The year was 2040, when the world began to break.
It started as whispers on the wind unnatural storms rolling across oceans, thunder that cracked louder than cannons. Then came the floods. Entire coasts vanished overnight beneath black waves, swallowing cities as if they had never existed. Tsunamis rose like mountains, shattering skylines and dragging millions into the deep.
The ground itself rebelled soon after. Earthquakes split continents, opening scars in the land that bled fire. Buildings crumbled like sandcastles, and from the ashes of fallen nations, despair spread like a plague.
Humanity believed it was the end of days. Scientists spoke of climate collapse, of natural disasters spiraling beyond control. Preachers screamed of judgment. But the truth was far worse.
Because when the skies cleared, they did not reveal salvation.
They revealed them.
The Gods descended.
They came not as saviors but as tyrants, wrapped in radiance and cruelty. They strode across the ruined earth with casual amusement, their laughter louder than thunder, their steps heavier than mountains. They killed out of boredom, destroyed for pleasure, and enslaved those too weak to resist.
Mothers wept, fathers knelt, and children screamed as the gods made the world their playground of despair. Humanity's armies shattered like toys before them. Half of the population was gone within a single decade.
Hope was lost.
Then, in 2060, humanity glimpsed a flicker of resistance.
Among the broken masses, certain people awakened. No one knew why. One day they were ordinary, and the next, they could conjure fire, move mountains, or wield lightning. Humanity called them the Chosen.
At first, people believed the Chosen were a gift a weapon to fight back against divine cruelty. And for a time, there was hope. These new warriors could stand before the gods and live. They could protect. They could resist.
But it did not.
The Chosen were powerful… but never equal to gods. They fought, yes, but victory was a dream too far. And so, faced with the impossible, they chose the path of survival. They bowed. They submitted. They carved kingdoms from the ruins of man, crowning themselves as kings and emperors.
Where once the gods enslaved humanity, now the Chosen did the same.
They traded rebellion for comfort, resistance for crowns.
To the common people, they were not saviors. They were cowards in thrones.
Yet not all humanity surrendered.
In the shadows of the fallen world, a secret order was born. They called themselves The Arkinists.
The Arkinists rejected the tyranny of both gods and Chosen. They burrowed into the earth, carving out hidden sectors deep underground, vast networks of steel and stone where the last remnants of true humanity survived. They became more than survivors they became builders, engineers, and guardians of mankind's last flame.
They wrote protocols vows binding them to one another, swearing never to abandon their people. Those who broke their oaths embraced death rather than dishonor.
In darkness, they labored. They grew seeds in barren soil, preserved water drop by drop, and bred animals in fragile sanctuaries. They built machines from scavenged ruins, weapons forged not for conquest but for the day humanity would rise again.
The Arkinists raised children on stories not of fear, but of resistance.
Of a future where even gods could bleed.
.....
The year was 2080. Forty years had passed since the first calamities shook the Earth, and twenty since the gods descended. The world above was nothing but a broken wasteland a land of endless dust, poisoned skies, and scattered ruins, The surface had long been abandoned, a graveyard for those who dared step beyond its cursed sands.
But beneath the wasteland, life persisted.
Deep under the cracked deserts lay Sector 5, one of the hidden strongholds of the Arkinists. The Arkinists were not kings, nor gods, nor cowards who bowed to them. They were engineers, dreamers, and fighters who refused to kneel. While the world above burned under divine cruelty, they dug into the earth and built a new way of life, brick by brick, machine by machine.
It was here that humanity's quiet defiance endured.
The cavern stretched wide, reinforced by steel ribs and humming with ancient generators. Rusted pipes ran like veins along the ceiling, dripping from time to time, and massive turbines churned the air to keep it breathable. Light came from pale-white lamps powered by salvaged cores artificial suns that cast a cold, steady glow on the thousands of people who called this place home.
Among them were the Verdants.
The Verdants were not warriors, nor machinists, but cultivators the keepers of life. When the gods came, forests withered, rivers dried, and crops failed. Food became rarer than gold, and famine killed almost as swiftly as the gods themselves. The Verdants had been formed to reclaim what little remained of Earth's green memory. They studied seeds, soil, and water, and in the deepest chambers of Sector 5, they nurtured fragile sprouts under glass domes. Their work was not glamorous, nor powerful, but without them, no one underground would survive.
And among the Verdants was a boy named Solas.
He knelt on one knee, steady hands guiding a small seed into a patch of carefully treated soil. His dark coat brushed against the metal floor, stained with dust and watermarks from hours of work. A faint hum echoed from the lamps above, bathing the garden in pale light. Around him, rows of containers stretched endlessly each one a home for a fragile stalk of green, each one guarded like treasure.
"Easy now," Solas whispered, as if speaking to the seed itself. His voice was soft, patient, like someone cradling a child. He pressed the soil gently over the seed, then reached for a vial of filtered water precious, costly water and let a single drop fall upon the soil.
Beside him, his fellow Verdants worked diligently. Some bent over trays of seedlings, checking for spots of rot or signs of withering. Others carried cages of small animals rabbits, chickens, even mice studying how to breed them in the artificial environment of the underground. Nothing was wasted here. Every leaf, every grain, every life was counted.
"Still talking to your plants, Solas?" one of the Verdants teased, brushing dirt off his gloves.
"They listen better than people do," Solas replied with a faint smile, though his eyes never left the soil.
That was Solas: quiet, focused, yet carrying a fire deep within that few noticed. To many, he was just another Verdant a boy who planted seeds while the Nullguard above marched their machines into war. But the Verdants knew better. They treated one another as family, bound not by blood but by survival. In this underground city of iron and shadows, they were the heartbeat of life itself.
A loud rumble shook the cavern, and the lamps flickered for a moment. Somewhere in the distance, a machine roared to life, its gears clanging and pistons hissing. It was the sound of Sector 5 waking, as it did every morning.
The underground was alive with more than just plants. Towers of machinery loomed in the distance relics of salvaged technology reforged by the Arkinists. Conveyor belts carried crates of materials, drones buzzed like restless insects, and steam hissed from vents that lined the walkways. The tunnels connected everything: housing blocks where families huddled close, training halls where the young learned to fight, workshops where machinists crafted weapons of steel and fire.
And at the heart of it all, the Core Chamber a massive, pulsating engine salvaged from forgotten times kept the entire sector breathing. Without it, everything would go dark.
Life here was fragile, but it endured. People laughed, worked, and argued. Children played in the narrow walkways, their laughter echoing off the steel walls. Traders bartered scraps of cloth or machine parts. Even under the shadow of gods, even in the cold belly of the Earth, humanity clung to its stubborn will to live.
For Solas, the soil beneath his fingers was a promise. A reminder that even in the ruins of the world, something could still grow.
He stood, wiping the dirt from his hands, and gazed up at the faint cracks of the cavern ceiling, where drops of condensation clung like false stars. Somewhere above, the world still raged. The gods ruled, the Chosen played kings, and humanity's cries were drowned in thunder.
But down here, in Sector 5, a seed had been planted.
And like all seeds, one day, it would grow.
The Verdants' chamber echoed with laughter. For once, the heavy hum of turbines and the drip of leaking pipes weren't the loudest sounds in Sector 5. Men and women bent over rows of fragile seedlings while tossing jokes back and forth, their voices bouncing against the steel walls.
"You're drowning it, Maro," one worker chuckled, pointing at the man pouring too much water into a tray. "That poor sprout's gonna swim before it grows."
Maro groaned and wiped his forehead. "Better drowned than starved. My hands were made for machines, not babysitting leaves."
"That's why your wife grows more food than you," another teased, and a wave of laughter rolled through the chamber.
Even Solas, crouched over a soil tray, cracked a faint smile. For a moment, life almost felt normal. Down here, away from the world above, laughter was a rebellion all on its own.
But the noise shifted.
From the far end of the corridor, the sound of voices carried urgent, heavy, too many footsteps for a casual patrol. People glanced up from their work. The laughter thinned into murmurs. The workers leaned toward the noise as the voices grew louder, closer.
A Verdant leaned toward Solas, his brow furrowed. "Striders," he whispered.
The word silenced even the chuckles that lingered.
The Striders were not farmers, nor caretakers. They were the ones who walked the dead surface, venturing into the wastelands where sandstorms howled and ruined machines roamed like predators. They are both Engineers and fighters, they wore armor of scavenged steel and carried weapons patched together from scrap and circuitry. To most, the surface was certain death. But the Striders returned again and again, bringing back metals, fuel, and knowledge that kept the sectors alive.
But they did not return like this.
Solas slipped into the gathering crowd, curiosity burning in his chest. The workers followed the flow of people into the main corridor, where a cluster had already formed. Whispers filled the air like gnats.
The Striders had come back. And they carried a body.
The corpse hung limp between two armored men, its face pale and streaked with dried blood. One arm dangled uselessly, the hand scraped raw as if clawing against stone. Solas froze, his breath caught in his throat. He had seen death before everyone in Sector 5 had but this felt different. This was no accident of work, no sickness. This was something else.
One of the Striders stumbled forward, his armor dented, his breath ragged. He ripped off his helmet, and the crowd gasped at the sight of his face ashen, sweat-soaked, eyes wide with terror. He tried to speak, but his voice broke into a wheeze.
Then, between gasps, he forced the words out.
"A… god… a god killed half of us!"
The chamber erupted in noise. Murmurs turned to shouts, shouts to cries of disbelief. Faces paled, eyes widened, hands clutched at loved ones. A god here. The word carried weight heavier than steel, heavier than the cavern itself.
Through the chaos, footsteps echoed. Slow, heavy, commanding. An old man descended the stairwell, his presence parting the crowd without a word. His back was bent with age, his hair silver and thin, but his eyes burned sharp as blades. His stride was not fast, yet it carried authority with every step.
The Warden.
Every sector had one. The Wardens were more than leaders; they were guardians of the protocols that kept the underground alive. They were judges, commanders, executioners if they had to be. For forty years, Wardens had held the fragile order together, ensuring the rules were obeyed. And in a world ruled by gods, rules were the only thing that kept men alive.
The Warden of Sector 5 stopped before the Strider. His voice cut through the noise like a blade.
"When did this happen?"
The Strider lowered his head, still heaving for air. No words came. Only trembling.
The Warden's eyes narrowed. His voice rose, harsh, sharp. "I asked you when?"
The Strider flinched, tears streaming down his dirt-streaked cheeks. At last, he stammered, "A… a few hours ago."
The words landed like stones. The Warden's face twisted shock, then horror. His hands trembled. He, who had faced decades of survival, who had enforced law with iron will, now shook like a leaf.
The people murmured again, louder this time. Some clutched their children. Others dropped to their knees, whispering prayers that would never be answered.
Then, from the crowd, a man stormed forward. His fist cracked against the Strider's jaw, sending him sprawling.
"You fool!" he roared. "Why didn't you follow the protocol?!"
The Strider coughed blood, unable to reply, only shaking violently on the ground.
A woman screamed above the din, her voice sharp with fury and fear. "The protocol is clear! Once you encounter a god, you never return to the sector for seven days! Do you want it to follow you here? Do you want us all dead?!"
The chamber broke into chaos. Voices overlapped rage, panic, sobbing. The Strider choked out a broken apology, his voice drowned beneath the tide of shouts.
The Warden's voice thundered above them all. "Enough!" His hand shook, but his command silenced the crowd. His face was pale, his lips tight. "Everyone leave. Abandon the sector."
Gasps. Cries. But his voice brooked no argument.
The crowd erupted into frantic motion. Families clutched their children, grabbing what little they could carry. People ran, some tripping, others shouting names into the madness.
Solas moved with them, his heart hammering. He scooped a crying child into his arms, steadying her trembling body as the mass of people surged toward the exit tunnels.
Then the ground shuddered.
A deep rumble rolled through the cavern, rattling pipes and shaking dust loose from the ceiling. People screamed, ducking as the walls groaned. A thunderous crack split the air, followed by a sound like the sky itself tearing open.
A bang so loud it made ears bleed.
The lamps flickered violently, plunging the chamber into flashing shadows. Some fell to the ground, hands clamped over their ears. Solas dropped to his knees, holding the child close, his heart slamming against his ribs.
The Warden stood frozen, his lips trembling as he whispered the words that turned the crowd's fear into terror.
"…It's here."