Lyra’s lungs felt as if they had been drenched in vinegar. Every breath in the lower regions beneath Aethelgard’s clouds was torture—thin oxygen mixed with sulfur residue and rotten vapor from the Ether Ocean. Beneath her feet, sharp rocks sliced through soles that had long gone numb, leaving red trails across land that had never tasted the warmth of sunlight.Behind her, the clanking of armor and the roar of essence-powered engines thundered relentlessly. The golden light of the Light Legion was no longer a symbol of hope, but a hunter’s torch ready to burn its prey alive. Their armor glowed arrogantly, violently splitting apart the eternal darkness of the exile zone. Lyra knew that to them, she was nothing more than “energy trash”—a defective product in Elara’s perfect world.Her hands clutched the dull leather bag tighter. Inside it, the ancient map scroll pulsed, or perhaps that was only the illusion created by her wildly pounding heart. She slipped. Her knees slammed against the

The wind beneath the cloud layer was not merely cold; it bit with a metallic stench that suffocated the lungs. Zephyros landed without a ripple, as though gravity itself were merely a servant obeying his will. Behind him, Lyra staggered, her knees nearly giving out against the hard and unforgiving ground. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, her eyes still tightly shut as if opening them would send her falling back into the sky they had just torn through.“Open your eyes. The ground will not swallow you,” Zephyros’s voice cut through the silence, flat yet carrying a resonance that made the air tremble.Lyra forced her eyelids open. Before her, the Aethelgard she knew—floating islands bathed in eternal light—had vanished, replaced by a dead gray horizon. The sky here was a prison of rotting ether vapor, devouring every trace of sunlight. The air felt heavy, carrying the thick scent of rust and despair.The girl shivered. Not merely because of the plunging temperature, but because of the

The three silver-armored bodies lay sprawled like expensive scraps across the suffocating dust of the Ruined Village. The light from their chest plates—once worshiped as the blessing of Goddess Elara—was now dimming, dying, after Zephyros twisted the gravity around them until their bones nearly shattered. Silence ruled once more, leaving only the roar of damp wind from the edge of the clouds.Lyra stood frozen. Her lungs still struggled to pull in oxygen that seemed to freeze in her throat. Her wide eyes remained fixed on the three Light Enforcers—elites normally capable of flattening an entire village with a wave of their hands—now reduced to helpless piles of flesh before the man who had just awakened from an ancient grave. No spell had been shouted. No complex magic circle had appeared. Zephyros merely willed it, and the universe obeyed.Zephyros crouched beside one of the soldiers. His pale fingers moved slowly over the man’s forehead. A thin strand of silver mist, like cold cigar

The aerial train engine groaned, a mechanical symphony forced to imitate the beating wings of birds. Behind the metal walls of this upper-caste machine, Zephyros Vaelin could feel the subtle screams of the essence crystals enslaved to power its turbines. To him, Elara’s technology was not progress, but an open wound carved into the skin of the world.Zephyros did not truly sit. He seemed fused with the leather seat, motionless like an ancient statue forgotten inside a noisy museum. His soot-colored eyes pierced through the window glass, stripping every corner of Aethelgard bare. The floating islands looked like bread crumbs tossed carelessly above the Ether Ocean by a lazy god.“You said we would begin today,” Lyra’s voice broke the emptiness. The girl sat across from him, her fingers clutching the rough fabric of her clothes. Fear glimmered beneath the ambition she tried to hide.Zephyros did not answer immediately. He allowed the silence to press against Lyra’s lungs until she began

The megalithic gate groaned open, the grinding of ancient stone deafening rather than polite and smooth. Beyond it stretched the true face of Aethelgard—not the floating paradise endlessly glorified, but a rotting mechanical corpse.Lyra choked on the suddenly heavy air. The oxygen here tasted dull, dry, and reeked of rusted copper. Before her, metal pillars as tall as mountains pierced the stone ceiling, supporting the arrogant weight of Silver City far above. Gears the size of hills stood frozen in dead silence, buried beneath centuries of dust.Zephyros walked forward without hesitation. Every strike of his boots against the ancient iron bridge sounded like a death sentence. His eyes, deep as frozen abysses, held no admiration—only pure and cold hatred as he stared at the machines he had created now being violently violated.“Do you hear that, Lyra?” Zephyros whispered. His voice was no longer speech, but an echo from the past. “That is the sound of a dying heart.”Lyra tried to se