"The bridge is awfully quiet today, Roste!" said a tall, unruly man. His beard was just as thick as his hair, layered beneath warm, leathery clothes lined with fur. Matching the look of his blood-ridden brothers, another man stood guard next to him on the tall watchtower beside the giant wall.
Their watchtower guarded a seemingly massive, reinforced wall that rusted away in the cold. Above them loomed a heavy darkness, only pierced by two giant lights in the center of the city. Beyond those lights, it was deep, pitch black.
Cold, sterile, and metallic, with cracks and mossy greens spreading all over, the walls reached an immeasurable height. Even their highest towers couldn't surpass the lowest of the wall's cracks, nor could the giant gate that starkly contrasted its surroundings.
"Repellers are late. Omane the tavernkeep talked about how only a few of us come back after every weekend harvest," said Roste as he gazed upon the silent cracks that flooded each part of the gate. His eyes soon picked up several young children standing near the opposite end of the bridge. They were escorted by veteran soldiers marching to the clang of heavy metal, huge broadswords slung across their backs. Their armor differed from the two watchers, and their flesh was warm, their stomachs full.
"What are the children doing here at this time? Are those bastards blind to let them in during the harvest?" Roste raised his concern, his hands trembling in the cold, barely holding onto his gun.
"Oh, those? They are probably the new recruits Klein was talking about. Don't worry about them. Protecting them is the highest priority, as stated by our Chief King," said the other man, sharing the view.
"Or so the Chief King used to say... but these children will probably be put into the Dain. I wonder if these are the last of us," Roste said.
The floor was colder than the air. Standing without a shoe would likely give you frostbite, and maybe a touch of tetanus, unless these soldiers had already evolved to withstand that as well. Towering over the few children, men wearing dynastic silk woven like red carpet across their shoulders walked in, clad in clearly molded steel and iron armor with collections of weapons at their waists.
"Today, you won't be children anymore! You will be soldiers! Soldiers that do not fight for their homeland, but for their stomachs and their masters' stomachs!" A large man, easily four times their size, walked by. Unlike the others, his eyes showed he had seen true horrors in his service. He looked over at the children one at a time, taking in their ragged hair, the stinking breath of starvation, and their dried tear ducts. All of them shared the same common factor: all male, and all severely stunted.
"This is depressing. Are you all the only shits we got left?" the soldier said with utter disgust. Every year, children aged thirteen were taught the arts of fighting and forced to join the Repellers. Even though women weren't explicitly excluded, there was no trace of them in the army. And this year, there wasn't even an availability of thirteen-year-olds. These boys were twelve, and it showed.
The soldier could tell the difference between a twelve-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. The latter, often spiked with hormones and testosterone, came in battle-ready like molten iron waiting to be hammered down. But what is the use of slightly hot metal? he wondered. Before he could finish checking out the new roster, his eyes befell a much smaller child.
"A girl? That's strange!" the soldier laughed. Amidst the taller twelve-year-olds, the child stood, his mind and gaze nervously fixated on the giant soldier. The child was of fair complexion, with ragged purple hair and bright golden eyes that still held a spark of humanity. He had fragile, bone-thin limbs, over which he wore a heavy leather jacket hand-sewed by his mother.
"I am not a girl!" the boy said, followed by immediate laughter from the other children and the soldier.
"How old are you, 'boy'?" the soldier asked.
"Eleven," he replied.
"I can tell the difference between a thirteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old, but an eleven-year-old? Do boys only turn into boys after they turn twelve?" Another wave of laughter followed.
The boy tried hiding behind his fellow peers, but not even they wanted anything to do with such a kid. "I-I can fight," he stammered, shrinking back.
A breeze of cold wind brushed past them—a strange coincidence. While the other children filled their minds with the next insult to throw at the boy, the soldier merely smiled. "Is that so? Well, we need all the help we can get." This surprisingly lifted a strange fear from the boy, and he slowly stopped cowering.
The recruitment process wasn't simple. By the law of the Triune Goddesses that guarded the city, the children were to follow a traditionalistic ritual. Before the ritual, the soldier asked for their names, their parentage, and their will to give their lives either as meat or as swords.
"Neharis, twelve, son of Nasar. Shemi, twelve, son of Shamir. Jeac, twelve, son of Hattem. Deinne, eleven, son of Dicardys. And finally, Akira, eleven, son of Syuri." The soldier recognized the names of some of their fathers. Most of them were Repellers before them; many of them had died, some were still working, and some were peculiar cases.
"Three twelve-year-old wimps and two plain wimps," the soldier said as he walked past. He noticed a huge difference between the two eleven-year-olds. By definition and what the soldier had learned through his experience in the field, he would have sworn that Akira was a girl and Deinne was at least sixteen. Deinne, despite his age, looked mature. His eyes were sharp, his brows bushy, and his arms already strong.
"Deinne, you're the son of Dicardys! Isn't Dicardys the weaponsmith?" the soldier asked.
"Yes," Deinne nodded, touching the tiny dagger connected to his waist via a thin, black flexible wire—crafted by the father of the boy standing in front of him.
"At least someone worthwhile. Your father's work is what puts food on the table for all of us! Your hands are more suited for creation than harvesting, but times have shifted... and men have fallen. Even breast-feeding mothers may be pulled to fight for the sake of humanity next year," said the soldier.
The children looked at him, their eyes devoid of any light. A heavy pressure filled their hearts. They started sweating and fretting, clenching their fists together in the freezing cold. Everyone, except Akira.
"I won't let my mother fight!" he yelled, once again hiding behind Deinne. The soldier understood this did not come from true determination, but from childish arrogance and an inability to comprehend the reality of their situation, rather than pure confidence.
Harvesting isn't a mere task. A man must be trained to kill things twice his size while handling equipment heavier than he can carry. There was just no one this fragile in the city that could produce such a weak abomination, the soldier thought.
"Akira... son of Syuri... never heard of him!" The soldier looked closer at the brimming, bright golden eyes. "But I can say he doesn't seem very important!" The soldier laughed.
"Sir! Syuri is his mother! The infamous crazy lady of the town!" one of the twelve-year-olds—who had grown enough brainpower to understand the social hierarchy—jumped in.
"She is not crazy..." Akira said as he bit his lip tightly, grabbing onto Deinne's thick, leathery armored rags. "Agni!... Agni!" he murmured.
"Stop it!" Deinne pushed Akira away and forced him to release his grip, muttering words quietly just for Akira to hear. Deinne and Akira had known each other for a long time; for him to do this meant he was embarrassed.
Akira quietly moved back while catching mocking glances from everyone present. Today, he and his mother were a comedic piece everyone could trash, and he was too powerless to do anything about it.
"When... I'll be... your savior, I won't... forget," Akira whispered.
As the new recruits and the soldier were completing the necessary procedures and background checks, testing their bodily capacity, the bridge that connected the gate to the city was slowly filling with more and more soldiers.
Akira, ever curious and amazed by these soldiers, refused to drop his gaze. He had seen Malrvr the Speedster and Klein the Superior fighting amongst each other in training spars from afar, but today was the day he could finally see them up close. Then came the sound of roaring engines and the harsh smell of crude smoke from the areas surrounding the city. The Chief King is coming! Akira thought.
But what amazed Akira more was the sprawling view of the city from this vantage point. It was Akira's first time going out of the inner city, especially this far without his mother. He had never seen anything beyond the thick metallic walls. He stared at the giant clustered buildings with arched roofs and domes, the religious shrines for the Triplets of the Sanctuary, and Dicardys's smithy—where they also sold drinks for adults, a place his mother had forbidden him from visiting. There was his school, where they taught nothing but the past achievements of mankind and the monsters they now had to fight. Merry merchants, tailors, and thieves filled every corner of the city. He could see the giant prison where anyone disobeying the Chief King was sent. His mother had taught him well not to say anything against the Goddesses in public, as it could land him in that very prison, yet behind closed doors, she was the one who taught him everything negative about them. Above all hung the stinky, rotting smell of death and the mechanical abomination called the Dain, which ground away to produce food for everyone.
But looking from the bridge, the city seemed perfectly encapsulated, just as it was named: The Sanctuary—even if it didn't feel like one. The greatest attractions of the Sanctuary were the recurring statues of its founder, Idris Xie Ryukzen, whom his mom taught was a big, evil man and a liar. Yet, nothing commanded attention quite like the two giant rectangular light bulbs connected to the endless dark ceiling via massive chains. Even though the people believed it was the sun, his mom would always argue that the real sun was shaped like a ball.
The loud marches of giant, metallic soldiers grew louder and louder as they approached. Each of them carried colossal greatswords on their backs and small mini-swords at their waists, connected with thick wire. Unlike the soldiers from earlier, their armor was top-notch. It gave off a sense of being completely unbreakable—a trait not much else in this city could claim.
From the graveyards of rust that spread across the passage between the city and the bridge, the vehicles arrived. Akira could count seven massive ones and two smaller ones, each carrying twenty or more people.
"They are Elites," said Deinne as he clutched his hands to his chest. He suppressed his excitement, but still couldn't completely hide it from Akira, who was always waiting to mirror someone else's emotions. Akira was a boy who couldn't stand still when another person smiled. Like a wolf during a full moon, Akira too was suddenly overjoyed, forgetting all about his earlier embarrassment. But the crushing weight of war was just around the corner, and these children had never truly witnessed a war.
Among all the heavy machinery, a single vehicle caught everyone's eye. Even from the watchtower, Roste and his companion stared down, their eyes fixated on it. It was the Chief King's personal car.
"Prozecia is its name! The Chief's car!" Akira jumped and loudly cried out, while the others stood perfectly still and silent. Akira exchanged glances with Deinne, but the older boy remained stoic and mature. The Chief King's car had three heavy wheels and was built using the absolute best metal scraps the city could scavenge. It was even more durable than the Elite armor and could carry twice the weight of a normal human—a crucial feature for a man like the King.
Roste scrambled down from the watchtower and rushed to greet the Elites. This rush included the regular soldiers as well, leaving only the children, who had been given no commands. But Akira quietly slipped away, following the soldiers to get a closer look at the Chief King.
From the car, a man stepped out. He was the largest man Akira had ever seen, capable of towering over anyone else in the Sanctuary. It wasn't his mother who had taught him about this man, but everyone else in the city.
Crown Prince of the Xie Empire, King of Men, Dreamer of Idris, Legacy of the Merciful King, and Chief of the Sanctuary: Murad Xie Ryukzen the III, the only living blood of the Founder.
Akira wondered: if this is what a sixty-five-year-old Murad Xie looked like, how terrifying must he have been in his prime? It wasn't just Akira's thought, but the silent awe of everyone who wasn't blessed with such imposing genetics. Murad Xie Ryukzen had piercing, crimson-red eyes, a thick grey beard, and flowing, whitish-grey hair. He wore royal, dynastic red clothes draped over his left chest, paired with giant armor plating and a shoulder guard as big as Akira's entire torso. He walked holding a cane of valiant design, carved with a black peacock and several other animals Akira wasn't familiar with. His right arm was encased in a heavy metallic glove—the very glove Akira's mother always claimed never truly belonged to him.
Every soldier in the vicinity dropped to their knees. About one hundred supply runners—men who wore huge bags and never had a chance to kiss their newlyweds goodbye—bowed. Two hundred and fifty ordinary soldiers, clad in light armor and smelling of stale sweat and grease, bowed. One hundred and fifty Elite soldiers—the tallest and tankiest of the bunch, draped in a dark grey and white palette accented with pure red silk and fur, holding weapons as big as lesser men—bowed down before Murad Xie Ryukzen the III.
All except Akira. Among the five hundred men, he alone stood with his body raised up. Even the children behind him had done a courtesy toward the man called the Dreamer of Idris. Standing against His Legacy was Akira: a short, young boy with warm, pinkish skin, starkly contrasting the pale, sun-starved men around him, directly in front of the towering giant, Murad Xie Ryukzen the III.
"Why don't you bow down to your lord?" Murad Xie Ryukzen the III asked. His tone was as heavy as a god, yet the sound rumbled as low as a human's.
Akira started to shiver. There was no one he could hide behind, and Deinne was too far away for him to grab his clothes. Akira, a boy who resembled a fragile little girl more than a soldier, had no choice but to look Murad Xie directly in the eye. The flaming fury of those crimson pupils terrified him, but he forced the words out.
"My mom taught me... I shall not bow to anyone."
He swallowed hard. "Unless they are greater than me."