PROLOGUE
"When the four lost corners of life reunite, the sky bleeds red.
The cries of the masses rise like a broken prayer, echoing through worlds that were never meant to hear them.
In that moment—when suffering becomes a harmony and despair takes shape that which does not exist will find you.
And from beyond the collapsing veil, a single promise answers the chaos:
You will find your purpose."
A man woke to screaming men and burning air.
It wasn't the heat of nature—this was a battlefield. Scorched earth crumbled beneath him, split open by energy fire.
A tower collapsed in the distance.
Then another. Lasers screamed past in every direction, carving men apart mid-run, turning bodies into drifting ash.
They were losing no they were getting massacred.
Soldiers fell in waves, torn apart by something invisible. Armor crumpled inward as if grasped by giant, unseen hands. Men rose screaming into empty air, their spines snapping like dry kindling.
There was no enemy to shoot. Only death to endure.
He ran through the sea of corpse.
He didn't know where. He only knew that stopping meant joining the mountain of corpses rising behind him—broken bodies stacked so high they blocked the horizon. Blood soaked the ground, warm and slick beneath his feet.
A hand suddenly seized him.
Before he could scream, an old man yanked him hard into the shadow of a shattered wall.
"Quiet," the man hissed, eyes wild, scanning the air itself as if the vacuum were alive.
The runner opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His mind was frozen, locked between terror and disbelief.
"How did they find us?" he finally forced out, his voice a mere breath. "We can't even see them."
The old man swallowed hard. "Listen to me, Vaylen. We cannot defeat them. Our world is already lost." He looked around again, frantic—terrified not of soldiers, but of being noticed. "But theirs…" the man continued, his voice dropping to something almost reverent, "…you can save their world. Give them a fighting chance. Don't let them take that place, too."
Before Vaylen could respond, the old man pressed a device against his chest.
Pain exploded.
Something entered him, burrowing deep—into his heart, into his spine, into places that had no names. Symbols burned behind his eyes. Knowledge not meant for a human mind unfolded violently.
As he suddenly came back to his sense. "What about you?" Vaylen gasped.
The old man smiled sadly. He never finished his answer.
Something grabbed him.
The old man was lifted off the ground, his body arching unnaturally. Blood poured from his eyes as an invisible force crushed his neck with a sickening snap.
For a single heartbeat, Vaylen saw it.
A hand. Too many joints. Too many angles. A limb that barely existed in this reality.
Then, it reached for him.
Vaylen was ripped upward. Agony tore through his skull as something invaded his thoughts, peeling memories apart, probing, learning. The world screamed inside his head.
Before the connection could finish—Vaylen activated the device.
Reality folded. Space screamed.
He was hurled through darkness, through biting cold, through dimensions where time fractured and light bent the wrong way.
Then—silence.
Vaylen woke gasping.
Grass beneath his hands. Cold wind against bare skin. He was naked.
He pushed himself up slowly and froze. In the distance, above a vast marshland shrouded in mist, a floating city hung in the air—silent, impossible, untouched by war. Beyond it, a colossal mountain pierced the clouds, its peak vanishing into the heavens like a wound in the sky.
Deep inside Vaylen's chest, something stirred, as he passes out in the field.
CURRENT TIMELINE
He woke again, but the dream was gone.
Now, he was in a claustrophobic space—a tavern-like room choked with steampunk machinery. The never-ending, rhythmic hiss of rusting steam pipes echoed from every wall.
A young girl hurried to his side. "Wake up, Aedan." The name felt wrong. Distant. Like it belonged to someone else. "Miss Bridget told you to take today's food supply to the shop." He seems to have forgotten everything.
Aedan looked out the window. The view was a suffocating maze of homes built practically on top of each other, the streets a sea of people packed together.
"Lilith," Aedan said, his voice raspy. "Why is this place becoming so crowded lately?"
Lilith shrugged. "Well, this is where they throw orphan like us and everyone who can't pay the Church of the Enlighted for protection against the marshland. Now get down there before she gets mad."
As Aedan stood up, the imbalance hit him immediately. He was missing a leg.
"Is your foot okay?" Lilith asked, her eyes trailing to the stump.
"Yeah," Aedan muttered. "Would be nice if I still had it."
"It was infected by a marsh insect," Lilith reminded him. "They had to cut it out or you will be poisoned."
She spoke calmly as she began fitting a mechanical support tool to his leg, the metal cold against his skin. Aedan said nothing. He simply patted her on the head and made his way downstairs.
Below, the tavern was a roar of chaos. Bridget, a woman in her mid-fifties, was struggling to keep the overcrowded masses fed, but it was a losing battle. The few steam-powered robots in the shop hummed and whirred, but they could only do so little to help.
Bridget spotted Aedan and yelled over the din. "Get down here and help me!"
She led him toward the back of the store, her voice rising in frustration. "I took you in because you looked helpful with all that muscle and height, but all you do is sleep around! You haven't done a damn thing!"
She stopped suddenly before a religious icon covered in yellow veil, her eyes softening with desperate fervor. "Praise Oghma the Enlighted," she whispered. "Please lend us your knowledge and protect us from the horror of the marsh."
Aedan looked away, entirely uninterested in her prayers. His gaze wandered toward the window where a massive golden building dominated the skyline. It was the Church—a structure so radiant that the reflected light almost blinded him.
"For which I am grateful," Aedan replied, looking back at her. "But I don't remember anything. In the three months I've been here, I haven't found a single thing about why I'm here or where I came from."
Bridget stopped and looked at him hard.
"I know who you are," she snapped. "A madman who was found lying naked in the marshland—a place no one dares to go. It was pure luck the soldiers on the expedition found you. They even planned on executing you, but I took you in to take care of you. That is your life now. Just stop thinking too hard and get the supplies. I have a lot of mouths to feed."
As she sent him away, an old man sitting on the street side, nursing a drink, looked up at her. "Why are you so harsh on the boy, Bridget? He does his work, even with that leg of his."
Bridget sighed, her shoulders dropping for a brief second. "Yeah, he's a good person. But being 'good' won't ensure his survival in these slums. You know we're running out of food and supplies. The Church of Wisdom is trying to get rid of us as fast as they can."
She looked toward the golden spires in the distance, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and dread. "Who knows how long it'll be before they throw us all into the marsh just so the royals can keep living in luxury? They need the space, and they don't need us."
The old man chuckled darkly, rattling the ice in his glass. "Then why pray to the God of Wisdom at all, if you're so scared of his shadow?"
Bridget's face tightened. "I'm not scared. I'm just—"
The words died in her throat. She stuttered, unable to find the logic to defend her own faith. "I just... I need to have faith in something," she snapped, pointing a finger at him to hide her shaking hands. "Now stop annoying me and go sleep somewhere else!"
As Aedan walked through the sweltering, crowded market, the mechanical support tool Lilith had fitted to his leg hummed with a low, rhythmic vibration. It stabilized his gait perfectly; he didn't limp or stagger. To a casual observer, he walked with the steady, purposeful stride of a man with two good legs.
But the crowd knew better.
The air around him grew cold as he passed, the chatter of the slums turning into jagged whispers.
"Look at him," a man muttered, pulling his cloak tighter. "He's from the marsh. That cursed place below."
"Do you think he's infected?" a woman whispered back, her eyes wide with fear.
"Worse. He's definitely a spy working for the Fallen," another hissed. "We should kill him before he brings the whole hive down on us."
Aedan felt their eyes—hundreds of them—prickling against his skin like needles. He saw a mother yank her child back into the shadows of a doorway, shielding the girl's eyes. "Don't go near him," she warned. "You'll catch the curse just by looking at him."
There was no reaction on Aedan's face. No flicker of anger, no slumped shoulders of shame. His expression remained as cold and unyielding as the iron pipes lining the alleyways. He had heard it all before, every day for three months. To them, he was a monster from the mist. To him, they were just noise in a world that was already screaming.
The supply store was a chaotic hive, even more suffocating than the tavern. People were bartering their last desperate possessions—rusted scrap, family heirlooms, stained clothing—just for a few moldy crumbs of food.
Aedan pushed through the desperate mass toward the counter. The shop owner, frantic and sweat-stained, barked at him the moment he saw his face. "What took you so long? This place is a madhouse! I've been breaking my back trying to stop the crowd from looting your supplies!" He told his daughter to take care of the counter.
"Sorry," Aedan said flatly. "The streets were thick today."
"Tell me about it," the owner hissed, sliding a heavy crate across the scarred wood. "Supplies are drying up. The Church isn't providing enough grain, and yet they still demand their tribute. It's a goddamn nightmare. Just tell Bridget to pay for the supplies a bit quicker next time."
As he handed the rations to Aedan, the frantic roar of the market suddenly died. A heavy, rhythmic clanking filled the silence.
Soldiers in golden steampunk armor marched in, their steam-valves hissing with every step. They carried massive, over-engineered rifles, led by a commander with hair as pale as bone and a face mapped with jagged scars.
The crowd dropped. One by one, the starving masses bowed their heads to the "Knights of Enlightenment."
"This month's tribute," the commander demanded, his voice like grinding stones.
The shopkeeper's hands shook as he offered a small pouch of coin. The commander counted it, his brow furrowing. "It's light."
"Sire, please," the shopkeeper stammered, his voice cracking. "People have nothing left to give. We're starving. We're running out of—"
The knight remained unbothered. "That is the price of Oghma's light. It's this, or the marsh. Anything can happen down there." He leaned in, pointing to the twisted scar tissue on his cheek. "This is what the hell below does to a man. You pay for the walls that keep you safe."
The commander's gaze drifted, scanning the room until it landed on the shopkeeper's daughter—a girl in her twenties trembling behind the counter.
The shopkeeper froze. He saw the look in the knight's eyes and tried to jump back into the conversation. "I—I have more scrap in the back! Just give me a few days, I can make up the difference, please, look at me—"
It was fruitless. The commander already made up his mind he signaled his guards.
"Stop! Please!" the shopkeeper begged, throwing himself forward. "I just found a man for her to marry! She's spoken for!"
"Even better," the commander smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "She'll be sold to the royals. Wife... or worse. Think of it as a win-win. Your tribute is paid, you don't die, and your daughter lives in luxury. At least until they get bored and throw her back onto the street."
the guards let out a cruel, metallic smile through their helmets.
The shopkeeper's spirit broke. He looked at the floor, tears splashing onto the dusty wood. "Please," he whispered, "don't hurt her too much."
"That's not up to me," the commander replied, waving his hand.
The guards snatched the girl. Her mother and two younger sisters wailed, their screams echoing off the cold iron walls of the shop.
"Pay the full tribute next time," the guard warned, looking at the two younger children. "Or they will be next in line."
They marched out, the girl's cries fading into the rhythmic hiss of their armor. The shopkeeper stood paralyzed, his family shattered in a single afternoon.
Aedan watched it all. He didn't say a word. There was no flicker of soul in his eyes, no heroic urge to intervene. He remained unbothered, a ghost in a machine. Even if the people of the slums hated him, they were just as trapped as he was. To stand up was to be cast into the marsh.
Aedan turned away, the heavy supply crate balanced against his hip. He walked to the edge of the district, where the slums met the open air.
The sun was setting against a distant, towering mountain, casting long, bloody shadows across the clouds. The wide horizon revealed the truth of their world: Murias, the floating city, the last refuge of humanity, hovering hopelessly above the world.
Aedan looked down at the dark, swirling mist of the marshland far below.
"Maybe down there," he muttered to the wind, "is better than being stuck in this."
Aedan dropped the heavy crate of supplies in the backroom. His gaze fell on a small, framed portrait of Oghma the Enlightened. Without a word, he swept his hand across the table, knocking the icon into the trash before entering the main tavern.
The roar of the crowd had died down. The streets were empty as the sun vanished, replaced by a sudden, heavy downpour and the low rumble of thunder. Bridget was alone, stooped over as she scrubbed the trashed floor.
She looked up at Aedan and let out a long, weary sigh. "Oh, you're safe. I heard what happened at the shop... poor man. His daughter was a sweet girl."
Aedan paused, struck by the flat, hollow tone of her voice. Her lack of empathy for the girl's fate felt colder than the rain outside. "The God you pray to every day... his followers do things like that," Aedan said, his voice low. "You still believe in him after seeing that?"
Bridget stopped scrubbing and looked at him with a tired smile. "I know, Aedan. But what else is there to do? The 'Chosen' ones survive, and the rest of us... we just have to hope there's salvation waiting somewhere. What else can you believe in? Tell me."
Aedan stared at her, silenced by how deeply her faith had blinded her. Before he could press her further, the door creaked open.
A figure in a heavy, sodden cloak stood in the entrance. Outside, a flash of lightning illuminated the sheets of rain.
"Sorry, honey, we're closed for the night," Bridget called out, not looking up. "Come back tomorrow."
"I am tired," a woman's voice came from beneath the hood. "I just need a drink. I will leave soon."
She reached into her cloak and placed a gold coin on the bar. The metal caught the dim light, glowing with a luster that didn't belong in the slums. Here, people traded in rusted scrap and bone; gold was a ghost story.
Bridget's eyes widened. She couldn't refuse an offer like that. She nudged Aedan. "Go on, pour her a drink. Hurry up."
Aedan moved behind the bar, his mechanical leg silent on the wooden floor. The woman watched him, her eyes sharp even beneath the shadow of her hood.
"A bartender, huh?" she asked, her voice carrying a rhythmic weight. "Perhaps you did something else before landing here?"
Aedan didn't look up as he reached for a glass. "No, ma'am. Just this. Been doing it since I was a kid."
It was a flat, practiced lie, told to bury the ghosts of the screaming metal and burning air that still haunted his dreams. He didn't need the attention of an outsider.
Bridget stepped in quickly, her voice protective. "That's right. I took him in from the streets. He's just another orphan of the slums."
The woman tilted her head, her gaze lingering on the breadth of Aedan's shoulders and the way he carried himself. "He looks more like he served in an army," she muttered to herself, though the words were loud enough for them both to hear.
Aedan ignored her and poured the drink. As he slid the glass across the scarred wood, his fingers brushed against hers for a fraction of a second.
The woman recoiled instantly. Her hand snapped back as if she'd touched a live wire, and the glass nearly tipped over.
Aedan froze, staring at his own hand in confusion. A strange, humming warmth radiated from his palm, vibrating in sync with the pulse in his chest.
Bridget jumped, startled by the sudden movement. "Are you okay, mam?"
The woman in the cloak remained still for a long moment, her breath hitching beneath the veil. She clutched her hand to her chest, her fingers trembling slightly.
"It's nothing," she whispered, her voice tight. "Just... the robot. I think the machine gave me a shock."
She reached out with her other hand, slowly taking the drink. She didn't look at Bridget. Instead, she looked up, her eyes still hidden in the deep shadow of her hood. Aedan could feel her gaze boring into him—searching, analyzing, and realizing that the spark hadn't come from a machine at all.
Outside, the thunder cracked directly overhead, shaking the very foundations of the tavern. The three months of silence were over.
Before the cloaked woman could press him any further, the tavern door slammed open.
Women stood there, drenched and trembling, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "The Knights... they got her!"
Aedan's face went stone-cold. Bridget collapsed to the floor, the color draining from her skin. She knew the truth—if the Knights took a girl into the night, it was a death sentence.
The cloaked woman stood up slowly, her voice dripping with venom. "Those bastards... even in the dead of night, they never change." She turned to say something more to Aedan, but she froze.
The space behind the bar was empty.
"Where is he?" she asked, looking at Bridget.
Bridget snapped out of her trance, looking around the room in a panic. Aedan was gone.
Outside, Aedan was a blur through the torrential rain. He didn't limp; the mechanical leg hissed as he pushed it to its limit, tearing through the muddy streets. He knew exactly where they would take her. He knew what "luxury" meant to the Royals.
He found them under a sprawling, rusted shed attached to a large house. Inside, the pale, scarred commander stood surrounded by twenty or thirty Knights, their golden armor gleaming dully in the low light.
In the center of the room, Lilith lay huddled on the floor, her clothes half-torn, her eyes wide with terror.
Aedan stepped into the light.
The commander looked up, his scarred face twisting into a sneer. "What are you doing here? Don't you know this is a private residence?"
Aedan stared at him, his voice like grinding metal. "I came for the girl."
The commander tilted his head. "And who are you to her?"
Aedan hesitated for only a heartbeat. "I'm her brother."
Lilith let out a sob, the word "brother" hitting her like a lifeline. She knew no one else was coming.
"Oh? A disabled brother?" The commander chuckled, gesturing to Aedan's mechanical leg. "It doesn't matter. Leave now. Come back in the morning—she'll still be here. Our boys are tired, after all."
Aedan didn't listen. He walked past the commander, knelt beside Lilith, and draped his jacket over her torn dress. He pulled her up, shielding her with his body, and turned to walk out.
The commander's smile vanished. His face flushed a deep, angry red. "You've got some nerve, cripple."
He barked an order to the Knight nearest the door. "Beat some sense into him. Break the other leg while you're at it."
A Knight lunged forward, slamming the butt of his steam-rifle into Aedan's chest. The force threw him into the mud. Before he could gasp, the soldier was on him, raining down blows with the heavy weapon.
Lilith wailed, throwing herself toward them, but another guard shoved her back, pinning her near the Commander's boots.
The soldier stopped the beating, his breath wheezing through his helmet. He dropped his rifle beside Aedan's head and reached down, wrapping armored fingers around Aedan's throat. As the air was choked out of him, Aedan's vision fractured.
Images flooded his mind: A creature with a thousand eyes, vast enough to blot out the sun. The ringing in his ears rose to a deafening shriek.
"It's treason to disobey a Knight, isn't it?" the Commander whispered, tilting Lilith's tear-stained face toward the violence. "Your brother committed a grave sin. He has to pay. It's not our fault."
BANG.
The gunshot cracked through the rain.
"Ah," the Commander smirked. "It's done. Now, let's see the cripple's body."
They both turned, but what they saw froze the blood in their veins.
Aedan stood there, his face a mask of red and grime. He held the steam-rifle with a steady, practiced grip. At his feet, the Knight lay dead in the mud. No one in the slums—no one in Murias—had killed a Knight of Oghma in a generation.
Time seemed to dilate. The Commander's face contorted, his voice cracking as he screamed, "KILL HIM! SHOOT HIM DOWN!"
The Knights scrambled to raise their heavy rifles, but they moved like they were trapped in amber. Aedan moved with a precision that was alien to this world. He fired. Crack. Crack. Crack. Each shot found the narrowest gap in their golden armor. Knights were gunned down left and right before they could even find their triggers.
When the rifle clicked empty, a surviving soldier lunged, tackling Aedan out of the shed and into the pouring rain. They tumbled through the mud until the remaining guards surrounded him, their barrels leveled at his head.
"Hands up!" the soldier spat. "You lowly dog... you dared touch a Knight of God?"
Aedan raised his hands slowly. The soldier reached for the side-arm at his hip to finish the job, but his hand hit an empty holster. He looked at Aedan's hand.
The handgun was already there.
Without a flicker of remorse, Aedan opened fire. He dove into the shadows of the machinery, reloading with mechanical speed. His face, caked in blood and filth, showed nothing but the cold, hard instinct of survival.
Inside the room, the Commander huddled in the corner, his legs shaking so violently he could barely stand. He turned to Lilith, his voice a frantic hiss. "He's not your brother! Don't lie to me! No one in the slums can shoot like that! Who is he? What is he?!"
Lilith said nothing. She stared at the door, paralyzed. She had lived with this man for three months and had never seen the monster hiding behind his quiet eyes.
The gunfire stopped. Silence reclaimed the shed, broken only by the steady drum of rain.
"Is he dead?" the Commander yelled. "Answer me!"
No one replied.
He heard a soft sound behind him. He spun around to see Aedan, drenched in gore, calmly draping a dry cloth over Lilith's shoulders.
"Are you warm now?" Aedan asked softly.
Lilith nodded, her breath hitching.
Aedan's gaze shifted to the Commander. In one motion, he seized the man by the collar and hurled him out of the room, into the mud where his men lay rotting.
The Commander scrambled to run, but a single shot through the leg brought him screaming to his knees. He crawled through the filth as the rhythmic clack-hiss of the mechanical leg approached him.
"Do you know who I am?" the Commander moaned, clutching his shattered limb. "I heard rumours that there is an outsider from the marshland who lives in the slum I thought it was fake news. Who are you?" He yelled in agony "Maybe you're a spy... from Gorias." He swallowed hard. "Listen to me I am a member of the O'Niel family! If you kill me, they will torch this entire district! There is still time... you can—"
Aedan didn't let him finish. He pressed the barrel to the Commander's forehead and pulled the trigger.
The body slumped into the mud, the blood washing away in the rain.
Aedan stood over the carnage, his chest heaving. The adrenaline that had sustained him began to ebb, replaced by a crushing weight. His vision blurred, the world tilting as he finally collapsed beside the men he had slain.
In the distance, shouts echoed through the foggy streets.
"Where did the shots come from?"
"Check the buildings!"
"Find Commander O'Niel!"
In the distance, the cloaked woman watched everything unfold. She smiled." So you're the one he talked about."