The first snowfall in Aethelgard never carried any sense of romance.To the elites sitting comfortably before marble fireplaces, the snow might have looked beautiful. But to laborers, porters, and mechanics working in the streets below, snowfall was a warning siren. Marble roads mixed with rough asphalt became dangerously slick, steam pipes were prone to freezing and bursting, and the bitter air slipped through clothing and into the bones like icy knives.Inside the Aethelgard Porters' Union, a sprawling building converted from one of Lumeria's former weapons depots, chaos reigned.Hundreds of porters crowded around a massive wooden bulletin board. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, damp leather jackets, and hand-rolled cigarettes.BAM!A dagger slammed into the center of the bulletin board, pinning a sheet of brown parchment in place."Listen up, you lazy jackasses!" roared Bram, the union chief, a burly man with one mechanical eye and a prosthetic arm made from salvaged stee

The Grand Library of Aethelgard stood atop the very ground that had once been the crater left by the destruction of Lumeria's Archive Tower.The building was the pride of the new era. Its walls were crafted from vibrant stained glass that depicted the fall of the God-Engine and the unification of the Upper and Lower Cities. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the colored panes, scattering shimmering mosaics across the polished black marble floor. The cool, tranquil air carried the familiar scent of aged paper, leather parchment, and Aetherium ink.On the library's second floor, in a corner beneath a shelf labeled The History of the Fall, a man in a worn gray robe quietly flipped through the pages of a thick, leather-bound book.Clive Collins stared at the illustration before him.The book was titled The Myth of the Throne Ghost: The God Who Tore the Sky Apart. Across its pages stretched an epic painting of a towering, thirty-foot monster with four arms, each ending in a massi

The clinking of copper and silver coins echoed across an iron table stained with old engine grease."Here's your pay, old man. Three silver coins and five copper. Standard union rate for transporting heavy equipment between sectors," said the foreman of the West Sector turbine factory as he slid the coins across the table. He glanced at the hundred-kilogram crate of spare parts resting in the corner, then back at the old man in the faded gray robe standing before him. "Seriously, I still can't wrap my head around it. What the hell are your back muscles made of? Even hydraulic machines struggle with something that heavy."Clive Collins swept the coins into the leather pouch hanging from his belt. He pulled his hood a little lower, concealing his bone-white hair and the scarred left side of his face."My muscles are made of bad luck and a lifetime of carrying burdens heavier than steel, Boss," Clive replied casually. His voice was rough, accompanied by a faint smile hidden beneath the h

The wind along the northern slopes of Drakon's Spine was exactly the same as it had been forty years ago. Freezing. It howled like a lone wolf mourning the loss of its pack, piercing straight through bone without mercy.Even though Aethelgard below now basked in warm sunlight and clean air, these ancient mountains had never surrendered their brutal climate. The eternal snowstorm remained, a silent witness to where the apocalypse had first begun.Amid the blinding expanse of white, a single gray silhouette moved at an agonizingly slow pace.Clive Collins dragged his feet forward. The straps of his canvas backpack dug into shoulders that were no longer as strong as they once were. His worn boots sank to his calves with every step. His body trembled violently, yet the scarred face marked by old burns still carried the faintest smile.Cough. Cough.A violent fit forced Clive to stop. He covered his mouth with his right hand, still wrapped in a weathered leather glove.When he pulled it aw

"Pull the rope, damn it! Don't let that cursed wagon roll into the ravine!"Clive Collins' hoarse voice cut through the howling blizzard at the foot of Drakon's Spine. His human right hand gripped the coarse hauling rope until his palm split open and bled, while his left arm, now a mass of black, scale-covered muscle, braced the rear of the two-ton wooden wagon.Ahead of it, a dozen pale, starving refugees from Onyxspire dragged the rope forward with what little strength they had left."The left wheel's slipping on the ice, Your Majesty!" shouted Bram, a young engineer with cracked glasses who was leading the route from the front. "The ground in this valley's too soft! If we force it, the supply wagon's gonna break apart!""Don't call me 'Your Majesty' while we're hauling wagons like crippled donkeys, Bram!" Clive shot back with a grunt. "Push toward the cliff! Use your shoulders, not just your legs!"With a powerful heave from Lycus' monstrous arm, Clive shoved the massive wagon away