The sky burned behind them as Kael, Iris, and Vaerin descended from Aerthalon, the floating city now silent in the clouds—watching. Waiting. The air had changed, and the world below… was no longer the same.
The war had already begun.
Ashfall
They landed in the outskirts of Vareth's Borderlands, once a peaceful series of farming villages. Now, smoke curled from crumbled homes. Scorched earth. Silence.
"Too quiet," Iris whispered, drawing her twin blades.
"Something moved," Vaerin muttered, nocking an arrow. "There, by the ridge."
Kael moved forward. What he found wasn't a man.It was a soldier—but not breathing. Not truly.
His armor bore the mark of the Crownless—a movement Kael once heard whispers of. Warriors stripped of kings and allegiance. Their eyes were hollow. Their movements precise.
But this one… had no heartbeat.
Kael placed his palm on the corpse's chest. A pulse. But wrong—metallic, artificial.
"This isn't magic," he said. "It's something else."
"Necrotech," Iris said. "Forbidden craft of the Ash Priests. A blend of machine and soulbinding. Whoever made this… has found the Gravecodes."
The Crownless Banner
From the ruins of a hilltop temple, a shadow rose—a banner flapping violently against the wind. Black. Torn. Etched with a jagged crown pierced by three swords.
The Mark of the Crownless.
And standing below it, surrounded by hundreds of these necrotech soldiers, was a woman. Pale armor. Silver veins crawling across her skin like lightning scars. Eyes bright with fury and brilliance.
"I know that face," Vaerin said. "High Inquisitor Serel of the Crimson Throne. She died years ago."
"Apparently not," Kael muttered. "Or worse—she came back smarter."
Serel raised her arm, and the dead things around her moved in perfect synchrony. No words. No shouts. Just a brutal machine of war wrapped in human flesh.
"Bring me the Abandoned One," she said aloud, voice echoing across the field like iron against bone.
Kael didn't hesitate. He stepped into view.
"You want me?" he shouted. "Come and take me."
And they did.
The Machine War Begins
What followed was not a battle—it was a slaughter.
Kael was a storm. Fire from his palms. Shadow from his back. He moved like a fury unchained, ripping through waves of the Crownless like a blade through parchment.
Iris was wind and death, her blades spinning, cutting arcs of silver.Vaerin, behind them, laid down volleys of arrows laced with rune-fire.
But for every enemy they cut down, two rose. Reassembled by internal gears and red-light tendrils. They did not scream. They did not hesitate. They just obeyed.
"We need to run," Vaerin growled. "Now!"
Kael turned. "We need answers first!"
"We'll be dead before we get them!"
Kael raised both hands. For the first time, he didn't hold back.He unleashed the Silence.
The very air trembled. Sound drained. The field dimmed.
The soldiers stopped—frozen in place as if trapped between seconds.
And from their mouths, black smoke poured upward—screaming not in noise, but in emotion.
Grief. Rage. Betrayal.
"They weren't soldiers," Iris whispered. "They were people. Bound souls. Forced into metal."
Kael's voice trembled. "This isn't war. It's slavery."
And then they heard the real enemy.
The Broken God
From the cracked spires of a ruined cathedral rose a figure bound in chains. Towering. Metallic. Its face was a shattered mirror, reflecting Kael's own.
Its voice bled into their minds.
"Kael... son of nothing. Child of the error. Welcome home."
Kael staggered. "What… is that?"
"The First Crownless," Elyndra's voice echoed from nowhere, as if still tethered to him. "A fallen god. Forgotten even by time. They call him Nullheart."
The machine-god's chains cracked. One fell.
Kael's instincts screamed. "We're not ready for this!"
"Then RUN!" Iris shouted, grabbing his hand.
And they did.
Whispers in the Dust
As they fled through ruined tunnels beneath the battlefield, Kael's mind spiraled. He saw pieces of himself in Nullheart.A broken creation.Something made, not born.
And a terrifying thought rose:What if he wasn't meant to destroy the gods?What if he was made… to replace them?
"Kael," Iris said softly, "I saw your eyes. Back there."
"They weren't mine."
"They were. But they were afraid. We all are. But you're not alone."
"What if I become like him?" Kael asked.
"Then I'll be the one to stop you," she said. "But I don't believe I'll ever have to."
And that was the moment he knew—no matter how long the war, no matter how many gods or monsters came for him—he would not run from what he was.
He would become what the world needed.
Even if it meant being hated. Feared. Hunted.