyes, fearing to know what will happen. And as they thought, a Fireman appeared on the platform by a staircase, his red body smoking like a steam engine, and his hands surrounded by fire.

(Fireman): "The prophet gave me the honor to send you all to burn in hell!"

With his hands, he projects a large spread of flames that swallows two rebels in his wake, letting them burn alive and howl at death. The Fireman laughs like a psychopath to see his enemies burn, and maintains his fire by directing it towards the couple. Mathias and Elizabeth throw themselves on the side, seeing their barricade engulfed by the flames in two seconds. Furious, the Fireman prepares a second salvo, even more powerful. His fists clench, and a curious click is heard, and the sound of a countdown. The Fireman closes all the hatches of his armor, not allowing anymore the steam to escape, thus turning into a human bomb.

(Fireman): "I take you all with me!"

Mathias reacts accordingly. Seeing the grenade launcher of the Vox Populi on the ground and still functional, he grabs it and shoots towards the Fireman's feet. In the explosion, the floor of the platform collapsed on several meters, dropping the Fireman into the void, and the couple sees him exploding down, in the middle of the sky.

The platform empties itself from all enemy presence, leaving only lifeless bodies everywhere in pools of blood, smoke and flames everywhere. Only a few men from Vox Populi managed to survive the shooting, and most were wounded.

(Cornelius): "Soldiers, carry on like this. Watch this platform. Mathias. Lady Elizabeth. We must continue."

The rebels obey and begin to position themselves strategically on the platform in the event of a new enemy attack, while the group of Mathias and Elizabeth, seeing that the path is now free, continues their way by taking an iron stair, towards the top of the Zeppelin in the hope of stopping the prophet.

But at the top of the iron staircase, on a platform higher up and leading to cabins, the group faces a new obstacle barring them the way. A man alone, but very tall, more than two meters, a strong body, stands before the door, straight and ready. The strangest is his outfit, like a dark gray armor of samurai, gray and black, his body, his arms, his thighs and his legs carrying iron plates, a saber is hanging from his belt, and a Chinese hat hiding his face. Through the stitches of the hat, they can see the eyes of the strange man. Red, inhuman and shiny eyes. With his hand on the guard of his saber, the man advanced a few paces, heavy and noisy, breathing like a monster. Very slowly, he draws his saber and the blade leaning horizontally down, stands in a fighting position.

(Mathias): "What is this new Comstock's creature?"

(Elizabeth): "I do not know. I've never seen this kind of soldier before."

(Cornelius): "Let's kill him before he can act."

Two rebels open fire immediately, and to the amazement of all, the warrior in armor transforms into a cloud of black crows with red eyes, thus avoiding the burst of bullets.

(Mathias): "What is ....?!"

(Elizabeth): "Oh no, he got the vigor Murder of Crows ...... It's a Zealot!"

The cloud of crows gathers very quickly in one body, and the samurai magically reappears behind the two soldiers who have fired at him, and decapitates them with a single saber stroke, making roll their heads on the ground. He teleports again, strikes all the soldiers one by one, without any one being able to react quickly enough. Cornelius is quickly put down by the warrior. Mathias tries to give him a shot of Skyhook, but the samurai strikes the blow with the blade of his saber, and with a violent kick back, sends Mathias on the ground, face down. His movements are so rapid that human eyes have great difficulty in following him. Mathias rises in spite of the pain and avoids a circular blow of the saber, which passed near the top of his skull. But the zealot attacks very quickly, and sends Mathias against the ground again, with a violent uppercut. Elizabeth wants to defend her lover and gives a blow of Skyhook, which touches the monster in the chest, but does not cause him pain. Elizabeth does not dare move, the two terrifying eyes of the monster looking at her, and feeling the misty breath blown on her face. Elizabeth wants to give a second blow, but the samurai seizes her by the throat, lifting her like a feather, but merely poses her on the side, without hurting her. As a creature of Comstock, this warrior has surely been conditioned not to attack the daughter of the prophet.

Saber in hand, the samurai monster kills a third rebel with one blow in the chest, and a fourth by piercing him in the stomach, causing blood and guts to squirt. Knowing that this monster will not attack her, Elizabeth decides to take advantage of this chance. The samurai leaped into the air and was about to decapitate Mathias, who would not have time to avoid, but suddenly the warrior found himself blocked in the air, surrounded by a quantum field that Elizabeth emanated from the palms of her hands. The monster groans with surprise, wondering what the lady is doing. Cornelius and his soldiers stand up and shoot together, riddling the body of the monster with a hundred of bullets. Mathias reacts to her beloved's plan, and with the sharp hooks of his Skyhook, slashes the warrior's throat deeply. The blood spurts abundantly and the samurai falls to his knees, a fountain of blood pouring on his armor, and still resists several seconds before dying slowly, on his knees. Mathias spat a trickle of blood from his mouth after the blow he received and thanked Elizabeth for her help. The group resumes its way, wondering what dangers await them behind every door.

TO BE CONTINUED