Date: April 5th 1068
Location: Kazdel
It moved across the land like a black mountain on wheels.
A mobile city-an engine of concrete, steel, and powered by the full might of the harbringer of humanity itself, Originium.
Smoke poured from its gigantic furnaces in towering plumes, mingling with the dark clouds of an approaching Catastrophe. Its jagged battlements and sloped towers resembled the ruins of ancient strongholds, welded together haphazardly and made to crawl across the continent. Beneath its many treads, the land was gouged deep, carved apart by the sheer weight of its passage.
Series of lightning bolts split the sky, illuminating its silhouette-a monstrous thing not built for comfort, but for survival.
For War.
For Vengeance.
For home.
A black banner with a symbol of jagged symmetry-a white, angular emblem resembling a crown of blades encircling a diamond core, sharp and unyielding like a sigil of war and authority-flew high. It carried a name that brought warmth and protections toward its inhabitants.
To those within, it was their home.
Kazdel
And now, it is fleeing from its pursuers.
Pursuing it were the warships of Leithanien-landborne cathedrals wreathed in silver resonance. Each one bristled with tall spires of crystalline amplifiers, towers of brass and blackstone, and rows of ornamented cannons pulsing with raw Arts. Their engines hummed in polyphonic harmony, controlled by choirs of casters housed within.
These were not crude engines of conquest, but cultivated machines of discipline and Leithania's military doctrine. They advanced in formation, across high plains and ridges, their vibrations slowly overtaking the rumbling soil left in the mobile city's wake.
But pursuit was not their objective.
It is Retribution
The conflict had not begun with raids or provocations, but with a single, defiant message.
In the years following the War of the Four Emperors, the great victors-Victoria, Ursus, and Yan-carved their rewards from the corpse of Gaul. Leithanien, despite their decisive Arts supremacy and the lives spent on foreign soil, found themselves with little more than praise and pretense. Their territories remained constrained, and their influence in the war effort was silently diluted.
Bitterness took root in their court. Leithanien scholars and nobles alike demanded just recompense, and when none came, they turned their gaze eastward-to the isolated stronghold of the Sarkaz.
Kazdel
Previously a nomadic and fractured race and society, the Sarkaz had once again raised their walls and industry, turned their ancient home into a roving bastion.
Independent.
Defiant.
Leithanien called it illegitimate. A rogue nation that owed its existence to the negligence of others.
An emissary was sent, bearing a sealed demand: surrender the city, disband their military, and place the land under Leithanien administration, as rightful reparations for their sacrifices during the war.
But the emissary never returned.
What did return was his head, nailed to a spike and cast from the city's walls. His body was thrown into one of the city's furnaces by a Sarkaz figurehead, consumed without ceremony.
Outrage turned to action.
Leithanien's choirs began their chorus of war. The Warships were roused from dormancy, their conduits lit with burning scripts. Mobilization spread like a crescendo through their heartland.
Now, their warships rolled forward through the highlands, after the iron city that had refused to kneel.
The city did not slow. It plunged into the oncoming Catastrophe, trusting the storm to shield it, even as its frame creaked and its rails sparked under stress.
++++++++
On a wind-swept valley, above the path the city had taken, two figures stood among the battered rocks.
The first was a tall man clad in dull steel plate, black military greatcoat visible beneath his dull steel armor.
A black furred cape with crimson interior flared from his right shoulder, trailing like a wound. His left arm was encased in a heavy pauldron and gauntlet, fingers twitching with silent agitation. His gaze, hard and unwavering, followed the storm as it swallowed the land.
Beside him, a woman stood a head shorter. She wore a long white dress, its clean lines traced with black. Her horns, much like the man, were uneven-one broken, the other slightly curved-and her long pink hair moved gently in the cold wind. Her eyes were not sharp like his. They were mournful.
"They won't follow far into the Catastrophe," she said, voice quiet beneath the thunder. "Their harmonies are brittle in the of a storm like this."
"They'll wait," the man replied. "Wait for the storm to pass. For us to stumble out."
She glanced up at him. "They still don't understand us."
He didn't answer.
The sky cracked again, pale light illuminating the shadow of the mobile city as it disappeared into the dark. Within it, the Sarkaz prepared for war-not out of vengeance, but necessity.
This was not just survival.
It was their defiance.
They denied to be erased.
To be subjugated.
The man turned. His eyes narrowed. "We'll make them remember, then."
And with that, the two began their descent from the ridge, the wind howling at their backs as the storm closed its jagged jaws behind them.
For a time, they moved in silence. Their boots crunched over fractured shale, through tufts of silver grass bent low by the gale. The woman gripped the man's arm for balance, her steps are careful on the uneven slope. He slowed his pace, wordlessly adjusting to her rhythm, letting her catch up quietly.
The shadow of the landship had long since vanished behind the swirling wall of dust and lightning, leaving only the gouged tracks carved into the valley floor-a scar that stretched into the darkness.
The man halted, standing at the edge of one of those tracks. A trench three meters deep, carved into the land by the city's passage.
He looked down at it. Then up again, tracing its curve into the horizon.
"How tiny we seem when we stand beside the tracks of this ship," he muttered, voice low with something between awe and frustration.
The woman stepped beside him, her white dress fluttering at the edges.
"Yes," she replied softly. "It's a most impressive war machine. With their bodies as barriers, the Nachzehrer halted its advance at a tremendous cost. The Banshee's shrieks-powerful enough to shatter consciousness-only managed to force the Leithanians below deck..."
"Yes," she replied softly. "It's a most impressive war machine. With their bodies as barriers, the Nachzehrer halted its advance at a tremendous cost. The Banshee's shrieks-powerful enough to shatter consciousness-only managed to force the Leithanians below deck..."
"And the Free Men of the Wasteland Tribes are cleaning up the decks efficiently," he said, his voice like gravel carried on wind. His black cape snapped behind him as he clenched his gauntleted hand. "As they always do. Precise. Silent... Brutal."
There was a moment's pause, a quiet thick with memory. Then she spoke again, more softly than before.
"Do you know the truth of their blood?"
He did not answer, but she continued.
"They were once called something else, in the elder tongues. Not merely nomads. Not raiders. Not wanderers. They were blades-chosen retainers. The ancestors of these so-called Free Men were said to be among the few who followed Farchaser, the Crowned Hunter and first Teekaz King, into the Silver Mountain. Legends say he returned with the Crown of Civilight Eterna-a relic that bound together the first civilization and light itself."
"In the centuries that followed, their bloodline served many sovereigns: the Teekaz Kings first, and then the succeeding Sarkaz Kings. Their blades sang in wars against the arrival of the Elders and Ancients Races. But then came the betrayal."
She looked away toward the storm's edge.
"Balor'saca the Sunblazer-traitor, kinslayer, one of the Three Sage Kings-assassinated Gul'dul the Mason King, dissolved the loyal orders, and condemned the Free Men's ancestors to death in a swift, and brutal purge."
"But fate," she whispered, "is a thing not so easily erased."
"Qui'lon-who would one day be known as the Errant Overlord-spent centuries tracing the shadows of these lost tribes. And when he finally found them, far in the broken western marches, he tried to bring them back into the Sarkaz fold. But they refused."
"Yet still... they followed him."
She turned back to him, eyes narrowing.
Theresis continues, "When Qui'lon led the last Sarkaz migration eastward-beyond even the lands of Yan and Higashi-it was the Free Men's ancestors who guarded the caravan's flanks. It was they who scouted the paths through dangerous gorges and bone-littered valleys. The Elder Race they bartered passage from had never known war with Sarkaz. It was meant to be a new beginning."
"But instead, it was a massacre." He gritted.
"The Elders betrayed them. Struck them in the night. Qui'lon lost his family, his son. His people slaughtered. And the Free Men's ancestors fought back, giving their kin enough time to flee."
"And when Qui'lon returned from the blood-drenched ruins of that camp with the last survivors of the Wasteland bloodlines, he did not mourn. He sharpened his sword."
"And from that broken place," she said, "he led what would be remembered in myth and scripture as the First Jihad. A war of righteous vengeance. They hunted down the traitors. City by city. Cave by cave. Until their names were ash in the mouths of their own kin."
He said nothing, but the wind pulled harder now. The smell of earth. Of fate.
"And after that..." she exhaled, "their glory faded after endless cycles of Kazdel's rise and fall. No more kings. No more thrones to guard. They wandered. From wasteland to wasteland. Warriors of once-sacred blood, now mistaken for drifters. Hobos. Scavengers."
"Yet still they remain. Blades in their callused hands. Eyes sharp as obsidian. Descendants of old Kings' Blade-now wiping blood from foreign decks."
"If not for the Catastrophe and the rough terrain in this valley-"
"We're so far behind," she cut in, quiet but firm. "And time is running out."
The man exhaled through his nose, staring into the Catastrophe storm.
"Kazdel must have equally powerful weapons, and men, if not more so. All our previous attempts have failed..."
"A century ago," she said, her gaze distant, "few believed we could build a nomadic city out of Kazdel, yet we did. If we are to catch up to them now, we cannot afford to take the conventional path."
There was a pause.
Then she turned to him, her voice hushed but alert. "We have word from the Damazti. The battleships on the horizon are slowing down."
His brow furrowed. "Have they given up?"
"No. The Kurfürst's orders were to continue the pursuit, but the commander of the fleet has chosen caution. They're concerned about the Catastrophes and the terrain-especially possibilities of another traps laid down by the Free Men. Like what they've seen happened to this ship."
"At the current rate..." he murmured, crossing his hands on his chest plate, "we can expect to engage them at dusk."
She nodded. "We have bought enough time for Kazdel to retreat."
The wind softened briefly, and the light of the storm flickered along the edges of their horns.
"You're still too naive, Theresa."
She smiled faintly. "And you're still too proud, Theresis."
He turned away again, saying nothing. Their conversation was not a new topic.
Beneath them, the broken land trembled with distant thunder. Somewhere beyond the ridgelines, the city moved on, black and defiant, dragging its people toward the next storm.
Theresa turned her head, her gaze cast back across the scorched valley and into the chaos of the twin storms. The two cyclones, one ancient and broken, the other young and ravenous, had begun to spiral into each other-two titans colliding in a final embrace. Dust and lightning twined like serpents in the dark sky, choking out the sun. She tried to catch even a glimpse of the mobile city. Just a shadow. A light. Any sign that it still moved forward.
But she saw nothing.
Where is Kazdel now?
Is it still moving through the storm?
Are the people in the shelters safe?
She didn't speak those thoughts aloud.
Instead, she whispered, "The storms are converging. Our retreat has been cut off. A battle is inevitable..."
A pause.
"Theresis?"
Her brother stood beside her, silent. Wind tugged at his crimson cape, and pink hair-at the battered plates of his armor. His gauntlets flexed once, slowly. His eyes weren't on the horizon. They weren't on the storm. His gaze seemed... distant.
"I never thought I'd see you lose focus on the battlefield," Theresa murmured.
Theresis blinked, as if waking from a reverie. "What's that?"
Her eyes followed his.
"...That's..."
She never finished the thought.
The two storms had met at last-one defiant, the other crumbling. The younger struck first, its howling winds battering the older into submission.
Air currents twisted violently, colliding, folding into each other with reckless abandon. Rain and ash, snow and dust-Originium-all blurred together. Thunder cracked. Lightning branched through the sky like shattered glass.
And then-
A rupture.
Where the storms converged, the chaos fell still. A corridor formed at the heart of the swirling madness, like an eye in a divine storm. The roar dulled, just for a moment, enough to hear the silence at its core.
"A path through the storm," Theresis muttered.
Theresa nodded, her voice barely audible. "The storm..."
Theresis stepped forward. "Let's go, Theresa. The storm has given us a path. Those who survive through it will have another chance."
She followed. "We'll do it together."
Behind them, the Damazti Cluster received its orders-not through words, but through the King and her twin's presence. The sight of their twin leaders walking side by side into the tempest was all the command they needed.
And so they moved.
The Sarkaz warriors advanced as one. Some limped, others carried their comrades. Shields locked into place. Eyes set forward.
No hesitation. No fear.
Their path was no longer a retreat. It was survival.
To defy fate.
+++++++
Among the Sarkaz warriors were figures veiled in wind-worn cloaks of coarse, sand and sunset-colored fabrics. Their garments were layered in uneven cuts of leather and woven mesh, dust-caked and bleached pale by years beneath relentless sun and Catastrophes. Long scarves wrapped around their faces and necks, shielding them from ash and wind, leaving only narrow slits for their sand-goggled eerie blue eyes to peer through.
The armor on their body was minimalistic, strapped tightly to their torsos and limbs-dark, composite pieces shaped for agility, not much on defense.
Curved and straight knives, followed with slender blades hung from their hips, each one etched with faded symbols. From their belts swung water gourds, bone charms, and scraps of torn banners once flown under different kings.
Their boots, soft-soled and bandaged in hide, made no sound against the earth.
They were part of the nomadic Sarkaz tribe, not of the courts nor clans that lived in Kazdel. Their speech was dry and clipped, their customs were older than any kept in Kazdel's strongholds. They bore no insignia, only the dust and blood of their ancestry.
As they moved among the retreating warriors, one by one, their heads turned-not to the King and her twin, but to the path ahead.
There, between the thunderous crashing of the twin storms, a rift had opened in the sky and land-a corridor of light cutting through the blackened horizon.
It shimmered.
Gold.
The winds parted before it. The clouds curled to the side. The black sands trembled.
And in the silence of their steps, every one of them knew:
A Path shined in Gold under the bleeding Red skies.
And from within, the promised One will emerge.
To bring Paradise.
As was Written.
As was Foretold.
++++++++
Theresa glanced sideways as they crossed into the storm. Her pink eyes glimmered in the brief flash of lightning. "Do you see that, Theresis?"
And there, within the deafening roar, they heard something else. A voice not made of wind, nor thunder.
It echoed from another time. A voice remembered from a snowstorm in a long forgotten dream.
And before them, through the veil of dust and lightning, they saw-
++++++++
- Theresa's POV.
The prophecy.
The child.
A Sword to Slay the Regent King.
A Spear to Pierce the Royal Ring.
We had heard those words whispered long ago, chanted in smoky rooms by blind seers, etched into the bones left by the Cyclopes and the Wendigos. Visions brought forth by old blood and older madness.
I had never believed in fate-not truly.
Neither had he.
But still... here she stood.
In the eye of the twin storms-where two cyclones met and sundered each other-the child stood untouched. The wind howled and clawed but could not reach her. She was too still. Too sure. A small, hooded figure, barefoot on torn soil, one arm stretched behind her.
She wasn't alone.
She dragged another behind her-an adult-or something close. The mist clung to this second figure, refusing to let go. Clad entirely in white armor-
No. Ashen.
The color was that of ruin: scorched and buried bone, dulled by soot and time. The suit was slim, anatomical in construction, hugging the form with eerie precision. Not regal, not ceremonial-no flowing lines, no heraldic emblems. This armor had been made to function, not impress.
It is not the armour of the Leithaniens
Segmented plates fit flush across limbs, molded to mimic sinew and tendon wrought in iron. The shoulders sloped low for mobility, the joints veiled in black weave. The entire frame moved with a mechanical smoothness, and yet... it looked tired.
Scarred. Cracked. Burnt.
Battle-worn.
Functional.
And deeply wrong.
The armor was caked with grime-black ash, hardened mud, storm-scour. Its pristine white had been buried beneath layers of grimes. From head to toe, faint bluish lights blinked across the body.
And then-there was the helmet.
A full-faced visor, smeared and streaked with filth, as though the very storm had tried to erase the identity beneath. Blood, perhaps. Dirt, certainly. I couldn't tell. From within, the inside of the visor was fogged-no doubt from breath and cold. Condensation slicked the interior. Scratches and muck crusted the exterior.
I couldn't see the eyes beneath. Not even a glint.
Only a dirty, sealed mask.
I couldn't tell who it was.
I couldn't even tell what they were.
Man? Woman? Something else? I am not sure.
The child led them forward, step by determined step, shouting something to them.
The armored one followed-but not by their own will. There was a drag to their pace. A heaviness in each step. Their posture was hunched, their movement looked off-balance, as though they carried wounds too deep for the armor to hide.
They didn't belong here.
This wasn't in the prophecy.
The child was-yes. I had seen her in my dreams, heard her voice in the howling wind. But this pale wraith behind her... this unknown shadow encased in white ruin...
"They... shouldn't be here," I whispered.
Beside me, Theresis didn't speak. He only watched.
Then he moved.
Slow at first. Then faster. His black cloak caught the wind and snapped once, loud as a war banner.
He stripped the gauntlet from his arm and let it fall. The steel rang sharp against the shale.
Then, with his bare hand, he stepped into the mist.
The fog shivered around him, recoiling as though it knew him. The very storm seemed to hesitate. I felt the tension shift, felt the silence thicken.
Then the air parted-cleaved open like old skin.
And in his open, bloodied palm-
A black knife.
Lightning licked the sky above us.
The child didn't flinch. She only bared her teeth-like a cornered fang-beast. And in her small hand, she gripped the hilt of the same blade-stolen from the side of the figure she dragged.
The armored one gave no protest. They're on their heels, slouched, short of breath—from how their chest heaved. Their visor turned faintly toward us. Clouded. Impenetrable. Watching, perhaps-but I could not know.
And I-
I could not move.
We had both dismissed the prophecies long ago- Both Cyclopean and Wendigo nonsense spun in their desperations after years and years, to millenias of Kazdel's continued rise and fall.
But...
This wasn't what the visions had shown.
This wasn't what the seers foretold.
This was not fate.
This was something else.