In the dead of night in the Maya district, the air was no longer just damp and musty; it was filled with an oppressive, chilling atmosphere.
Half an hour earlier, news had reached the Holy Blood Tower of Chief Inquisitor Kaso's severe injury. This spire, a symbol of ruling power, lit up instantly with a dark red aurora — a sight rarely seen in a century — the signal for a 'Level One Clear Skies Order'. Apart from armed personnel bearing the Council's insignia, any moving creature in this block was considered a target.
'Huff... huff...'
Aaryan leaned against the decaying cooling tower on the rooftop, each breath causing a deep pain in his chest — his 'Judgment of All Beings', which had repelled Kaso, had completely drained his royal essence. His face was deathly pale and the golden patterns on his exposed skin flickered as if they might extinguish at any moment.
Beside him, Balthazar bit down hard on a bandage to constrict the deep wound on his left arm that had been ripped open by the Soul-Cleansing Halberd, revealing bone. Despite the severity of the injury, the demon warrior's eyes still burned with a ferocious fighting spirit. He wedged his greatsword diagonally into a crack in the wooden walkway to maintain his balance.
'Those flies... they're getting more and more persistent,' Balthazar whispered, looking down.
The dim streetlights had been replaced on the street by massive beams of light cast by "Heavenly Punishment"-class floating fortresses. Dozens of light 'swarm' drones weaved through the narrow alleyways, their electronic eyes shooting out red scanning beams that intertwined into an impenetrable net in the black rain.
'Judging from the residual energy, they're in this walkway area,' said Kaso from below. His voice was distorted and hoarse due to the shattered mask.
Despite his injuries, Caso didn't retreat. Instead, he put on a dark grey emergency combat suit, the hydraulic rods on his chest groaning as he did so. His mechanical prosthetic eye spun frantically across his scarred face, picking up every subtle change in the etheric energy. Three squadrons of heavily armoured 'Soul Cleansers' cavalry had sealed off all ground entrances behind him, while the remaining lightly armed stalkers climbed the building's exterior like geckos.
'Pau, still not done?' Cyrus crouched beside a pile of wrecked steam boilers, frantically adjusting a disassembled electromagnetic shielding device.
'What's the rush? The etheric frequencies in this crappy place are all messed up. The Holy Blood Council has the base station's gain at maximum.' Pau was drenched in sweat, his greasy hair plastered to his forehead by a mixture of sweat and rain. He was trying to use the fragments of the 'Kingslayer Blade' that he had salvaged from the rubble to create a makeshift signal camouflage field.
'If we can't mask our bloodline signature within thirty seconds, the concentrated fire from those drones will flatten the rooftops.' Cyrus's palms were sweating as he watched the detector readings approach the red zone.
Aaryan closed his eyes, forcing himself to summon the last vestiges of warmth within him. He could hear the crisp sound of boots pounding on steel below and smell the ever-present killing intent emanating from Kaso.
'They're not tracking me.' Aaryan suddenly opened his eyes, his dark golden pupils staring directly at the descending clouds above. 'They're closing in. Kaso has turned these three city blocks into a gladiatorial arena. He wants to extinguish the royal family's hopes here, in front of all the 'surveillance eyes'."
With a piercing electromagnetic screech, a drone locked onto their location. A red laser dot landed precisely on Aaryan's forehead.
"We've been spotted… Run!" "Aaryan let out a sharp shout and the group of four leaped into the air, beginning a life-or-death escape through the intricate network of rooftop walkways and steam pipes.
'Whoosh!'
A blazing red laser beam grazed past Aaryan's ear, instantly melting the rusty steam duct behind him. A cloud of scalding white steam billowed out, obscuring the group. However, this cover proved utterly vulnerable to electronic probes capable of penetrating the mist.
'Spread out and jump! Head for Walkway 4 — there are high-voltage cables providing cover!' Aaryan roared, his body tumbling rapidly across the narrow rooftop walkway.
This area — the 'roof' of the Maya district, consisting of a complex network of scaffolding, cooling pipes and haphazardly constructed metal structures — was usually a haven for the homeless, but was now a deadly meat grinder.
Three 'Stealth Inquisitors', clad in light grey-brown armour, leapt vertically from behind the billboards above. Instead of cumbersome steam power, they employed more advanced ethereal propulsion, moving with the agility of ghouls hunting prey in the sky.
'For the Holy Blood!' An Inquisitor stretched out in mid-air, unleashing a pair of buzzing, high-frequency blades that sliced through the rain and aimed straight for Aaryan's throat.
'For your ancestors!'
Balthazar roared, his dark red greatsword, which had been slung behind his back, suddenly slashing upwards. His wounds were still healing and every movement sent blood splattering. But in this life-or-death moment, his demonic brute force reached its peak.
"Clang!"
Sparks flew as the vibrating blades clashed with the greatsword, producing a teeth-grinding scraping sound. Balthazar didn't back down. Instead, he braced himself with one hand on the ground and pushed the rogue off balance in mid-air with all his strength. Aaryan seized this fleeting opportunity: his left arm erupted with a faint yet concentrated golden ripple and a 'Shattering Palm' struck the rogue's chest armour squarely.
With a crack, the rogue's ethereal core shattered and he screamed as he plummeted into the steel abyss thousands of metres below.
'Don't linger! Caso's coming!' Cyrus shouted from ahead.
At the end of the walkway, a heavy figure was approaching with incredible speed. Caso wasn't wearing a mask, and his half-blasted face looked more ferocious than any monster under the red warning lights. His mechanical eye was fixed on Aaryan, and the heavy guillotine he was holding, which had been put back together, left long streaks of sparks in the rain.
'Aaryan, do you think you can escape just by cutting off the base station?' Caso's voice was still clearly audible through the rain. 'Every screw in this area is the Council's eye!'
He stomped on the wooden planks beneath his feet, using the momentum to leap into the air. The heavy guillotine came crashing down with great force.
'Rise!'
Pau revealed his 'trump card' at the crucial moment — although his combat skills were mediocre, he had an intimate knowledge of the slum's architectural structure. He abruptly pulled a paint-covered lever beside him — a 'debt-escape mechanism' that he had installed years ago.
The once smooth walkway suddenly collapsed, the immense centrifugal force causing the pursuing Soul Cleansers to lose their footing and fall. Casso's heavy decapitating blade struck empty air and cleaved a multi-tonne water tank in two.
"You damned 'rat'!" Casso steadied himself, his face contorted as he glared at Pau.
'Even a rat is better than you, a lackey of the Council!' Pau retorted loudly from behind Balthazar's broad figure, but his hands trembled.
These small-scale skirmishes continued to unfold on the rooftop.
With a crack, the rogue's ethereal core shattered and he screamed as he plummeted into the steel abyss thousands of metres below.
'Don't linger! Caso's coming!"
For Kaso, this was a hunt to wash away his shame. He had completely abandoned the so-called 'justice' of the Judges, revelling instead in the perverse pleasure of trampling powerful enemies underfoot. For Aaryan and his group, retreat was not an option. On this cold rooftop, they realised that they were not just fleeing for survival; in their rejection by the entire city, they had experienced a newfound sense of comradeship.
'The elevator to the "Red Zone" is just ahead!' Cyrus said, pointing to the huge industrial shaft ahead which emitted an ominous red light.
This was the territory of the dead, their last gamble. Kaso saw their intentions, the red light in his psychic eyes surging. 'Want to enter the Red Zone? Then I'll turn you into real corpses first!"
At Kaso's command, the huge floating fortress behind them slowly adjusted its cannons and deep purple energy began to gather in the atmosphere.
'Boom!'
The secondary cannon of the 'Heavenly Punishment' class floating fortress finally completed its charge in the sky. A deep purple beam as thick as a bowl pierced the rain vertically, instantly turning the abandoned clock tower behind them into molten iron. The shockwave from the intense heat threw Aaryan and his companions onto the cold, wet scaffolding.
'Cough, cough... Those lunatics! Are they planning to raze these three city blocks to the ground?' Cyrus scrambled to his feet, covered in dust and dirt. The shattered lens of his glasses was emitting a dying scream, and the detector in his hand was making a similar noise.
'For the Council, destroying a few slums is as painless as trimming nails, or letting the royal bloodline slip away.' Gripping the trembling railing, Aaryan stared intently at the industrial shaft, blocked by barbed wire and eerie green ethereal walls. "Is that the only passage into the 'Red Zone'?" According to urban legends in the Maya District, the 'Red Zone' was the industrial city's drain and graveyard. It was an area where the Holy Blood Council's forced extraction of ley line ether and over-exploitation had caused 'etheric cancer' in the geological structure. The air there was filled with a high concentration of unpurified primordial ether. An ordinary person entering it would experience cell collapse due to energy overload within minutes, turning into a puddle of pus. However, for heretics and hardened criminals wanted throughout the city, it was the only 'blind spot'.
'Listen, the "etheric fog" in the Red Zone will block all electronic tracking, but that also means that once we go in, Pau's traps and Cyrus's jammers will fail.' Aaryan turned to his comrades, his expression serious. 'It's not just poisonous, there are also "abnormalities" caused by the etheric mutation.'
"Hey, it's better than getting sliced to pieces by that freak, Caso." Balthazar grinned, revealing a set of bloodied white teeth. He tightened his grip on his greatsword. 'Besides, I can feel something calling to me from underground: a primal shiver of the wilderness.'
Just then, a piercing whistle sounded in the night sky behind them, calling them to rally.
Caso stood atop a hovermobile, his wounds sealed with makeshift biological adhesive. Instead of rushing forward immediately, he issued a final command into the communicator in his collar. "Activate 'Blood Sacrifice Resonance' and bring up those captive 'meddlers'."
As the command was given, several massive black prison vans appeared in the street behind them. The doors opened and the Soul Cleansers roughly shoved out dozens of gaunt-faced 'meddlers' with stitched-up eyes. They were demihumans with faint royal bloodlines, specifically sought by the Council. One of the Council's secret techniques involved torturing 'meddlers' of similar bloodlines to induce violent fluctuations in the royal family's primordial energy. This pain resonated across space, making the infiltrators' locations highly visible on advanced monitoring devices.
'Ah—!'
Dozens of Meddlers let out piercing screams simultaneously as their life force was forcibly stripped away by the Controller in Kaso's hand.
Aaryan's heart clenched and a piercing pain engulfed his entire body, accompanied by a mournful cry from the depths of his blood. The suffering of those innocent mediums was relentlessly transmitted to his consciousness through the etheric bond.
'He's using the lives of his kind to force me to reveal myself...' Aaryan collapsed in agony on the walkway, his eyes once again oozing purplish-gold blood.
"Aaryan! Guard your mind!' Cyrus shouted anxiously.
'There's no time!' Aaryan endured the excruciating pain as he stood up and pointed to the industrial shaft. 'That's our only way out and their only way to die.' Pau, blow up the cooling gates of the shaft! We must use the 'etheric eruption' in the Red Zone to get down quickly!"
On this rainy night, filled with crimson lights and the mournful cries of his kind, the protagonists made a mad decision: to willingly plunge into hell.
The rain had gone from chilly to scalding hot because the floating fortresses high in the sky were constantly spewing out heat rays and forcibly evaporating the atmosphere.
"Stop looking! Jump!" Aaryan's roar was drowned out by a deafening explosion.
Right beneath their feet, the metal walkway connecting the industrial shaft had been hit directly by a 'Heavenly Punishment' ether bomb with a high explosive charge. Several tons of steel beams twisted like pretzels, carrying screaming civilians who had been hiding in rooftop shacks, and plummeted into the endless darkness below.
The situation deteriorated drastically in an instant.
Kaso had already led his men fifty metres away, conducting a 'cleansing' as well as pursuing. With each swing of his decapitation blade, a dark red arc was created — an 'air blade' enhanced by forbidden technology, powerful enough to slice through the composite armour of a tank.
"Aaryan, catch!" Cyrus hurled a cylindrical electromagnetic grenade.
Aaryan spun in mid-air, a faint golden light coalescing at his fingertips and igniting the grenade the instant it fell. 'Boom!' The powerful electromagnetic pulse briefly interfered with the pursuers' visual aids. However, Casso merely snorted, instantly switching his prosthetic eye to 'primitive light wave detection' mode. Without pausing, he broke through the electromagnetic smoke.
'You rats in the gutter, do you think such petty tricks can stop Judgment?' Casso roared.
The decapitation blade, with the force to shatter rocks, slashed down from above towards Balthazar at the back.
'Clang!'
Balthazar raised his dark red greatsword, desperately blocking the attack. The shockwave from the collision shattered the steel plates beneath their feet and caused Balthazar's arms to tremble violently. His deep, bone-revealing wound on his left arm gushed blood onto Casso's armour after enduring this immense force.
"You are the scum of the Demon race. Your blood is as worthless as your life." Casso kicked Balthazar hard in the chest. The immense force of the power armour sent him flying like a cannonball, crashing heavily onto the abandoned steam turbines. His fate was unknown.
"Balthazar!" Pau screamed in agony. He tried to rush forward, but two stealthy Inquisitors grabbed his ankles with grappling hooks and dragged him to the ground.
Despair washed over him like a tidal wave.
Aaryan stood on the edge of the precarious shaft. The scenes unfolded before him in slow motion: Balthazar struggling in a pool of blood; Pau being dragged into the darkness; and Cyrus desperately trying to hack into the shaft's braking system remotely with his broken computer, only to be forced to flee by the ever-approaching bullets.
But it was the persistent 'bloodline resonance' that shattered him most.
On the distant street, the wails of dozens of 'mediums' gradually faded, signifying the end of their lives. Each fading wail felt like a piece of flesh being torn from Aaryan's soul. His vision blurred and the once brilliant royal gold dimmed and took on a despairing grey hue.
'Can you feel it? This powerlessness?' Casso approached step by step, his boots pounding on the steel plates in a deadly rhythm. 'You can't save anyone. Your noble bloodline is useless except for bringing you pain.'
'Shut... up...' Aaryan clutched his forehead, kneeling on the ground.
The protagonist group found themselves in their most dire situation yet. They had initially thought that their familiarity with the terrain and Pau's cleverness would buy them time. However, in the face of the Holy Blood Council's absolute violence and the unreasonable pull of bloodlines, all their plans seemed utterly ridiculous.
'Chief Judge Casso, the fortress's main cannon has locked onto the entire silo area,' came the cold report through the communicator.
'Very good.' Casso stopped and grinned maliciously as he raised his decapitation blade. 'Before the main cannon flattens this place, I'll personally cut off your head and offer it to Lord Malakor.'
The clouds in the sky parted to reveal a dark purple energy vortex, five metres in diameter, which was rapidly converging — the 'Great Judgement' beam, capable of destroying a city block.
'Pau... Cyrus...' Aaryan's voice was weak. Looking at the carnage of his companions, the fire within him, suppressed to the extreme, underwent a qualitative change.
He felt the golden seed in his dantian throbbing wildly. It was angry; it was howling; it was yearning to devour all the violent energy around it.
"If what you want is a monster..." Aaryan lowered his head, his long hair obscuring his eyes. A wisp of purple smoke seeped from between his fingers. 'Then I will give you a monster.'
Just three seconds before the 'Heavenly Punishment' fortress's main cannon struck, the aetheric fluctuations surrounding Aaryan froze eerily.
It was the stillness before the storm.
'Boom!'
The purple light of the Heavenly Punishment-class main cannon finally descended, forming a pillar of light that pierced the heavens and engulfed the entire industrial shaft area in an intense glow. The intense heat vaporised the rain within a radius of a hundred metres, forming a spectacular white shockwave cloud.
Kaso stood on the hovering platform at the edge of the explosion, the strong wind ruffling his cloak. He watched the churning sea of fire below with cold eyes. In his view, no life could survive such intense etheric bombardment, not even the legendary descendant of royalty.
'It's over.' Kaso turned and ordered into the communicator, 'Collect all wreckage. The Holy Blood Council will not accept any possible survivors.'
However, the instant he turned, the entire sea of fire suddenly and strangely contracted.
It was not extinguished, but rather sucked into a single point by an extremely terrifying gravitational force.
'What?' Kaso whirled back. His prosthetic eye overheated instantly and emitted a piercing alarm. 'Warning! Extremely high concentration of etheric collapse detected. Energy level unassessable!"
In the centre of the inferno, a figure slowly rose.
It was Aaryan, but the holy, glorious golden light that usually emanated from him had been replaced by a chaotic colour mixture of dark purple and ash. The steel plates beneath his feet had long since melted into crimson liquid, which, with his breath, flowed upwards like subjects obeying a monarch to form a huge, blurry summoned phantom behind him.
This was the result of the fusion of a forbidden royal technique and the millions of vengeful spirits of the Maya District — the Ash Kingship.
'Kaso,' said Aaryan, his voice heavy with overlapping syllables as if millions were cursing him simultaneously. 'You just said this bloodline is utterly useless?'
'You're still alive?!' Kaso was utterly horrified. He had never seen anyone survive the direct impact of the Heavenly Punishment Main Cannon. Its power made the intricate components within his body tremble with fear.
'Fear is spreading.' At that moment, inside the 'Heavenly Punishment'-class floating fortress high above the clouds, alarms blared:
'Sir! An etheric reversal has occurred at coordinates 772!'
'The main cannon's charging module is collapsing!'
'That target below is forcibly seizing control of the fortress!' The usually aloof Holy Blood Priests were horrified to discover that their prized technology was no match for the boy radiating a dim, grey light.
'Die!' Kaso couldn't bear the oppressive feeling of dimensional defeat. He frantically activated all his power sources and the decapitation blade tore through space with a deafening roar. He lunged at Aaryan.
Aaryan didn't even look up, but slowly raised his right hand and flicked his fingertips lightly.
'Clang—!'
The decapitation blade, which was powerful enough to slice through a tank, came to a complete halt just three inches from Aaryan's fingertips. A miniature, swirling black vortex formed between them. Not even Kaso's immense force could break through this vortex.
'Too slow.'
A purple glint flashed in Aaryan's eyes and, the next second, the ashen phantom behind him suddenly unfurled wings that blotted out the sky.
'Complete eruption: The Roar of All Beings.' At that moment, Aaryan seemed to embody all the suffering in the Maya district: the workers hanging on hooks, the desperate mediums and the nameless corpses lying in the slum corners. Their anger found its only outlet in this instant.
'Boom!' An indescribable shockwave exploded outwards from Aaryan.
Kaso didn't even have time to scream. His Inquisitor's heavy armour — a pinnacle of human industrial prowess — crumbled like paper under the swirling, grey ethereal currents. His powered skeleton shattered, his bionic skin peeled away and his mechanical eyes exploded into fragments.
But this wasn't the end. Aaryan's gaze turned to the sky.
He reached out as if grasping an invisible chain of cause and effect.
'Fall.'
The 'Heavenly Punishment'-class floating fortress high above him let out a dull, tearing metallic sound. The steel behemoth, weighing tens of thousands of tonnes, was forcibly dragged down from the clouds before everyone's eyes by an invisible force.
This became the most shocking scene in the history of the Maya District: the Inquisition fortress, once a symbol of divine authority, crashed into the city's ruins like a dead bird with broken wings, trailing long plumes of black smoke and sparks.
The dust settled.
The ashen grey surrounding Aaryan gradually faded. Exhausted, he collapsed to his knees in the rain, and the illusory figure behind him vanished. Beside him, Balthazar, who had been unconscious, twitched his fingers. Some distance away, in the shadows, Pau stared wide-eyed at the miraculous destruction, the wrench slipping from his hand and falling to the ground with a crisp sound.
The situation had completely reversed, but not without cost. Aaryan looked down at his hands, where a trace of dark purple at his fingertips foreshadowed the fact that he had strayed onto an unprecedented path of the bloodline, becoming known as the 'Demon King'.
After Kaso's silver armour crumbled to scrap metal and the Inquisition's encirclement was forcibly breached, Aaryan finally discovered the 'spoils' in a secret compartment deep within the warehouse: the '1969 Zero Time-Space Core', which had been sealed away by the Holy Blood Council many years before.
It looked unremarkable, merely resembling a dark gold hydraulic metal box. However, the instant Aaryan touched the box, the flow of ether in the Maya District seemed to freeze for a moment.
'Got it... this is the key that allows us to return to that day.' Cyrus's voice trembled as he took the core, his steam-powered prosthetic eye spinning wildly as it attempted to read the raw data it contained.
Just as they were preparing to leave, however, the purplish-gold blood that had belonged to the Soul Cleansers did not seep into the rubble. Instead, it defied gravity and converged towards the core.
A nauseating stench, a mixture of rust and rotting flowers, instantly filled the air. A gigantic, blood-soaked phantom slowly took shape above the axis — a projection of Lord Malakor's will.
'Child of royalty, do you think you've stolen the key to the future?' Malakor's voice crawled like a thousand venomous insects in your ear. 'This is not just a key, but the "Crimson Pact" that I have given you. Every time you use it, you are sacrificing the souls of your people for my 'Black Mandala Array'."
Aaryan was horrified to discover strange, dark purple veins sprouting from where her palm had touched the Axis, spreading rapidly towards her heart. Once this pact was made, there was no turning back. Although they had received the prize, they had also become the most crucial 'power source' in Malakor's plan.
'How much are you willing to pay to prevent the tragedy of 1969?' Malakor's laughter faded into the torrential rain.
The distant clock tower tolled its heavy funeral bells once more. Each toll seemed to hasten the inevitable cycle of bloodshed.