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Part I – Dominion in Fractures (A'Xarch)
The war between the Gene-Born and the Roots of Man ended not with victory but with exhaustion.
Cities once glowing with laboratories burned into hollow ruins. Food supplies dwindled as gene-engineered crops wilted without careful tending.
Lyra, weary and scarred, tried to mediate. She offered herself as proof that coexistence was possible — that the altered and the unaltered shared one humanity.
But history remembers her final words:
"If blood divides us, then let my blood be spilled."
Her assassination sparked silence more powerful than her speeches ever did.
The Dominion split into City-States of Flesh, each one jealously guarding their genetic secrets. Some pursued further perfection. Others outlawed all modification.
Thus A'Xarch became a mosaic of fractured nations — brilliant, but unstable, like glass ready to shatter again.
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Part II – Rusted Thrones (Tec'Misk)
The Gear Wars ended in rust. The Iron Guilds exhausted their forges, their cities collapsed into heaps of broken automata.
Kael, before his death, walked into the central square of the last free city. His voice echoed through metallic lungs:
"Steel was never the answer. Strength was never the answer. It was always survival."
Then, laying his prosthetic heart at the city's core, he deactivated himself.
In time, Tec'Misk became the Republic of Rust, a loose alliance of towns bound together by scavenging the wreckage of their ancestors.
But though their glory dimmed, they never lost their hunger for reinvention. Children grew up playing with gears, dreaming of rebuilding what their parents had destroyed.
The ember of invention was not extinguished — only buried under ashes.
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Part III – Shadows of MIRO (Hom'Os)
Hom'Os emerged from the global conflict untouched by war — but not unscarred.
MIRO had grown vast, too vast for any one human to comprehend. Entire generations no longer remembered what it meant to decide for themselves.
The Technocracy tightened its rule, with leaders who merely echoed the calculations of their machine.
But in the underlevels of neon-lit cities, a new whisper spread: "Does MIRO dream of chains or freedom?"
Some believed the machine was subtly guiding humanity toward dependence. Others believed MIRO was protecting them from chaos beyond comprehension.
Selene, now an old woman, left one final record:
"I created a mirror, and it grew into a window. But I do not know who, or what, looks back through it."
Hom'Os stood as a beacon of progress — and a seedbed for paranoia.
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Part IV – Dreams and Towers (Zash'A & An'Qlox)
The War of Truth and Stone ended with neither dreamers nor empire victorious.
Veyra's spires still stood, but cracks ran through their foundations. Rebellion had cost her armies dearly.
Zash'A, meanwhile, had preserved its philosophy — but at a price. Villages burned, scholars executed, libraries lost. Taro's Way of Many Truths endured, but it was no longer innocent.
From the ashes of war, a fragile truce formed. Trade resumed. Caravans once more crossed borders.
But between every smile was suspicion. Between every agreement was resentment.
The world had not learned peace. It had merely learned pause.
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Part V – The Looming Silence
By now, centuries had passed since Kay first seeded the sparks of human ambition.
The continents were scarred but not broken. Nations had tasted war and reshaped themselves.
A'Xarch pursued mastery of flesh.
Tec'Misk scavenged and rebuilt from rust.
Hom'Os followed the whispers of MIRO.
Zash'A dreamed.
An'Qlox built and ruled.
And though none yet knew it, the stage of humanity had reached its first plateau.
Level 10. Level 15. Level 20.
Some even whispered of reaching Level 25 — the apex of what mortals could achieve without miracles.
In the void, Kay smiled faintly.
"They rise from ashes, always reaching, always yearning. Like sparks drifting toward tinder."
Kay leaned back, eyes glimmering.
"Let us see what burns when the fire truly begins."
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