"When gods fall, they do not scream.They burn — silently, beautifully —so we mistake ruin for revelation."— Fragment from the Veltheran Book of Echoes, Page 327
Part I: The Prologue
The war had ended, but the battlefield still breathed.
It heaved in silence—underneath the thick violet sky, beneath the broken backs of mechs and the shrapnel-laced skeletons of divine relics. The land stank of ozone and flesh. Twin silver moons hung low in the south like sorrowful eyes, while a third—round, golden, and ancient—glared overhead like a god who had already turned away.
At the center of the carnage, a warrior knelt.
Commander Haref's great blade was buried in the soil before him like a gravestone, and he leaned on it like a dying prophet—body broken, breath shallow, blood dribbling from the side of his mouth. His armor, forged in the vaults of Kairon and etched with runes once blessed by a now-dead god, hung from him in pieces. His crimson cape, torn and dusted with ash, fluttered faintly in the evening breeze.
He stared at nothing. Or perhaps, he stared at everything he had buried in that field: comrades, enemies, pieces of himself.
"I was born to die a thousand deaths," he thought. "But only one could free me."
His fingers curled, trembling. The cursed markings that wound around his gauntlet pulsed softly, as if remembering their purpose.
Then—footsteps. Delicate. Reluctant.
Soft crunches against brittle soil.
He did not lift his head. He did not need to.
He had always known it would be him.
A shadow moved through the haze, slow and sorrowful. White ceremonial robes stained with blood. Platinum hair catching the faint glow of dying relics. A sword in hand, humming low like a hymn.
Haref exhaled.
"You finally came," he rasped.
The boy—no, the young man—stood before him now. The years had carved resolve into his face, but not cruelty. His green eyes trembled with the weight of what must be done. A single line of blood crossed his left cheek, stark against his pallid skin.
He raised the sword.
"I told you I'd kill you one day."
The voice was soft, but it carried.
Haref smiled, weakly. "It's alright. I have no regrets now."
There was a moment—a pause in all things.
Even the moons seemed to hold their breath.
Then—
STAB.
The blade pierced through relic-wrought armor, cleaving runes, slicing past bone. It drove through his chest, splitting metal like scripture.
His body jerked. His breath caught.
But he made no sound.
Part II: The Beginning
The Veltheran countryside stretched out beneath the fog like a painting only half-finished — all delicate strokes of silver mist, moss-veiled ruins, and distant spires poking through treetops like candlewicks in a shrine.
Somewhere deep within that forest: a monastery. Ornate. Untouched. Quiet.
Holy.
Except it wasn't.
Inside a military command tent, the air was tense and artificially lit by the flicker of a projected Etherion map. A glowing topography floated above the war table, showing the hill ranges, tunnel routes, and the isolated monastery compound blinking in crimson.
Commander Haref stood at its edge, silent, arms folded behind his back.
He had not spoken in twenty-three minutes.
Officers waited. Fidgeted.
Then a soldier entered — stiff, armored, eyes wide with urgency.
"Confirmation, sir. The monastery is a front. Surveillance found embedded sensors in the prayer towers. The confessional floors open into tunnels."
Another officer leaned in. "Shall we prepare for siege?"
Haref: (quietly) "No. We enter."
A murmur of concern.
Radvian — ever the political one — scowled from the corner.
"A holy site, Commander. We risk provoking international inquiry—"
"We risk nothing," Haref cut him off. "The Veltherans are already building ghosts. This is not a monastery. It is a nest."
He turned to the hologram and tapped a glyph. The layout of the church interior bloomed into view. Spires. Ritual hall. Undercroft.
"There's something beneath it," he murmured. "Divine-tech or worse."
Hours Later...
A dropship, rune-carved and silent, descended through the evening mist like a blade piercing cloth. Within its metallic shell, soldiers sat motionless. Kaironian relic rifles rested across armored thighs. Some whispered oaths. Others just stared ahead.
Haref stood by the exit ramp, helmet off, eyes narrowed at the silhouette of the monastery below.
Stone spires. Gold archways. And hidden beneath them — lies.
Behind him, Captain Dareth checked his gear, speaking low.
"Why would they cloak a relic site as a place of prayer?"
Haref: "Because the only thing more powerful than war…" (he slid on his gauntlet) "…is worship."
He turned to the men.
"We breach in five. No chants. No survivors."
The monastery sat nestled in a grove of white-barked trees, cloaked in early mist like a bride at the altar. Its spires reached upward not with arrogance, but deception — clean lines, prayer-carved stone, gold-trimmed archways promising peace.
But beneath those hymns and silks were steel and secrets.
Commander Haref knew the scent of a lie long before it was spoken.
The Kaironian dropship landed without sound. No trumpet. No warning.
By the time the Veltheran sentries at the outer sanctum turned their heads, Haref had already stepped into the mist — his cape drawn like a banner of blood, his soul-bound sword in hand.
The first blade slid through a soldier's throat before alarm could ring. The second cut silenced the tower lookout.
"No survivors," he had said earlier.
And the men believed him.
They breached the chapel doors with a blast of pressurized etherium. Holy hymns still echoed through the halls as if unaware of the coming storm.
Inside, the first wave of Veltheran guards moved quickly—disciplined, ceremonial, but outmatched.
"Protect the Sanctum! The High Voice must not fall—!"
Their commander, clad in gold-etched plate, rushed forward with a relic-forged glaive, striking at Haref's flank.
Haref parried without grace—just force. The clash of blades rang through stained-glass silence.
The Kaironian soldiers fanned out across the nave, cutting down guards between pews. One Veltheran tried to activate a relic-pillar; Captain Dareth shot him through the skull before he could scream.
The battle was brief, brutal, holy.
By the time the dust settled, the High Priests of Velthera had locked themselves within the inner sanctum behind layered gates of relic-bonded stone.
It took Haref's gauntlet five minutes to unbind the seals — not because he lacked power, but because the runes were old. God-smith old.
When the final gate hissed open, they found them:
Four high priests kneeling around a ritual glyph, chanting in half-formed tongue. One reached for a crystal embedded in the altar.
Haref did not give him time to touch it.
His sword was merciless — an arc of final judgment.
By the end of it, the glyph was painted in blood.
Dareth: "That's all of them, sir. No transmissions got out. We burned the internal archives."
Haref: "Not all."
He stared at the wall behind the altar. There was something wrong with the air there — too still. Too symmetrical.
He stepped forward and pressed his hand against the stone.
A hidden panel hissed open.
The chamber beyond was dim. Dust hung like ash. The air was thick with incense and containment field residue.
In the far corner—huddled together in silence—were children.
No, not children. Apprentices. Robed, ritual-branded. Likely thirteen to sixteen. Five of them.
Eyes wide. Shoulders trembling. Trained not to speak unless commanded.
They had been left behind.
One boy at the front stood slightly taller. He was pale, platinum-blond, with quiet eyes that did not beg or cry. His robes were cleaner than the others. His breathing calm.
Dareth: (softly) "Orders?"
There was a long pause.
Haref stared at the blond boy for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he turned away.
Haref: "Take them in. They're not soldiers."
Dareth: "And if they become them?"
Haref: (flat) "Then we'll know who trained them."
End of Chapter One