This was a fantastic volume. I love how it was structured. The middle of the series followed more of a formulaic monster-of-the-book plotline, and while those stories were necessary, I couldn't be happier that we are far away from that format by now. Now, we're getting into the meat of the story, the payoff for all of that character work and world-building: The section when we have to confront the real monster that was lurking in the background this whole time, that of humanity's shortcomings and egos that created the Legion in the first place.

In this volume, we follow several plotlines simultaneously, bouncing between them multiple times within the same chapter, which sounds like a confusing mess just typing that sentence out—but, delightfully, it isn't. All the storylines seamlessly intertwine and weave into each other as some characters depart on journies of redemption or yearning, others of desperation, while the others are stuck in place, either frozen by their own moral misgivings or by another's hand.

The Federacy has had no qualms with blaming and pointing fingers at the Republic for how they treated the 86 and how that society chose to prioritize and ensure their own survival, but when similar extenuating circumstances begin afflicting their own capital, with refugees streaming in, crowding those so-called equality-focused streets of the Federacy, with the Legion slowly yet steadily chipping away at the battle lines and encroaching ever closer, with not even their beloved holidays safe from the consequences of being caught in a decade-long war, will they really be able to say they are morally superior to the Republic as these situations begin provoking a more desperate struggle for survival? Can humans keep that splendid humanity they always claim to have even when they're stripped of all structure and left in a free-for-all? Or will they break into groups of Others, dividing into Us and Them in a desperate attempt to make sense of the chaos again? Those are essentially the core questions of this volume, and they're explored through so many thought-provoking eyes.

We get the perspective of the Acaecton, who through no fault of their own have become the catalyst for everything coming apart at the seams as people begin blaming something, anything for all the problems that have suddenly crept into their supposedly safe city tucked away from the war front. Soldiers begin resenting this never-ending war, wondering who or what they are fighting for, and start deserting in droves when a satisfactory answer can neither be given nor found. Shin begins folding into his inner darkness as his world narrows when he is kept apart from Lena for a frustrating reason, and due to his duties, he cannot go and protect her immediately. Dustin is kept prisoner by his own claims of Goodness, of always rejecting the "wrong" society, and thus traps himself, and is trapped by his love, in a loop without escape that steals away his ability to discern the "right" way to live. The story encompasses everything from a macro view of how a supposedly superior democratic society can fail on all fronts simultaneously and simply self-combust, to the micro ways the small decisions of individuals affect countless lives in ripples that combine into waves as they crash into a sense of order already hanging by a thread.

It's hard to explain properly, but all of these frustrations are folded on top of each other in such a masterful way that I can honestly say it was a literary pleasure reading every chapter, as I took my time absorbing everything that was going on and appreciating the (unfortunate) ways this fictional world is reflecting our current one. The bombshell at the end was something I would never have seen coming, and I am both greatly anticipating and dreading where the final arc takes us.