Part I — Dawn of the Trial
The horn split the silence of pre-dawn like a blade tearing flesh.
Nael's eyes snapped open before the sound even finished its echo. He was already awake, body humming with the familiar dread that came with mornings at the Academy. He swung his legs over the iron bunk and sat in the cold dark. Around him, cadets groaned, cursed, or scrambled into motion, tripping over boots and uniforms.
The Trial begins, Nael thought. He had lived this morning before, in another lifetime. He remembered the screams, the blood, the smell of sweat and ash that hung in the air before the sun even rose. But this time… he was ready.
"Up, whelps!" a drillmaster bellowed from the doorway, his voice gravel dragged across iron. "Today you prove if you belong in these walls—or if your bones belong in the dirt outside them!"
Rome Varrax rose with a grunt, massive shoulders rolling as though he had simply been napping between battles. He looked at Nael, cracked a grin, and muttered, "Guess breakfast is canceled."
Selene Daevaris was already dressed. Her golden eyes glowed faintly in the low light, her expression unreadable. She tucked her notebook into her uniform pocket and stood as if she had been waiting for this very moment all her life.
The cadets were marched out into the biting cold of dawn, the air sharp in their lungs. They were herded like cattle through the iron gates, across the training yards, and into a vast stone coliseum that loomed like the maw of some ancient beast.
The Crucible.
Nael had seen it before—in his first life, in memories soaked with the blood of failures. It was older than the Imperium itself, a relic of Earth's earliest attempts to forge an army out of fractured nations. The arena's walls rose high, black stone streaked with crimson banners. Iron gates lined the edges, promising horrors within.
Above them, on a raised platform overlooking the field, stood High Commander Severian Crimson. His crimson cloak draped across blackened battle-plate, his silver hair gleaming in the rising sun. Stitched across his chest was the sigil of House Crimson: the downward-pointing sword piercing the blood-red sun, encircled by laurels of blades.
When he raised his hand, silence fell like a guillotine.
"Cadets," Severian's voice carried, cold and sharp as steel. "You stand at the threshold of the Executioner's path. The Academy is not a school. It is a forge. Weak metal is discarded, strong steel is sharpened. By the end of this day, some of you will stand. Others will fall. Those who fall will not rise again."
A murmur of unease rippled through the cadets, quickly silenced by the glare of drillmasters patrolling with whips and shock prods.
"This is your Entrance Trial," Severian continued. "It will strip you of illusions. It will show us who you are—not who you claim to be. There will be no mercy, no second chances. Survive, and you remain. Fail, and you will be erased from the Imperium's memory."
He extended his arm toward the gates that lined the arena. "Four phases. Four crucibles. Endurance. Strategy. Combat. Blood. Complete them, and you may call yourselves cadets of the Crimson Imperium."
The words fell heavy, like chains.
Nael clenched his fists at his side. He knew these phases well. He remembered where he had stumbled, where others had broken. But this time, he had foresight. He would not falter.
Beside him, Rome cracked his neck, eager as if the trial were merely a warmup for war. Selene's face betrayed nothing—calm, poised, her eyes scanning the arena as though already plotting its secrets.
Severian lowered his arm.
"Begin."
Part II — Phase One: Endurance
The iron gates screeched open.
From them spilled a tide of armed drillmasters clad in black, their faces hidden beneath visored helms. Each carried a shockstaff crackling with blue energy, and behind them came mechanical servitors dragging heavy crates. The air smelled of ozone and oil.
The crates were thrown open, spilling out burdens of iron, sand, and stone. Chains clattered onto the sand.
"Endurance!" the herald bellowed. His voice was amplified by augmetics, booming across the arena. "Carry the Imperium's weight, or be crushed by it!"
The cadets were shoved forward. Chains were fastened around their shoulders, and massive loads were strapped to their backs—iron blocks nearly their own weight. The moment Nael felt the strain bite into his muscles, memories of his first life surged.
He remembered the agony. He remembered stumbling on the sixth lap around the arena and the crack of a shockstaff that had dropped him into darkness. He remembered the shame of weakness.
Not this time.
He drew a breath, slow and deep, letting the weight settle across his shoulders. His body was fourteen again, but his mind was honed by decades of war. He knew how to breathe, how to pace, how to conserve.
The horn blared.
They ran.
The arena's perimeter stretched into a brutal circuit of jagged sand and hidden spikes that cut boots and tore skin. The iron weights dragged cadets down, some collapsing within the first hundred paces. Shockstaffs whipped across their backs, leaving them twitching in the dirt until they crawled up again—or failed to rise.
Rome Varrax surged ahead like a beast unchained, his massive frame bulldozing through the course. He carried the weight as though it were a child's toy, each stride thunderous, each grunt of effort a roar of defiance.
"Keep up, Nael!" he barked, his grin wild even in the suffering.
Nael matched his pace—not by strength, but by discipline. Each step was measured, precise. He let the pain flow through him without breaking rhythm.
Selene, meanwhile, ran with unnerving calm. Her frame was slender, but her eyes were cold fire. She carried her burden differently, using balance instead of brute force, her movements almost surgical. She neither wasted a breath nor slowed her stride.
Around them, chaos reigned. Cadets stumbled, fell, screamed. Some begged for mercy; others cursed the Imperium. A drillmaster drove his staff into the chest of one boy who refused to rise, sending a burst of electricity through his body until he convulsed into silence. He did not move again.
One gone, Nael counted. And more to follow.
The laps continued. Blood mixed with sand beneath their boots. The weights grew heavier with every step, though in truth they did not—fatigue was the true enemy. Nael's muscles burned, his lungs seared, but he forced himself onward, eyes fixed on the black banners above.
From blood we rise. In blood we reign. For the Crimson Imperium.
By the fifth lap, half the cadets were gone. By the seventh, Nael's vision blurred at the edges, sweat blinding him. But still, he ran. This was not just survival. This was reclamation. This was vengeance in motion.
When the horn finally sounded to end the trial, only a third of the cadets remained standing. The others lay sprawled across the sand, unconscious, broken, or dead.
Nael slowed to a halt, shoulders heaving, blood trickling from raw skin where the chains had cut into him. He unclasped the weight and let it drop with a thundering crash. His body ached, but his spirit burned brighter than ever.
Rome dropped his own burden with a grin, flexing his massive arms. "That all you've got, Imperium? I could run ten more!"
Selene said nothing. She only brushed a streak of blood from her cheek, her expression unchanged. Her eyes flicked to Nael for the briefest moment—a silent acknowledgment.
High Commander Severian's voice boomed once more.
"Those who remain… have taken your first step. Endurance is the spine of an Executioner. Without it, strength is ash, strategy is folly, and victory is impossible."
He raised his hand toward the next set of gates, black iron carved with runes of old war.
"Phase Two begins."
The gates began to open. Darkness yawned beyond them.
Nael's heart quickened. He remembered what lay ahead.
The Trial of Strategy.
Part III — The Trial of Strategy
The gates yawned open, exhaling cold air from the depths beyond. Cadets were herded inside like cattle, flanked by silent drillmasters. The sand gave way to stone, torches guttering against damp walls as the group descended into a labyrinth beneath the coliseum.
The passage opened into a cavernous chamber—a war hall.
At its center stood a massive table carved from black iron, etched with shifting maps projected by holo-engines. Terrain flared into view: valleys, forests, ruined cities, and rivers painted in crimson and ash-gray. At the edges of the chamber, cages rattled, containing servitor-soldiers—bio-mechanical horrors programmed for war. Their eyes glowed a sickly yellow, their movements twitching and eager.
High Commander Severian appeared on a raised dais above the table, his cloak spilling crimson light in the torchfire. His voice cut through the silence:
"Phase Two: Strategy. Executioners do not fight as lone blades—they command the storm. You will be tested on your ability to lead, to calculate, to sacrifice. Without strategy, strength is wasted. Without leadership, soldiers are corpses."
He gestured, and drillmasters stepped forward. The cadets were divided into groups of five, each handed a token marked with an insignia. Nael glanced down at his own token: the mark of a blood-red sun. Rome and Selene were with him, alongside two other cadets—one scrawny, trembling with nerves, the other broad but dull-eyed.
The holo-map shifted, showing a ruined cityscape.
"Your task," Severian said, "is simple. Each group will take command of a company of servitor-soldiers. You will be placed in the field. Your objective: eliminate the enemy commander. Succeed, and you advance. Fail, and you die with your troops."
The words fell like executioner's blows. Several cadets blanched, but no one dared protest.
Nael felt the old fire stirring in his veins. He had fought this trial before. He remembered how chaos had broken the cadets—how alliances had crumbled, how commanders had panicked when their soldiers turned to ash around them.
But this time… he would command differently.
The groups were escorted into separate chambers, each dominated by holo-controls linked to their servitor troops. Nael's hands itched as he gripped the console, Rome looming at his side, Selene studying the map with razor eyes. The other two cadets hovered uncertainly.
"Alright," Rome muttered, "what's the play, Nael? Charge in, break their skulls?"
Nael almost smiled. In his first life, he had thought the same. Charging headlong. Dying quickly.
"No," he said, voice steady. "That's how fools die."
He traced a finger across the map. "The enemy commander is here—fortified in the ruins of the old cathedral. The direct path is mined. The eastern flank is an ambush. The west… waterlogged terrain, perfect for a trap."
The other cadets blinked at him. "How do you—"
"Because I've seen it before," Nael cut him off, his crimson eyes flashing. "Listen carefully. We'll send a decoy force down the main road—enough to draw their attention. Meanwhile, Selene, you'll lead a flanking detachment through the ruins here. Shadow work. Quiet. Precise. Rome, you'll take the vanguard on the decoy line—you're the hammer. When their ambush springs, you hold them. Then Selene strikes from the shadows, and I lead the reserve to encircle the commander. We crush him between us."
For a moment, silence. Then Rome grinned, teeth bared. "Now that's a plan I can fight for."
Selene inclined her head, a faint smile ghosting her lips. "Calculated. Ruthless. You think like the Imperator himself."
The trembling cadet stammered, "B-but what about us?"
Nael's gaze hardened. "You'll follow orders. Or you'll be corpses. Choose."
The trial began.
Holo-projections flared around them, immersing the cadets in the battlefield. The ruined city loomed—black towers gutted by fire, streets littered with broken war machines. Their servitor soldiers marched forward in perfect formation, faceless and merciless.
The enemy moved quickly. Mines detonated along the main road, tearing apart servitors in flashes of fire and steel. Rome bellowed commands, his voice thundering across the ranks. "Forward! Shields high! You'll have to do better than that, cowards!"
The enemy sprang from cover—servitors armed with blades and rifles, pouring fire into the decoy line. Rome met them head-on, laughing through the chaos, his strength unshaken. He was a wall, unbreakable.
Meanwhile, Selene slipped into the ruins with her detachment. Silent as a blade in the dark, she wove her troops through the shadows, striking down sentries with surgical precision. She advanced unseen, her golden eyes gleaming with cold light.
Nael watched it unfold from the command post, his mind a storm of calculation. He moved his reserves with precision, cutting off escape routes, channeling the enemy into a chokehold.
And then—
Selene struck.
Her forces erupted from the shadows, slicing through the enemy flank like smoke and knives. The enemy commander panicked, barking orders. Nael seized the moment, unleashing his reserves in a crushing pincer.
The cathedral fell in fire and blood. The enemy commander was dragged from the rubble, a hologram of defeat crumbling into ash as Nael's forces executed him.
The simulation ended. The battlefield dissolved into empty stone.
Severian's voice boomed across the chamber:
"Impressive."
Nael looked up to see his uncle watching from the dais. For a heartbeat, Severian's gaze lingered on him, sharp and appraising.
"Some of you commanded like children. Others commanded like corpses. But one among you commanded like an Executioner." His eyes burned crimson as they fixed on Nael. "Remember this name, cadets. Nael Crimson. His blade may be young, but his mind… is already war."
A murmur rippled through the hall. Rome clapped Nael's shoulder with a booming laugh. "Hah! Didn't I tell you? He's born for this."
Selene's voice was quiet, but resolute. "The Sword, the Shield, the Shadow. Together, unstoppable."
Nael's jaw tightened. This is only the beginning.
Severian raised his hand once more. The cages rattled again, this time heavier, darker, dripping with crimson fluid.
"Phase Three," he declared. "Combat."
The gates opened.
From the shadows, true monsters stirred.
Part IV — The Trial of Combat
The gates thundered open.
The sound was primal—iron grinding against stone, chains clattering loose, the groan of ancient mechanisms. From the shadows beyond came the stench of old blood and machine oil. The cadets' chatter died instantly. Even Rome, so quick to grin at danger, set his jaw.
Out of the blackness, the servitors emerged.
Not the pliant training husks from the strategy trial. These were Executioner prototypes, horrors from the Imperium's laboratories. Their flesh was gray, grafted with steel plating. Blades jutted from arms, rifles from shoulders. Eyes burned crimson with killing-programs. Each step they took left gouges in the stone.
The drillmasters barked as the cadets were shoved into the arena.
"Phase Three: Combat!" one bellowed. "You will face death. You will either carve it down… or be carved apart."
High Commander Severian raised his hand, his crimson cloak snapping in the cold air. His voice carried like the crack of a whip.
"No more simulations. No more illusions. You will fight. You will bleed. You will kill. Only those who prove their strength in flesh and iron will continue."
The gates slammed shut behind the cadets. They were trapped inside with the monsters.
A horn sounded.
The servitors charged.
The arena erupted into chaos.
Cadets screamed as the first wave hit—blades tearing through flesh, gunfire hammering the stone. Blood sprayed across the sand. A boy barely older than Nael tried to run, only to be cut down by a servitor's jagged claws, his body split open like paper.
Nael's instincts roared to life. He grabbed the trembling cadet beside him and shoved him clear of a descending blade. With his other hand, he snatched a fallen weapon from the dirt—a training gladius, its edge dulled but its weight deadly enough.
"Form up!" Nael shouted, his voice carrying with command that startled even himself. "Shields left, blades right! Hold the line!"
Rome was the first to respond, hurling himself into the fray with a roar. He wielded a massive practice axe in both hands, each swing cleaving servitors apart in sprays of sparks and gore. His sheer presence anchored the line, a wall of muscle and fury.
"Come on, you bastards!" Rome bellowed, laughter in his voice even as blood ran down his arms.
Selene moved like a phantom. Where others panicked, she slipped between strikes, her dagger flashing with surgical precision. She darted past one servitor, slicing the cables at its throat, dropping it in a spasm of sparks. Another lunged for her, but she vanished into its blind spot, driving her blade into the joint behind its knee before slitting its throat.
Nael fought with cold precision. Every strike was measured, every step purposeful. He remembered the patterns from his past life—the servitors' weaknesses, their blind spots, their predictable programming. Where others flailed, he cut directly to the kill. His crimson eyes burned with focus, his silver hair matted with sweat and blood.
The cadets around him began to rally. Fear turned to fury. Discipline took root in chaos. Under Nael's commands, small knots of cadets moved with cohesion, overwhelming servitors one by one.
Still, the slaughter was merciless. For every cadet who stood, another fell. The sand grew slick with crimson.
Severian watched from above, his face carved from stone. Drillmasters flanked him, their expressions hidden, but their eyes gleamed with cruel satisfaction. This was no trial—it was culling.
Minutes stretched into eternity.
Then silence.
The last servitor fell, its head severed by Rome's axe. Its body crashed into the dirt with a metallic groan. Smoke and blood filled the arena air.
Of the hundred cadets who had entered Phase Three, barely forty remained standing. The others lay broken, some dead, others twitching in pools of their own blood.
Nael's chest heaved, his gladius dripping crimson. Rome leaned on his axe, grinning through the blood that streaked his face. Selene stood untouched, her golden eyes glimmering, her blade black with gore.
Severian raised his hand once more. Silence descended.
"You have bled," he said. "You have killed. Now you understand what it means to walk the path of the Executioner. There is no mercy. No retreat. Only crimson."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the survivors. His eyes lingered on Nael, Rome, and Selene.
"But there remains one final crucible. The truest measure of loyalty. Phase Four."
The gates at the far end of the arena opened again.
This time, no servitors emerged. No beasts, no machines.
Instead, drillmasters dragged in cadets—those who had collapsed in earlier trials, beaten but still breathing. They were bound, gagged, and thrown into the sand like cattle.
Severian's voice was cold iron.
"Blood."
A collective shiver rippled through the survivors.
"You will prove your loyalty to the Imperium," Severian continued. "You will kill those too weak to stand. Executioners do not carry the dead. They create them. This is the law of the Crimson Imperium."
The bound cadets writhed, muffled screams tearing through their gags.
Nael's heart tightened. He remembered this moment too. The horror. The hesitation. The line he had once faltered at. He had spared one. And for that weakness, he had been beaten nearly to death.
But this time…
This time would be different.
Part V — The Trial of Blood
The chamber was cold, lit by crimson torches that hissed with burning oils. The air reeked of iron, sweat, and despair. The cadets were lined shoulder to shoulder, silence pressing upon them like a weight. No one spoke now — even Rome's fire had dulled, even Selene's sharp tongue was still. They all knew what awaited.
At the far end of the hall, chains rattled. Guards dragged forth the condemned: alien prisoners taken from the border wars. Around Nael, cadets stiffened in shock. They had expected monsters, the fanged beasts their tutors spoke of in hushed bedtime stories.
But Nael knew better.
He had fought them before — not in this life, but in the one that ended in betrayal and fire. He had seen them bleed, seen them plead. The Imperium's propaganda was a necessary lie to harden its youth, but the truth was undeniable. These were not beasts.
They were people.
Different, yes — their skin pale and ridged, their eyes larger, glowing faintly under the torchlight. But they walked on two legs, trembled with fear, and clung to life with the same desperate dignity as any human. One of them couldn't have been much older than Nael himself. His wrists were raw from the shackles, his breaths shallow and quick. When his eyes met Nael's, they widened not in defiance, but in pleading.
"Cadets," Severian's voice boomed, his tone stripped of warmth, carved into cold steel. "This is your crucible. To serve the Imperium, you must drown hesitation. Mercy is poison. Pity is treason. Each of you will end a life tonight — and in that act, you will either rise… or you will fall."
One by one, the guards shoved a prisoner to their knees before each cadet. Nael's pulse thundered in his ears when the young alien was forced down before him. The creature — no, the boy — raised his head weakly. His lips trembled as he whispered in broken Imperial tongue:
"Please… no."
A murmur of horror spread through the cadets. One boy dropped his weapon, shaking his head furiously. A drillmaster cut him down in a single motion, his body falling lifeless into the sand. The silence that followed was heavier than any roar of battle — a chilling reminder.
Mercy was death.
The words struck Nael like a blade. His grip on the ceremonial dagger wavered. Memories surfaced unbidden: his first life, long years before war had stripped him hollow. He remembered himself as a child, clinging to ideals of peace. He remembered laughter with his siblings, soft evenings before the shadow of conquest consumed him.
And deeper still — the future he had already lived. The betrayal. The slaughter of his family. Earth burning. The Council's cold decree.
For a moment, he wanted to let go. To refuse. To show that he could still be more than this machine the Imperium forged.
But then he saw it. The Imperium's crest, stitched into Severian's chest — the Crimson Sword, veined with black thorns, crowned by the coiled serpent. His house. His blood. His duty.
If he faltered now, he would not only doom himself — he would doom the Imperium's future. And vengeance, the vengeance he carried across death itself, would slip from his grasp.
The boy before him whimpered again. Nael tightened his jaw. His hand steadied.
He raised the dagger.
"I am sorry," Nael whispered, words no one else could hear.
The strike was swift, practiced, merciless. Crimson sprayed across the stones, hot and metallic. The boy crumpled, eyes wide in shock, then empty.
Silence hung heavy, broken only by the hiss of torches and the sound of chains dragging as guards cleared the corpses.
Inside, Nael felt something fracture. He had killed before — in his past life, in wars that stretched across the stars. But this was different. This was not the chaos of battle, not faceless enemies firing from across trenches. This was intimate. This was execution. And with it, the last remnants of his innocence bled out into the stones.
Severian stepped forward, voice thunderous. "You have shed blood in the name of the Imperium. You are no longer children. You are Executioners in training — heirs to the Crimson legacy. Never forget this night. From blood you rise. In blood you will reign. For the Crimson Imperium!"
The cadets echoed the creed in a roar, voices trembling yet resolute.
Nael's voice joined them, steady and cold:"From blood we rise! In blood we reign! For the Crimson Imperium!"
But within his heart, the words twisted, reshaped into a vow only he would ever know.
From blood I rise — not theirs, but mine, reborn from betrayal. In blood I will reign — not only for the Imperium, but for justice. And for the Council… I will never forgive.
The torchlight flickered, painting him in crimson. In that moment, Nael Caelum Crimson was no longer a boy of fourteen. He was the Sword of Crimson, tempered by blood, sharpened by vengeance.
And the galaxy would tremble before what he would become.