At dawn, the acid rain in the Maya district thinned, but this did little to dispel the heavy stench of blood and acridity in the air. The rooftop of the slum had completely disappeared, replaced by a sunken crater in the glass — the mark left by the intense heat and gravitational collapse unleashed during Aaryan's awakening.
Aaryan leaned against a broken I-beam. Though his left arm had been restored to its original flesh colour, faint obsidian-like veins still showed beneath the skin. A profound emptiness, resulting from overexertion, washed over him like a tidal wave, making each breath sharp and painful. Balthazar sat on the rubble, wiping his chipped greatsword with his dusty sleeve. His breastplate had nearly shattered in the counterattack, but when he looked at Aaryan, the arrogance of a judge had vanished from his eyes, replaced by acceptance of his fellow human being, even one as strong as Aaryan.
'That wasn't martial arts, nor was it simply ethereal pressure,' Balthazar said in a deep voice, breaking the silence. Pointing to the afterimage left by Aaryan during the fight, he continued, 'That explosive force — gathering all the blood and energy into a single point and then instantly detonating it to overcome air resistance — I've fought in the Obsidian Well for ten years and I've never seen such a killing technique.'
He stood up, walked over to Aaryan and tossed him the 'Ash Access Card' that he had taken from the Executor. 'Many could withstand my "Disintegration Shock", but you're the first "monster" to spare the energy to protect innocent civilians afterwards. If you're royalty, you must be the exiled one."
"Hey! Don't be so quick to claim kinship!" Pau scrambled out of a pile of discarded driveshafts. White smoke was billowing from his steam-powered arm, which was overheating, and the old telegraph machine in his hand was still emitting a grating, muffled beep. 'The Council's "Golden Flame Guard" has already encircled us three blocks away. If we don't head to the 'Ruined Gear Monastery' soon, it will form the basis of the Maya District.'
Just then, a deep, strangely rhythmic tremor emanated from the ground. It was the bronze bell in the tower where Cyrus was located, tolling a sound that resonated directly into the depths of everyone's soul as if guiding them through a hidden passage to the depths of the earth. "To the monastery." Aaryan propped himself up, his eyes hardening. Looking at Balthazar, he said, 'You said the events of 1969 weren't finished, and I need a partner who can survive in the shadows of the city. Since Malakor has put us all on the elimination list, we can only survive by joining forces.'
Balthazar revealed a cruel yet excited smile and slung his greatsword behind his back. 'The King of the Dark Side never teams up with just anyone, unless the other party can really tear a hole in the sky. Let's go and see that old blind man to find out what his so-called 'history repeats itself' is all about."
In this crumbling ruin, a royal awakener, a demonic berserker, a commoner mechanic and a blind sage who has yet to be revealed — these four souls, who should have been mortal enemies or mere passersby, were brought together by a long-planned 'test'. In the presence of rust and blood, they formed their first pact, called 'survival'.
The entrance to the dilapidated Gear Monastery was blocked by a row of massive, abandoned water turbines. Acid rain lashed against the rusty steel with a clattering sound. Aaryan walked at the front. His senses were exceptionally sharp due to his awakening, enabling him to hear the subtle sounds of metal cooling and contracting just centimetres away.
"Stop." Aaryan raised his hand abruptly, his fingers slightly spread. Almost simultaneously, three red laser sights shot from the gaps in the turbines and flickered like vipers' tongues against Balthazar's chest. 'It's the Council's "Hounds" Company.' Pau gasped and crouched down expertly, pulling a homemade chaff device from his backpack. 'This standard equipment... They don't just want to capture us; they want to flatten this whole area.'
The soldiers of the 'Hounds' Company, clad in light ethereal power armour and wielding high-frequency vibrating short swords, sprang from the shadows. The two leading soldiers moved with incredible speed, testament to their enhanced physical abilities.
Aaryan didn't unleash the devastating royal domain he'd just used, knowing that constantly overdrawing his bloodline was tantamount to suicide. He took a deep breath, his internal energy flowing in a strange rhythm — the 'Instant Step' he'd honed through countless brushes with death. For a moment, Aaryan's figure blurred in the soldier's vision.
'Too slow.'
As the first soldier's dagger pierced the afterimage, Aaryan had already appeared at his side and behind him. Without making any unnecessary moves, he delivered a simple side palm strike that struck the connection point of the opponent's power armour at the neck — the most unstable 'pressure point' of the etheric flow.
With a loud crack, the power armour overloaded and sparked. The soldier hadn't even seen the attacker move before collapsing limply. Balthazar, watching from the sidelines, narrowed his eyes. Initially, he had thought that Aaryan was simply overwhelming him with the pure energy of his bloodline, but now he could see the technique — a killing art that compressed power to its extreme without wasting a single millilitre of ether. In the Maya district, where "high power and heavy artillery" were valued, this art was like a refined yet cold blade.
'Tsk, fancy moves.' Balthazar roared, sweeping his greatsword and sending three attacking soldiers flying, shields and all. Despite his grumbles, he instinctively adjusted his position, using his massive body to shield Aaryan from flanking fire. 'Hey, royal brat! Leave your back to me; just go and take down the leader!' This was their first time working together without rehearsal; they relied solely on absolute trust in their stronger opponent. The conflict escalated rapidly within three minutes. Pau's chaff disrupted the enemy's communication system precisely, while Aaryan took advantage of the chaos created by Balthazar to move like a ghost through the enemy ranks.
He shattered a soldier's mask with a knee strike, followed by a swift spinning kick that sent another 'hound' attempting to ambush Pau crashing into the turbine's gears. The fluidity of the kick startled Balthazar and elicited a slight nod from Cyrus, who was hidden deep within the monastery.
'Enough, step back.' A heavy, aged pressure suddenly emanated from the cracks in the monastery's dilapidated bronze doors. The 'Hounds', who were about to launch a second wave of attacks, seemed frozen in place; the floor tiles beneath their feet were instantly covered in a layer of grey frost infused with ethereal mould.
The battle temporarily subsided, leaving a dozen Council soldiers lying haphazardly in the open space in front of the monastery.
Balthazar sheathed his greatsword and finally changed his gaze towards Aaryan completely, revealing a complex mix of fear, awe and ambition. 'Aaryan, if you were in 1969, those holy-blooded gentlemen of the Council probably wouldn't have dared step out of the clock tower. Your fighting skills... who taught you?'
Aaryan looked at his slightly trembling hands, feeling the shiver of awakened fighting instincts. 'Nobody cares who taught me. Now we're going to see the one who can explain all of this.'
The heavy bronze door slammed shut behind them, blocking out the snarls of the Council's hounds and the corrosive sound of acid rain. This brief silence gradually dissipated the tense, murderous atmosphere, but a silent, unspoken tension settled over the four men instead.
Baltazar looked down at his slightly trembling hand. Arian's near-miraculous 'Instant Step' and precise hand-to-hand combat skills had been etched into his mind. In the underworld of the Maya District, strength was usually displayed through frenzied outbursts. But Arian had displayed a 'minimalist destruction' — like a meticulously calculated surgical procedure.
"Hey, royal lad." Baltazar wiped the blood from his face, his tone less ruthless and more candid. 'If you had displayed that kind of agility during the interrogation, my greatsword probably wouldn't have even touched the hem of your clothes. That footwork doesn't seem to have been learned in the Maya District. It's more like some long-lost ancient martial art.' Pau crouched in a corner, nervously fiddling with his steam-powered arm. A hydraulic valve had been damaged in the fight, causing it to hiss and leak air. Aaryan walked over and silently handed him a precision bearing that had been removed from a soldier's power armour.
"Thanks, buddy." Pau wiped his brow, a wry smile on his face. 'This group is really interesting: an awakened royalty, a wanted demon god of war, a mechanic who only knows how to fix junk, and that eccentric old blind guy. If we ran for councillor, Malakor would probably go crazy."
This light-hearted banter seemed out of place in the oppressive monastery hall. Yet it acted like a wedge, driving a further wedge between them and their previously fragile trust. They continued towards the heart of the monastery, where strange markings started to appear on the walls. They weren't words, but extremely complex 'etheric formulas'. They were haphazardly carved into the stone pillars, as if the writer, overcome with fear, was trying to record some indescribable law.
Aaryan's pendant heated up again, its frequency increasing rapidly and synchronising perfectly with the pendulum chimes emanating from the depths of the hall. He could feel the floor beneath his feet growing warm; not a heat from flames, but an overflow of energy resulting from 'highly compressed time'. 'Can you smell it?' Aaryan suddenly stopped, a flicker of unease in her eyes. 'Smell what? Rust and mildew?' Balthazar frowned, his greatsword humming uneasily behind him.
'No, it's the scent of gardenias,' Aaryan murmured. It was the most distinctive aroma of 1969, an era that had been forcibly erased from the history of the Maya District.
At the end of the corridor, Cyrus's breathing could be heard close by. His voice, old and hollow, echoed from the depths of the earth: 'Gardenias signify mourning, while rust signifies rebirth. Aaryan, what you see is not an illusion, but the stitched-up wounds of this land.'
The four of them exchanged glances. Balthazar gripped his sword hilt, Pau clutched his toolbox and Aaryan stood in the middle, taking a deep breath.
This initial conflict, born of a shared crisis and a yearning for an unknown truth, would ultimately coalesce into a fragile yet powerful bond against the darkness.
The air at the base of the monastery was denser than at ground level, every inch of space filled with a high-frequency hum. The wise Cyrus sat in the shadow of the enormous bronze bell, his empty eye sockets seemingly able to see into everyone's very soul.
"What do you think sustains the prosperity of the Maya District?" Cyrus's voice echoed eerily in the empty basement.
Before Aaryan could answer, the ground above them began to tremble violently. This wasn't an earthquake, but rather an enormous object tearing the structure apart from above and seeping into the ground.
"Boom!" A purple-white 'beam of judgement' pierced the monastery's dome instantly, and countless fragments of rock carrying molten slag rained down like meteorites.
The heavy thud of metal boots hitting the ground announced the arrival of twelve guards clad in 'Holy Blood Golden Armour', completely different from the previous 'Hound' company. Every inch of their armour was imbued with extremely pure royal ether, and translucent halos of spiritual energy floated behind them — the embodiment of the Holy Blood Council's supreme military might.
'Aaryan, this is your worth,' sneered the leading captain of the Royal Guard, wearing a ferocious tiger-head mask. 'Malakor is tired of playing the game of probing. Since you've chosen these rats in the gutter, you'll sink with them.' The battle erupted instantly.
Balthazar roared, swinging his greatsword. A dark red 'Disintegration Shock' ripped up the floor tiles in an attempt to slow the guards' charge. However, a golden-armoured guard simply raised his left hand and grabbed at the air. The energy, which was powerful enough to shatter steel, was forcibly imprisoned and compressed by a higher 'law of order', ultimately dissolving into a harmless cloud of dust.
'Damn it! Their energy frequency is suppressing me!' Balthazar was thrown several metres by the recoil and crashed heavily into the bronze bell. Aaryan witnessed it all.
He knew that technique was powerless against absolute suppression of power. So he took a deep breath and forced the still-unsettled royal bloodline within him to mobilise.
'Instant Step: Thousand Folds!'
Aaryan flashed repeatedly, leaving behind afterimages that were almost invisible to the naked eye. Taking advantage of the golden-armored guards' slightly clumsy movements, he closed in, forming a fist with his right hand and striking three etheric points on their armor.
'Crack!' One guard's aura shattered instantly. But this was only the beginning. More guards surrounded him, collectively creating a 'silent force field', which slowed Aaryan down considerably.
Just as he was about to tire himself out completely, the bronze bell suddenly emitted a low, soul-shaking hum.
In that instant, reality shattered before his eyes. Instead of the dimly lit basement and the golden-armoured guards, he saw a rainy night of raging flames — the Maya District of 1969.
He saw a young man who bore a striking resemblance to himself kneeling in despair before a massive machine emitting an eerie red glow. The machine's gears were jammed not with parts, but with the mangled limbs of demons and humans, and with each turn, the life force of the entire city was drained.
"See that?" Cyrus's voice echoed in Aaryan's mind. 'This isn't some kind of etheric energy; it's a "Crimson Alchemy Array". Maya lives on the ashes of 1969, and you… are the fuse that reactivates it.' As Aaryan was seen bound by the Guardian's psionic chains, Pau, who had been cowering in a corner, suddenly let out a strange cry. 'Fuck royalty! Taste this — 'Slum Rage'!"
Pau threw out a bizarre device, cobbled together from a dozen overloaded etheric cores. Before it exploded, it emitted an extremely chaotic and filthy 'abandoned ether', a low-frequency, polluting energy that caused an immediate and violent repulsive reaction from the Guardian's noble 'force field of order'.
Seizing the opportunity amid the chaos, Balthazar broke free from his chains, pulled the exhausted Aaryan to his feet and ran towards the dark passageway deep within the monastery.
The sewage network at the bottom of the monastery was not a safe haven, but rather an elaborate trap. As the 'Holy Blood Armoured' royal guards drew near, the ether in the air was forcibly drained, creating a 'silent force field' of absolute vacuum.
Balthazar, leaning on his greatsword, coughed up dark red blood. His demonic bloodline, suppressed by the laws of order, let out painful groans. Pau's mechanical arm hung limply at his side like scrap metal, its hydraulic shafts shattered.
'Aaryan... go...' Balthazar roared, attempting a suicidal charge with his last burst of disintegrating energy.
Just as the golden-armoured captain raised his spiritual greatsword, preparing to decapitate Aaryan, the previously silent Aaryan suddenly raised his head. His black pupils had vanished, replaced by bizarre double pupils: a purple-gold (royal) left eye and a dark red (demonic) right eye.
In that instant, time seemed to freeze. This wasn't a movement technique; rather, it was Aaryan's consciousness, guided by Cyrus, achieving a 'space-time resonance' with the young man before the 'Crimson Alchemy Array' of 1969.
'You think the Holy Blood Council rules the city of 2026?' Aaryan's voice became resonant and ethereal, as if spanning half a century. 'No, you're merely licking the remnants left by the souls of those from 1969.'
Aaryan extended her index finger and gently pressed it against the tip of the Guardian's spiritual sword.
The once indestructible power of the Holy Order reacted as if encountering deadly poison upon contact with Aaryan's fingertip, rapidly decaying and transforming into chaotic, non-systematic 'ember energy'.
'This is impossible! How could such unstable impurities shatter the laws?" The eyes beneath the Guardian Captain's mask were filled with horror. Aaryan didn't answer; he simply took a step forward. This shattered the silence field and a shockwave combining 'Celestial Connection' and 'Overload Impact' erupted from him.
At that moment, all the golden-armoured guards lost their connection to the Aether. Their prized power armour began to disintegrate, layer by layer, turning into a shower of golden dust.
This wasn't destruction, but a 'reset'. At the centre of the energy storm, Cyrus spun the rusty bronze compass frantically, golden tears streaming from his blind eyes. 'It's done... The rift in spacetime has been torn open! Balthazar! Pau! Put your lives on the line!'
Balthazar laughed maniacally as he channelled the remaining disintegration magic into Aaryan's back. Meanwhile, Pau gritted his teeth and activated the jammer to maximum power, forcibly blocking satellite surveillance.
Three distinct energies, channelled through Aaryan as a 'variable', coalesced into a beam of ash-like light that pierced the Earth's core, completely obscuring the monastery and the surrounding Golden Flame Guard in a perceptual blind spot. Aaryan gained a preliminary grasp of 'spacetime resonance', enabling him to briefly breach the laws of order in 2026 using the chaotic ether of 1969.
After defeating the Royal Guard, Pau dismantled a 'high-level psionic core', granting his mechanical arm remote hacking capabilities.
Balthazar completely shed the constraints of 'demonic dignity', truly accepting Aaryan as the leader of his team.
Cyrus confirmed the exact location of Malakor's energy lifeline: the 'Crimson Forge'. Just when everyone thought they could finally catch their breath and hide in the ruins, the sky suddenly changed.
The eternally leaden-grey clouds of the Maya region were suddenly forced apart by an immense force. Instead of sunlight, however, an enormous holographic projection obscuring half the sky appeared — Lord Malakor.
Wearing a snow-white robe, his face was as handsome as a poet's, but his pale purple eyes held no human emotion as he surveyed the city below. His voice resounded simultaneously in the prosthetic ears, terminals and radios of every Maya District citizen:
'My dear citizens, on this hopeful morning, we must confront the heartbreaking truth that a traitor with tainted blood, in league with demonic thugs, has destroyed the sacred monastery.'
Aaryan's image appeared in the projection with a gentle wave of his hand, fighting in the arena and the monastery. The monastery had been deliberately edited to make it look like a bloodthirsty demon.
'His name is Aaryan, the embers of this city who will ignite your homes. From this moment forward, the entire city enters a state of 'Ultimate Holy War'. Anyone who captures him will receive 'permanent residency in the inner city' and ten cycles of Pure Ether Potion as a reward.' Aaryan looked up at the god-like man in the sky; the pendant vibrated wildly against his chest, almost scalding his skin. 'This isn't just a wanted poster,' Cyrus sighed softly. 'He's declaring war on the truth of 1969.'