Ardamon burned.
Flames licked the sky, black smoke blotting out the stars. Sirens wailed, choked by the roar of collapsing towers. What was once the proudest city in the Eastern Bloc had become a furnace — its streets running with fire, its people scattered like ants before a storm.
And yet, within the ruin, some refused to run.
Beneath the shattered dome of the Ardamon Central Station, survivors gathered in the dark. Soldiers, medics, engineers, even children — faces streaked with ash and fear. Every tremor of the earth reminded them the Titan was near, and still they held their ground.
Among them stood Captain Kael Draven, scarred veteran of the border wars, his uniform torn and stained with blood. He gripped a cracked helmet under his arm, his other hand clutching a battered rifle.
> "Listen to me," Kael's voice cut through the panic. "That thing out there isn't a god. It bleeds fire, it breaks stone — but it's here. That means it can be fought. We're not giving this city to him without a fight."
Some laughed bitterly. Others wept. But a few — just a few — lifted their heads with defiance.
At his side, Dr. Elira Venn, a physicist whose research into forbidden Titan-myths had been ignored by the government, stepped forward. She carried not a weapon, but a glowing shard of crystal bound in steel casing.
> "Rasan," she whispered, as if speaking the name poisoned her tongue. "I warned them he would return. The Abyss was never sealed completely. This—" she held up the shard, pulsing with faint light, "—is all I could steal from the archives before the towers fell. If there's a way to fight him… it starts with this."
Kael stared at the fragment, then at her. He didn't understand it — but he saw the fire in her eyes.
Before he could speak, the walls of the station shook. Dust rained down. In the distance, the Titan's voice boomed again, shaking the bones of every survivor.
> "Kneel… or burn!"
Children screamed. Soldiers tightened their grips. Kael raised his rifle.
> "Then let him come," he growled. "We'll show him humanity kneels to no one."
Outside, the shadow of Rasan grew closer, his burning eyes sweeping the ruin of the city like twin suns.
And so, in the ashes of Ardamon, the first resistance was born.
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