A crown becomes nothing more than a heavy piece of useless metal when the sky above your throne turns into a giant target.The white linen sheets of the royal infirmary bed were a sharp contrast to the black soot still stained into Arthur skin. He lay perfectly flat, his dark eyes staring blankly up at the stone ceiling while the faint smell of herbal poultices filled the quiet room. Elena sat on a wooden stool by his side, her fingers tightly interlaced with his cold right hand, her own shoulders sagging from the sheer weight of their exhaustion."You should not be trying to sit up yet, Arthur," Elena whispered, her voice cracking as she saw him attempt to shift his weight against the pillows. "The head healer said your internal pathways look like a dry riverbed. The spiritual channels are completely torn apart.""I can feel the vacancy, Elena," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a low, rough murmur that lacked its usual deep resonance. "The cosmic darkness is still down there somew

Iron shields do not mean a single thing when the enemy can calculate the exact breaking point of your metal before his boots even touch your soil.The eastern valley gates groaned under the immense weight of the corporate advance, the massive wooden timbers splintering as a series of heavy explosions rocked the outer ring. Lord Beric stood right at the center of the defensive wall, his face covered in black soot as he pointed his iron mace toward the lower ravine."Hold those shield lines together," Lord Beric roared, his voice competing with the continuous shriek of mechanical engines down below. "Do not let the vanguard units scatter. If those droids pierce the inner archway, the civilian sector is completely defenseless.""The left flank is buckling, My Lord," a vanguard captain yelled, his armor dented by heavy repeating rifle fire. "Their weapons are eating right through our standard steel plates. We cannot maintain a standard perimeter if they keep pushing from the high ground.

Pain is just a collection of electrical signals until a foreign machine starts digging around inside your soul to steal the code.The high frequency tracking dart buried in Arthur sternum hummed with a vicious, rhythmic vibration that paralyzed every single muscle in his body. He collapsed onto his side, his cheek pressed against the cold courtyard stones while his eyes locked into a wide, unblinking stare. The blue digital light from the needle flared brightly, actively downloading the raw, volatile cosmic energy data from his fractured spirit core and beaming it straight up to the Reykjavik database through the shuttle tracking dish."The transmission density is perfect," Ethan Vance observed, stepping closer while checking the scrolling lines of green code on his silver tablet screen. "Your cosmic gravity style possesses a remarkable mathematical architecture, Arthur. My research team in Iceland will have the entire system mapped and replicated before the sun sets on this little co

A common enemy is the only thing on earth strong enough to force two bitter rivals to hold their fire and share the same dark air.The massive diamond toothed drill bit chewed through the loose granite with a deafening metallic shriek, sending a blinding spray of white hot sparks directly into the narrow cavern space. Arthur scrambled backward, his boots skidding across the slick stone floorboards as the colossal shadow of the rebooted drilling dreadnought loomed over them, its corrupted auxiliary script causing its yellow optical sensors to flash erratically in the pitch black dark."Lower the iron pipe, Vance," Arthur shouted, his voice cutting through the mechanical roar as he grabbed the corporate director by his shredded jacket collar and yanked him behind a thick stone pillar. "Unless you want that spinning metal teeth block to grind your bones into dust, you need to stop swinging at me right now.""The system is completely out of control," Ethan Vance gasped, dropping the ruste

The sky does not bleed water when the gods of industry lose their temper, it drops solid white hot lightning that can rewrite the geography of a kingdom in a fraction of a second.The air in the central plaza turned thick and heavy, tasting like cold metal and hot copper as the white hot streak of the first tungsten rod sliced through the low hanging cloud layer. The absolute kinetic friction tore the atmosphere apart, creating a deafening, continuous roar that sounded like a thousand iron shields grinding together at the same time."It is coming straight for the palace fountain," Elena shouted, her knuckles turning completely white as she shoved her short sword back into its leather scabbard and planted her boots firmly onto the vibrating stone tiles. "Arthur, you need to open the floodgates right now."Arthur did not answer with words, because his vocal cords were already locked in a tight, agonizing spasm of pure physical strain. He threw his arms wide toward the burning sky, his