The sun didn't rise.
It bled.
The clouds overhead were dark and heavy, tinged in bruised shades of crimson and gold, as if the heavens themselves were mourning what was about to unfold. Smoke curled from the east, thick with soot and sulfur.
And there they stood.
Across the battlefield — a stretch of cracked stone and shattered earth — the Syndicate army lined up in rows so precise it chilled the bone. Red banners. Black armor. Helmets shaped like beasts. Cannons that hummed with unnatural power.
Jayden exhaled slowly.
> "No turning back."
--
Before the horns even sounded, the Syndicate opened fire.
Explosions lit up the frontline — dirt and fire raining into the sky. But Jayden's side was already moving. Aria led the western flank, ducking under blasts and taking out the artillery gunners before they could reload.
Anna was a blur of motion, her blade flashing in the smoke, taking down soldier after soldier.
Nadia fought like someone with something to prove.
She bled early — a gash across her cheek — but never stopped.
Jayden cut a path through the center, flames licking from his right hand, ice in his left, a deadly symphony of contrast and control.
Every step forward was earned in blood.
--
Jayden broke through the outer circle of Syndicate troops and reached the command trench — where the elite guards waited.
They weren't human.
Not anymore.
Twisted by experiments.
Flesh fused with metal.
Eyes that glowed with hatred.
The leader of them, known only as Husk, stepped forward.
> "You're too late, heir. This city dies today."
Jayden didn't answer.
He moved.
Their blades clashed — sparks flew, steel screamed.
Jayden took a blow to the ribs.
Coughed blood.
Husk laughed.
> "Weak."
But that laugh ended quickly when Jayden caught his wrist and ignited a burst of energy through him — one so fierce it melted the metal coating Husk's body and left him shrieking.
Jayden whispered, almost gently:
> "You shouldn't have touched my people."
And drove the blade through his heart.
---
Underground, Lila and the younger ones waited.
Sophie knelt by the entrance tunnel, holding a rifle she barely knew how to use.
> "If anything happens… I'll protect you," she told the kids.
One of them, barely five, offered her a single red marble.
> "For luck," he said.
Sophie laughed, tears in her eyes.
> "Then I'll win for sure."
And far above them, the walls trembled again.
---
The Syndicate had one last card.
Buried under the city was a bomb — old tech, from before the kingdoms collapsed.
It could wipe out ten miles in every direction.
Jayden didn't know how, but he felt it.
Like gravity had shifted.
> "There's something under us," he yelled.
Nadia cursed.
> "They rigged it. They want to take us all out — them included."
> "We need to find it. Disarm it."
But it wasn't Nadia who found the access path.
It was Elias — the silent scout who rarely spoke — who whispered, "Here," and pulled aside a slab of stone.
A staircase spiraled downward into the dark.
Jayden didn't hesitate.
---
The passage was tight, cold, and smelled of rust and blood.
At the bottom was a chamber — the bomb pulsed with a deep red glow. Ancient symbols lined its surface, a dead language of war and endings.
Aria and Nadia arrived seconds later.
> "Can we stop it?" Aria asked.
> "We don't know how it works," Nadia replied.
Jayden touched the panel.
And a voice — robotic and smooth — echoed:
> "Final protocol engaged. Detonation in seven minutes."
He didn't panic.
He closed his eyes.
And remembered his father's teachings — the ones he ignored as a child.
One sequence came to him. A code his father said was never to be used.
He input the numbers.
And prayed.
---
On the field, things were slipping.
Their side was outnumbered, exhausted.
Anna screamed for reinforcements.
Jeff, bloodied and breathing heavy, arrived with his squad from the eastern ruins — a surprise attack that caught the enemy off guard.
And Linet… Linet brought the storm.
Literally.
She activated a pulse tower rigged in the city's old defense grid. A shockwave hit the Syndicate's tanks, frying circuits, disabling their advance.
For a moment — just a moment — hope flared again.
---
Back underground, Jayden stared at the countdown:
00:00:51
Aria whispered, "We're not going to make it, are we?"
Jayden didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at Nadia.
> "You said you wanted to make it count."
She nodded.
Then stepped forward.
> "If I stay and hold the override panel down, it'll stop the blast."
Jayden's eyes widened. "You'll die."
She smiled. "I died a long time ago, Jayden. This… this is redemption."
He tried to stop her.
She pushed him back.
> "Tell them… I chose this."
Then she turned, and placed both hands on the override panel.
The countdown stopped at:
00:00:04
---
Jayden and Aria emerged just in time to see the last of the Syndicate troops retreating.
Smoke curled into the sky.
Bodies everywhere.
But the city stood.
The people had survived.
Cheers rose.
Cries.
Laughter.
And tears.
They had won.
But it didn't feel like victory.
Not completely.
Jayden dropped to his knees, overwhelmed.
Anna found him. Sat beside him.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
He was crying.
So was she.
---
That evening, the fires were lit not for war — but for remembrance.
Names were etched into stone.
Those lost.
Those who gave everything.
Jayden placed Nadia's name himself.
Right beside his father's.
And when Lila ran into his arms, holding the red marble Sophie had kept safe, he held her like the world itself depended on it.
Because maybe, just maybe… it did.
---