The night wind atop the hill where Commander Nyarung was buried suddenly stopped blowing. The silence that followed was not the kind that brought peace, but an empty silence, as if nature itself was holding its breath in fear. Damang sat cross-legged before his father’s ironwood gravestone, now covered with a thin layer of moss. Ten years had passed since the Baram crater exploded, and for ten years Damang had become part of the heartbeat of this forest. His skin was no longer as soft as a human’s; its surface felt hard, fibrous, and as cold as freshly forged metal.Damang opened his eyes, which now possessed vertical pupils. He sensed a high-frequency vibration that did not come from the earth, but from the atmospheric layers far above. Suddenly, the Rajah on his neck pulsed violently. The heat that was usually purple had now turned blazing red, igniting the nerves along his spine with pure pain.“Red,” Damang muttered. His voice was heavy, emerging from a throat that now sounded lik

Thick black smoke swallowed Damang’s vision. The air around him felt unbearably hot, reaching a temperature capable of peeling the skin off a normal human being. Damang stood in the middle of the still-burning crater, his hand gripping the hilt of the Mandau tightly. In front of him, the three remaining Seraphim units began landing slowly. Their mechanical wings rotated, producing a piercing noise that stabbed at the ears.“Target cornered. Subject’s biological energy level decreasing drastically,” the mechanical voice of one of the Seraphim sounded flat.Damang coughed. Red liquid came out of his mouth, falling onto the dry ground and instantly evaporating. The Rajah on his chest no longer glowed purple, but burned with a painful dark red light. Every breath he took felt like inhaling shards of burning glass. He tried to move his Flying Mandau, but the metal blade only trembled weakly beside his feet.“One more step, Inquisitors, and I’ll drag all of you into this ground,” Damang his

Ash rain fell over the remaining thatched roofs of Long Baram. Damang sat leaning against an ironwood pillar inside the treatment hut, his breaths escaping in short, steady hisses. Every time he inhaled, the fine scales now covering most of his chest rubbed against each other, producing soft mechanical clicking sounds. His silver eyes were closed, yet he could hear everything. He heard Sali’s anxious heartbeat outside the room, he heard the rustling of leaves in the distance, and he heard hesitant footsteps approaching from behind the hut.“I know it’s you, Bara,” Damang said without opening his eyes. His voice was heavy, carrying an echo that no longer sounded entirely human.The footsteps stopped. Bara appeared from behind the worn cloth curtain, his face pale and drenched in cold sweat. His hands trembled violently. At his waist, he carried a small communication device that emitted a dim red glow.“Commander... you’re awake,” Bara stammered.“You didn’t bring water or medicine,” Da

“I will not let you take this place from us!” Damang growled through clenched teeth, allowing his heart to thunder violently against the nerve-disrupting frequency that was trying to steal his consciousness. With the last remnants of energy from the Rajah within his body, he kept climbing the gigantic chain toward Valerius’ flagship even as the extreme gravity tore at his muscles and the thin air burned his lungs.“You are not a god like you claim to be, Valerius. You are a devil!” Damang roared, unable to accept what had happened to the land of his ancestors.From above, he witnessed the tragic sight of Long Baram reduced to charcoal, where black smoke curled and bent under the pull of the anchor engine, while the faint agonized screams of the villagers echoed below as the Inquisition’s flame-cleansing units scorched all life beneath them.“Listen to them, bastard! Every one of their screams is a death oath I will repay with your life!” Damang shouted hoarsely, his tears evaporating

"Die, Valerius!" Damang snarled inwardly as he charged through the door without hesitation. Pure rage gave his claws an instant surge of adrenaline without the need to teleport. With brutal force, he tore the thick steel door of The Cathedral from its hinges and sent it flying into the hollow space beyond."What kind of place is this?" Damang whispered as he stepped into the mothership’s main observation chamber. Through the gigantic crescent-shaped window, a horrifying sight stretched before him: the island of Borneo below was dying beneath raging flames. The forests of Long Baram were destroyed, black smoke billowed high enough to cover the galaxy, and thousands of craters caused by Valerius’ anchor drills looked like ugly scars upon the earth’s skin. The sight of that ruined paradise made Damang’s blood boil and shattered his heart.“Enjoying the view?” a voice asked from the center of the room, where Valerius sat casually in a chair made of ancient serpent leather, as though the d