Ciel’s footfalls upon the concrete pavement of Gant City no longer possessed the vibrant cadence of youth. His steps were dragging, leaden, and sluggish, as if the earth’s gravity had abruptly doubled specifically to crush his frail shoulders.

  He walked with his head bowed, his hollow gaze fixed upon the dust caking the tips of his shoes.

  Every grueling step was a hammer blow of regret striking his solar plexus.

  "Fool," he cursed at the mute asphalt. "You utter, pathetic fool, Ciel Evans."

  He harbored a violent urge to strike himself. How could this happen?

  How could he—the same boy who had so fiercely championed the existence of the "Spider Web" and the "Sky Barrier" in obscure digital forums—pivot so easily, swayed by a mere glimpse of televised propaganda?

  He had witnessed the horrifying truth with his own eyes. He had deciphered the classified doctrine hidden within his father's coat. He knew of the abominations called Shade Walkers. He knew the very firmament was being physically held back from crushing them all.

  Yet, with a single, venomous injection of foreign rhetoric regarding "Freedom" and "Democracy," his logic and visual testimony had crumbled to ash. He had been seduced. For a fleeting, sickening moment, he had felt a swell of pride gazing upon Salomos's iron treads. He had genuinely hoped his father would surrender.

  "I am an absolute disgrace," he hissed, scalding tears of frustration gathering at the corners of his eyes. "My father is preparing to drive a blade through his own throat for the sake of this soil... and I stood cheering for the bastards wielding the sledgehammer."

  Hannes Evans’ parting words echoed in his skull like a damning incantation.

  Stand at attention, Ciel Evans.

  One sword for our own necks.

  Ciel clawed viciously at his own hair. He felt filthy. He felt mentally hollowed out. He was no resilient son of a military officer; he was merely a spoiled, malleable child, so effortlessly brainwashed by glossy optics and the saccharine promises of foreigners.

  He desperately craved a sanctuary to bury his shame. He needed a confidant, someone he could speak to without suffering the lash of judgment.

  Autonomously, his legs carried him toward a familiar residential block. Denes’ home.

  The residence of his best friend appeared serene, a jarring contrast to the apocalyptic storm raging within Ciel’s skull. The low wooden gate hung unlatched. On the porch, Denes’ automatic scooter rested on a slanted kickstand, his helmet carelessly discarded atop a patio table. Proof that the owner was within.

  Ciel pushed the gate. The rusted hinges shrieked softly.

  He waded through the slightly overgrown lawn and ascended the two wooden steps. The front door was drawn shut, but Ciel knew Denes rarely engaged the deadbolt during daylight. It was a careless habit Ciel had frequently scolded him for, yet now, he felt only a profound gratitude for it.

  He rested a palm against the doorknob. The cold brass bit into his sweat-slicked skin.

  Ciel drew a deep breath, striving to smother the tremor in his vocal cords. He refused to look pathetic before his friend. He intended to ask Denes’ stance on the impending invasion. Had Denes also swallowed the propaganda? Or was Denes, with his perpetual apathy, actually more grounded in reality than him?

  Ciel turned the knob.

  Click. Unlocked.

  He nudged the heavy timber door open. The stale odor of menthol cigarettes masked by cheap citrus air freshener assaulted him.

  "Denes..." Ciel called out, his voice raspy.

  He stepped into the living room, swathed in gloom by heavily drawn curtains.

  "Denes, I'm coming in..."

  Silence. There was no boisterous greeting of "Hey, brother!" or the familiar clatter of a PlayStation controller violently cast aside. The house felt tomb-quiet, save for a faint, menacing hum of static bleeding from Denes’ bedroom.

  Then, he saw it clearly.

  The mobile phone in Denes’ grip was no longer a mere communication device; it had transmuted into a violently shuddering slab of metal, channeling the tremors from his freezing fingers directly into his auditory nerves.

  Denes pressed the device so viciously against his ear that the plastic casing seemed to slice into his flesh, as if by sheer physical pressure he could drag his older brother out from the abyssal pit on the other end of the line.

  Denes’ vision was a blurred ruin. His eyes were puffy, the lids swollen and searing hot from hours of unending, silent weeping. The physical world around him—the dim living room, the dust motes dancing in the dying sunlight—was nothing but a meaningless blur of color. The only true reality was the voice bleeding through the tinny speaker.

  "Nes... l-listen to me... I am currently on duty... You must..."

  The voice of James Reed, his elder brother, sounded fractured and distant, strangled by heavy static interference. Yet, what caused Denes’ heart to physically stall was not James’ voice, but the terrifying cacophony behind it.

  THOOOM!

  A catastrophic detonation slammed into the receiver, the concussive force so palpable that Denes reflexively jerked the phone away. A shrill, agonizing ring pierced his eardrums. Through the jagged gaps in the static, he heard a symphony of overlapping screams, ground beneath the guttural grind of tank treads and the tearing roar of jets rending the sky.

  Then, another voice emerged. It was not James.

  The voice was booming, abrasive, possessing a decibel level capable of rupturing tympanic membranes. A voice utterly devoid of humanity, harboring nothing but pure, unadulterated bloodlust.

  "COME OUT, YOU FILTH! SHOW YOUR HEAD IF YOU HAVE THE SPINE FOR IT!"

  The bellow echoed, completely drowning out James’ desperate, ragged attempts to draw breath. Denes could vividly visualize his brother—huddled behind the pulverized remains of concrete, choking on dust coating his military fatigues, while absolute death loomed mere meters away.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "HAHAHAHAHA...!"

  A horrific laughter followed. It was manic, shrill, and dripping with cruel mockery. It was the laughter of a predator savoring the realization that its prey was cornered in a dead end. To Denes, that laughter felt like liquid nitrogen injected straight into his veins. Glacial, razor-sharp, and lethal.

  "James? James! Brother!" Denes screamed, his voice gravelly and fracturing against a bone-dry throat. He could taste the bitter salt of his own tears bleeding into the corners of his mouth. "James, run! Please, just run!"

  "Nes... be quiet..." James whispered, his voice now impossibly thin, nearly swallowed by the grinding noise and echoed shouting on the other side. "Listen to me... do you remember the Banner of Heshawara? Remember... what our late father taught us?"

  Denes froze. His tongue turned to lead. The memory of those ancient, bloody historical stanzas violently ambushed his brain—the two swords, the blood that would serve as fertilizer. He felt a violent wave of nausea surge in his gut.

  "No, James... don't say it... don't!"

  "Two swords, Nes," James’ voice abruptly hardened to steel. "One for the enemy... I am going to claim an enemy officer's head as a trophy."

  The phone in Denes’ grip felt slick with sweat and the residue of tears. The voice on the other end was no longer merely the voice of his brother; it was the roar of a tempest utterly refusing to be extinguished. Denes could feel the visceral tremor of James’ resolve traveling through his temple bone, incinerating the dregs of paralyzing doubt.

  "I am going to fight them until they learn true terror, Nes! Until they soil themselves and run screaming for their mothers!" James roared, his voice hoarse yet saturated with a valiant, reckless madness. "I will stand on the very vanguard! They will not breach this line so long as my heart still pumps blood!"

  Denes ceased his weak, tearful lamentation. The tears still fell, warm and stinging at his lips, but the fire in his eyes had mutated. He drew a deep breath of the stale, stifling air of his home; the scent of old dust suddenly felt as sharp and volatile as raw gunpowder.

  Suddenly, that explosive laughter ricocheted across the line once more. HAHAHAHAHA! That shrill, degrading, bloodthirsty cackle threatened to drown Denes’ mind entirely.

  Yet, James did not waver. Instead, his voice plummeted into a heavy, absolute whisper of instruction—a command delivered only by one Reed to another.

  "Denes Reed, listen to your brother very carefully."

  James drew a ragged, wet breath—a sickening, gurgling sound that tore at the heart—but his authority remained unbowed.

  "Go into my room. Beneath the pile of old fatigues in the wardrobe, there is a sidearm. You have learned much from me, haven't you? You know how to operate it. Take it, Nes. Grip it tightly with those strong hands of yours."

  Denes held his breath. His chest constricted as if the surrounding oxygen had solidified into concrete.

  "If they reach our door... aim it dead center at the enemy's brow. Do not hesitate. Claim their heads before they can claim our home. Protect everything there, Denes. Protect our honor."

  Beep... beep... beep...

  The connection died.

  The silence that plummeted down upon the room was far more agonizing than the thunderous artillery. Denes stared at the blackened screen of his phone, reflecting his pale, tear-streaked face. He could hear the thudding of his own heart—thump-thump, thump-thump—a morbid rhythm now synchronizing with the echo of his brother’s final edict.

  Denes violently wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand, leaving angry red welts across his cheeks. He was still quietly sobbing, his breaths hitched in a throat that felt packed with crushed glass. Yet, his legs began to move.

  He strode across the groaning floorboards—creak, creak—each footfall feeling infinitely heavier, yet undeniably resolute. He marched toward his brother's bedroom door at the end of the shadowy hall. The faint, lingering trace of James’ masculine cologne drifted from beneath the doorframe, piercing his nose, a phantom reminder of the peaceful days just incinerated by the world's ravenous ambition.

  His hand extended, trembling fingers making contact with the freezing metal doorknob. He was no longer seeking refuge. Denes Reed was walking to claim the first sword of the Heshawara Banner.

  Ciel had no need to offer a lengthy explanation. His bloodless face and a single sentence, "We have to find Elsie," were enough for Denes to snatch his scooter keys and a spare helmet.

  Denes, despite his perpetually aloof and laid-back exterior, knew precisely when the jesting ended. The news broadcast in his room had already been enough to make his blood run cold: "UN Naval Armadas Detected Breaching Carta's Exclusive Economic Zone."

  They gunned the automatic scooter through the rapidly deteriorating streets of Gant City.

  Traffic laws were a bygone memory. Civilian vehicles, roofs piled high with hastily strapped luggage, choked the arteries, laying on their horns in a collective, panicked stampede away from the coastline. Pedestrians sprinted blindly across intersections. Shop owners violently slammed their iron shutters down with deafening clatters.

  Ciel rode pillion, gripping the scooter’s grab rail until his knuckles turned bone-white. His wild eyes scoured every corner of the urban decay.

  "Faster, Nes!" Ciel roared against the rushing wind.

  "Are you insane?! The throttle is maxed out!" Denes shot back, though he twisted his wrist deeper anyway, weaving recklessly through the gridlocked metal.

  They skidded to a halt before Elsie’s boarding house—a dilapidated, colonial-style structure with peeling white paint, perched upon a coastal hill overlooking the sea.

  Ciel vaulted off the seat before the tires had even stopped rolling.

  "Elsie!"

  He hammered his fists against the wrought-iron gate, secured by a heavy padlock.

  "Elsie! Are you in there?!"

  Silence.

  Ciel scaled the iron fence with frantic aggression, ignoring the rusted spikes tearing at the flesh of his palms. He sprinted to the front door, pounding against the heavy timber repeatedly.

  "Elsie! Open up! It’s Ciel!"

  Still, no answer.

  Ciel peered through the dusty, louvered glass window. The room was shrouded in gloom. The curtains were parted slightly, revealing a bed that was made—far too immaculately. There were no duffel bags, none of the textbooks that were usually haphazardly strewn about. The wardrobe door hung ajar, displaying nothing but barren hangers.

  "She’s not here, El!" Denes shouted from atop the idling scooter, his voice laced with dread. "Her bike isn’t in the side garage either!"

  Ciel stumbled backward, his breath hitching.

  "Where..." he muttered in a blind panic. "Where would she go in the middle of all this?"

  Elsie was a migrant student. She possessed no other kin within Gant City. If she were being evacuated, she would have alerted him. If she were fleeing back to the Crownbelt, the military blockades would have already severed the routes.

  "The railway station!" Ciel blurted out suddenly. "Maybe she tried to catch the last train inland!"

  "Alright, get on!"

  They tore through the streets once more. But this time, the trajectory to the station forced them onto the coastal arterial bypass, granting an unobstructed vantage point of the Ebbas Ocean.

  And right there, the horror manifested into absolute reality.

  As Denes leaned the scooter into the curve of the elevated coastal highway, the traditionally tranquil, azure sea had mutated into a metallic nightmare.

  Ciel’s jaw slacked. The violent ocean gale lashed his face, carrying the brine of salt suffocatingly mixed with the heavy stench of military-grade diesel.

  Upon the horizon, where the churning water met the bleeding sky, hundreds of black silhouettes blotted out the vista.

  Those were no fishing trawlers.

  It was an armada of war.

  Destroyers bristling with rapidly spinning radar arrays. Behemoth aircraft carriers lurking in the distance like floating islands forged of steel. Amphibious assault ships already lowering their ramp doors, preparing to vomit armored combat vehicles into the shallows.

  The Ebbas Sea no longer belonged to Carta. It had been usurped, transformed into a killing floor for the United Nations Forces' mechanical butchers.

  "Fuck..." Denes throttled down, his eyes welded to the oceanic horizon. "There's an insane amount of them, El... What are we supposed to fight that with? Sharpened bamboo sticks?"

  The air-raid sirens began to wail from the city's towering spires. It was a long, mournful, undulating howl designed to inflict psychological terror upon any soul within earshot.

  Wooooooo-oooooooo...

  Ciel’s stomach violently churned.

  Amidst the threat of a leviathan armada poised to wipe Gant City off the map, Elsie had vanished.

  The girl could currently be entombed within the gridlock en route to the station. Or worse, she might be trapped within the harbor district—the precise grid coordinate where those battleship artillery cannons were currently dialing in.

  "Don't stop, Nes!" Ciel pounded his fist against Denes’ shoulder, his voice shuddering to hold back a sob. "Keep moving! We have to find her before the first rockets fall!"

  Ciel dug into his trouser pocket, clutching his mobile phone in a death grip.

  Elsie, please do not die a meaningless death, his mind screamed. Please do not become collateral in this idiotic war.

  Ciel’s regret bored an infinitely deeper hole into his chest. He had been so consumed by celestial conspiracies and the filth of high politics that he had neglected to protect the single most precious soul on this earth to him. If anything happened to Elsie, Ciel knew with absolute certainty he would never forgive himself—even if he were to perish with a sword driven through his own neck.