Twilight in the Maya District was never poetic. It was more like a dark purple, festering wound that had not healed. On this land, which had been ravaged by heavy industry, the setting sun's rays were filtered through thick clouds, leaving only a viscous, suffocating shade of dark red. Massive exhaust pipes, like the fangs of a monstrous beast, spewed black smoke mixed with metal fragments into the sky from the factory.
This smoke intertwined with the ethereal clouds high above and transformed into corrosive acid rain. 'Drip,' a drop of murky rain struck the edge of Aaryan's tattered cloak, instantly burning a small charred hole. He tightened his grip on the heavy basket on his back, which was filled with discarded magic stones that he had recently salvaged from the ruins of the 'Ironjaw Factory'. Though their spiritual energy was depleted, they still emitted a pungent, sulphurous odour.
As the last remaining member of the royal family of the Celestial Bloodline, Aaryan was forced to suppress his golden wings, which were large enough to obscure half a hall, beneath the skin on his back. This forced suppression of his bloodline power caused a pricking pain in every bone in his body. Even more terrifying was the heavy 'Suppression Bracelet' on his right wrist, a mark issued by the Holy Blood Council of the Maya District to all lower-ranking 'lowly demon races'. He was surrounded by the labyrinthine steel structure of the Ironjaw Factory, its massive pistons pounding with deafening roars. The ground trembled constantly and the rickety, stilted factory buildings appeared ready to collapse at any moment. The air was thick with the smell of cheap magical fuel, and inhaling even a single breath sent a burning sensation through his lungs.
The gears inside the bracelet were constantly meshing with his flesh. Whenever the royal ether within him became active, even slightly, the bracelet would instantly heat up through a miniature steam furnace. 'Hiss...' The burning sensation quickly spread from his wrist to the rest of his body. Gritting his teeth, Aaryan staggered along the muddy industrial path, his skin scalded red by the intense heat. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. But he couldn't stop; stopping here meant death.
'Hey! You bastard, hurry up!'
A man, seemingly a foreman, stood on the steam platform. He was wearing an elegant magical leather suit and was wielding a long whip crackling with electricity. He was a lackey of the Holy Blood Council's 'Inquisition'. They enjoyed flaunting their racial superiority by humiliating demons who had 'lost their usefulness'.
Aaryan lowered his head, a fleeting glint of purple-gold light flashing in his deep eyes: the fury of the oppressed and the primal dignity of his royal lineage. But he held back, remembering Dahlia's words: 'If you become the monster they call you, then we've truly lost.' He dragged his heavy steps as he dumped a basket of magic stones — enough to crush an ordinary human's spine — into the abyss-like 'Soul Furnace'. Deep within the furnace, an eerie purple light shimmered: the fragments of souls extracted through black magic. These souls had originally belonged to demons or the poorest of the poor. These souls served as cheap fuel, sustaining the extravagant lifestyle of the city's upper class.
The acid rain intensified, blurring Aaryan's vision. Against the bleak backdrop of the setting sun, he resembled a plucked eagle, clinging precariously to life in this 'steel graveyard', the searing bracelet on his wrist serving as a perpetual reminder that hatred was the sole fuel sustaining this world, and that he was the spark poised to be cast into the flames. In the Maya district, breathing was a luxury; the air was a mixture of rust and mildew, a fusion of tropical humidity and industrial fumes. Aaryan felt sweat trickle down his spine, soaking the shroud he wore to hide his golden, tattered wings.
Rainwater splattered in the factory's puddles, creating eerie, iridescent sheens.
Every 30 seconds, massive steam vents emitted a deafening, beast-like roar. Hundreds of metres above, magnificent steam trains sped by on the floating tracks leading to the 'Upper City', spraying muddy water that landed precisely on the heads of the labourers.
He looked down at his calloused palms, worn from years of hard physical labour. Who would have thought that these hands had once wielded pure ethereal fire? Now, they could only rummage through abandoned magestone piles, searching for the slightest remnant of psionic energy — enough to buy half a loaf of black bread.
He had to endure; before the singularity of '1969' arrived, he had to survive like humble moss in the cracks of this steel structure.
The heat was viscous, almost tangible and humid.
Aaryan wiped the rain from his face, his fingertips touching a muddy mixture of heavy oil and acidic dust. In the Maya district, rain never brought relief; it merely pressed the day's accumulated industrial fumes firmly to the ground, turning the entire 'Iron Jaw Factory' into a giant, airtight steamer.
'Clang!'
Behind him, the massive hydraulic conveyor belt groaned with fatigue, its countless brass gears and rusty connecting rods creaking under the strain. Scalding steam spewed from every pipe joint, seeping into Aaryan's tattered clothes as though a thousand needles were piercing his pores. The suppression bracelet on his right wrist vibrated violently again — this instrument of torture, crafted from high-purity obsidian and a miniature etheric core, was detecting changes in his heartbeat with great sensitivity.
"Calm down, Aaryan. If you let the etheric spiral out of control now, the surveillance towers within a ten-kilometre radius will pick up the royal family's frequency.'
A cold voice deep within him warned him; it was a lesson etched into his consciousness by his teacher when he was crown prince.
However, the scene before him pushed his self-control to the brink of collapse: not far away, a demonic youth, waist-high, knelt in the mud. His back was twisted into an eerie arc from the exertion, and the demonic stone on his shoulder — a 'fission stone' containing extremely unstable energy — was hissing with green smoke.
"Hurry up, you vermin!" A patrolling Celestial Vein overseer stepped forward, his gleaming leather boots stomping directly on the youth's fingers.
The electromagnetic whip in the overseer's hand flickered slightly — a technology unique to the Maya District that is capable of compressing ethereal energy into conductive fibres. With each swing, the whip tore flesh and directly disrupted the victim's central nervous system, causing excruciating pain akin to being gnawed by a thousand ants. Aaryan's gaze locked onto the overseer. In his vision, the world took on a different form: the factory was no longer made of steel, but was instead a confluence of countless chaotic energy flows. He could hear the liquid flowing through the copper pipes at a frequency of 440 vibrations per second — a mechanism designed to maintain the stability of the factory's core cooling system.
If he were to twitch a finger, he could use the 'gravitational intervention' of his royal bloodline to rupture the high-pressure pipe instantly, turning the arrogant overseer into a pool of blood with scalding coolant.
But he could only clench his fists, his nails digging deep into the thick calluses on his palms.
"Hey, what are you looking at? You, labourer number 9527, want a whipping?" The overseer noticed Aaryan's piercing gaze, turned around and wore a mocking expression.
Aaryan quickly lowered his head, concealing the holy glint of purple-gold in his eyes, and bent down to pick up a fallen nut, adopting a servile posture.
'Excuse me, sir. I was just checking the integrity of the part.'
His voice was hoarse and deep, bearing the marks of life stained by soot, sounding no different to that of any other labourer waiting to die in the slums. No one would associate him with the legendary King of the Celestial Veins, who could command the stars. The overseer snorted coldly, kicked the boy to the ground and walked towards the steam elevator, cursing.
As the elevator slowly rose with a mechanical 'click-clack' sound, the heavy, oppressive feeling eased slightly. Aaryan walked over to the boy and helped him up with his scarred hands.
The boy's eyes had lost their lustre, leaving only a lifeless grey haze — an early symptom of 'Ether Disease'. His soul had been drained and squeezed dry by the factory's years of energy extraction and would eventually crystallise because his body could no longer sustain bioenergy.
'Here,' Aaryan quietly said, pulling a piece of dry, hard black bread from his pocket and stuffing it into the boy's tattered pocket.
The boy hesitated, opening his mouth mechanically, but no sound came out. He simply cowered and hid in the shadows. Above the Maya district, the end-of-shift whistle finally sounded, its mournful sound like a funeral horn.
Aaryan walked out of the factory gates, the huge 'Iron Jaw' sign behind him flashing neon lights in the acid rain. On the street, countless figures like him walked silently. In this sophisticated machine called 'Maya', they were merely consumables: filters and disposable gaskets.
He looked up at the colossal steam tower piercing the clouds in the city centre. Above it, the Celestial Vein Council nobles drank expensive ethereal wine and admired the artificial starry sky. In this ruined world of sweltering heat and frigid cold, he had to find a way to take revenge.
'1969...' he murmured, reciting the coordinates that had appeared countless times in his dreams.
That would be the end of all suffering and the funeral rites for this corrupt order.
End of Chapter One. The gears of this land have begun to turn in reverse.
Aaryan waded through a maze of rusty pipes intersecting like ribs into the depths of the tenement building in the slum. The air was so thick that it felt as though you could wring black grease from it. With each step, the metal grilles beneath his feet creaked under his weight.
He returned to his tiny cubicle, which was less than five square metres in size, and bolted the heavy lead door shut.
Only then did he dare to let out a long-suppressed groan. Trembling, he pulled back the shroud from his back. His unbound purple-gold blood surged instantly. Just as he was about to channel his meagre spiritual energy to ease the burning sensation on his wrists, he froze.
On his dilapidated wooden bed, a bundle had appeared out of nowhere.
It wasn't an ordinary bundle of coarse cloth, but a long, rectangular object wrapped in extremely luxurious 'etheric silk', a material unique to the Upper City. In this dirty, damp, rust-smelling slum, it stood out starkly and carried with it a deadly provocation.
Aaryan's breath caught in his throat. His senses spread out like a spider's web, but he could sense no life around him.
Holding his breath, he gently lifted a corner of the silk with his fingertips.
What he saw underneath was not gold or a weapon, but a broken wing skeleton, still stained with warm blood.
It was the skeleton of a member of the royal family of the Celestial Vein.
His pupils shrank even more when he saw the line of words scrawled crookedly in charcoal on the skeleton; the characters were as sharp as knives.
'Your Highness, how long can you hide these wings?'
Outside the window, a bolt of lightning ripped through the dark purple sky, illuminating Aaryan's pale face. In the shadow of the pile of discarded parts, the ancient wind-up mechanism that he had only partially repaired suddenly turned without warning.
'Click.'
The faint sound of gears meshing echoed through the deathly silent room like the start of a countdown.