Dawn never truly arrived in the Maya district. A thick, leaden-grey fog mingled with the acrid stench of burning rubber and lingered among the ruins of the Great Clock Tower stronghold. In the distance, the Holy Blood Floating Tower loomed faintly in the clouds. Its crimson ethereal aura overlooked the city, groaning in turmoil, like a cold eye.
Inside the stronghold, the air was suffocatingly heavy. The spacetime stabiliser, once a prized possession of Cyrus', now emitted a dying groan, with dim sparks occasionally escaping from its broken copper pipes.
Balthazar leaned against a bullet-riddled support pillar. His greatsword, which had slain countless mechanical guards, lay broken in two. Its runes were dull and lifeless, like a withered branch drained of its life force. Dark purple 'osteoma glow' covered his body, the blood-red marks left when he forcefully broke through the Inquisition's encirclement. Silently, he wrapped the chapped wounds on his arm with rough cloth; each subtle movement agitated his corrupted demonic bloodline, triggering violent spasms caused by the ether's rejection.
In another corner of the stronghold, Dahlia's situation was even worse. She huddled beside a makeshift repair table. Her once pristine white wizard's robes were now soaked with blood and grease. Temporarily blinded by the forbidden 'Red Moon Sacrifice', two dried tears of blood had etched horrifying red marks onto her pale face. Her slender fingers gripped the etheric crystal in her palm as she tried to calm the chaotic energy surging within her. However, each effort only resulted in her soul being torn further.
Cyrus's steam-powered prosthetic eye flickered with an erroneous red light due to overload and his trembling hands slid futilely across the complex wind-up compass.
'The energy flow of the core has been completely distorted… That madman Malakor doesn't want us to claim the prize. He wants us to become sacrifices and feed that damned "1969 Zero Spacetime Core".' Cyrus's voice was hoarse and filled with near-desperate weariness. The key they had painstakingly retrieved now emitted an ominous purple-gold glow — the greedy hue of someone who had devoured the souls of countless comrades.
Aaryan stood at the stronghold's exit with his back to the others. His tattered, oil-stained work clothes had once been the perfect disguise for hiding in the lower rungs of society. Through the broken windowpane, he watched his fellow demonic labourers struggling in the acid rain on the streets. He watched them being herded like livestock by the Holy Blood Council's patrols and saw the entire city gradually crumbling under the giant wheel of discrimination and exploitation.
The throbbing pain in Clockwork's heart made him acutely aware of his comrades' suffering — the Blood Pact was reaping their lives.
"That's enough." Aaryan's voice was unusually calm yet carried a chilling power.
He slowly raised his hand and tore off the buttons of the work clothes that symbolised his status as a 'minor demon' one by one. As the rough fabric slid away, revealing his broad, scarred back. Beneath his previously dull skin, an ancient, noble and violent royal mark suddenly exploded, releasing a dazzling purple-gold divine light. This was the 'Royal Decree', capable of pacifying all chaos and transcending ancient bloodlines.
The suppressed emotions came to an abrupt end. The true king of the Maya District bowed his head to the abyss yet raised his blade against fate.
The tremors at the Clock Tower stronghold were not caused by an earthquake, but by some kind of high-frequency etheric pulse.
'They're here.' Cyrus jerked his head up, his steam-powered prosthetic eye spinning wildly as it detected an extremely high-energy reaction that emitted a pungent, acrid smell.
Before he could finish speaking, the heavy iron gate was crushed instantly by an invisible giant's hand. Accompanied by the groaning sound of twisted metal, dozens of 'Holy Light Shock Bombs' pierced the air, their blinding white light robbing everyone of their vision. Immediately afterwards, the 'White Tower Purifiers', clad in sleek silver armour, poured in like ghosts.
'By order of the Holy Blood Council, retrieve the contraband "1969 Zero Spacetime Core" and execute all heretics and demons as a blood sacrifice to the divine oracle.' The leading inquisitor's icy, inhumanly metallic voice boomed from his megaphone.
Balthazar roared. Despite the blood-soaked bandages still wrapped around his arm, he swung the broken greatsword with one hand, drawing upon his crimson energy to create a dark red defensive circle in the centre of the stronghold. However, these Purifiers were no ordinary patrols; their ether rifles spewed pure, highly concentrated beams of holy blood energy. Each shot that struck Balthazar's shield triggered a violent explosion of crystals.
"Balthazar, retreat!" Aaryan's voice rang out amidst the chaos. Rather than using the power of his mark, he relied on the keen intuition honed over years in the machine factory to dodge a thrust, then smashed a Purifier's helmet with a heavy wrench.
But this was merely a drop in the ocean.
A high-ranking executive slowly entered the battlefield. Rather than wearing heavy armour, he wore a white robe embroidered with intricate gold patterns. Hovering three inches above the filthy puddles, he gazed at the wounded Dahlia with a cruel yet almost merciful look in his eyes.
"What pathetic creatures." The Executor flicked his finger and several golden, blade-like halos instantly materialised in the air. 'Do you think stealing the "key" will change your fate? You're just adding a more ornate coffin to this tomb.'
The golden halos roared out, heading straight for the blind Dahlia. Balthazar shielded her, his broken sword colliding with the halos. The shockwave shattered the stronghold's already crumbling support pillars, sending rubble raining down and dust billowing.
"Dahlia!" Cyrus screamed, attempting to manipulate the spacetime stabiliser to create a small disruptive force field. However, the machine shattered under the Purifier's firepower and metal fragments pierced his shoulder.
The Executor let out a contemptuous snort. He reached out and a powerful gravitational pull instantly drew the spacetime core from the ground into his palm.
"Put it down." Aaryan's voice came from the shadows.
He knelt on the ground, shielding his fallen comrade. Blood streamed down his forehead, dripping onto the paint-splattered floor. His body trembled, not from fear, but from a long-suppressed power within him violently assaulting his mortal form.
'You lowly worker bee, were you talking to me just now?' The Executor stopped and looked at Aaryan as though he were trash, then casually waved his hand. A beam of holy light pressed down, slamming Aaryan to the ground once more. In the deathly silence of the stronghold, the sound of bones cracking could be clearly heard.
The Executor stepped on Aaryan's oil-stained back, grinding his spine with his toe.
'Look at you all,' said the Executor, leaning down and dripping with sarcasm. 'For this piece of scrap metal, you broke your swords, went blind and crippled your hands. What was the result? This city is still our pasture, and you aren't even worthy of being fertiliser."
He turned to the group of terrified demonic labourers, trembling and cowering like livestock awaiting slaughter, bound together by ropes and hiding in the shadows.
'To punish your overstepping, I will, before your very eyes, transform these bloodstained kin one by one into the lowest form of etheric batteries.' A blinding golden light coalesced once more in the Executor's palm.
Aaryan felt his soul being torn apart. He heard the cries of his kin, saw Balthazar's resentful tears, and sensed Dahlia's fading breath.
In this instant filled with rust and blood, all his restraint, evasion and pretence crumbled before the instinct called 'King'.
The burning sensation rising from his spine was no longer pain, but judgement.
'I said it,' Aaryan said, slowly raising his head. The greyish-brown colour that had belonged to ordinary demons in the depths of his pupils was rapidly fading, replaced by a profound purple-gold that made the void tremble. "Put it… down."
The executor wanted to mock him, but suddenly realised that his toes, which had been pressing against Aaryan's back, seemed to have touched an abyss. An unprecedented fear instantly swept over his entire body.
On Aaryan's back, the royal mark beneath his tattered work clothes finally emitted its first roar — a roar powerful enough to pierce the abyss.
The air seemed to freeze. The Executor's smile, which had previously seemed so confident, froze on his face. He could feel an incomprehensible pressure rising from the 'commoner' beneath his feet. This wasn't an ordinary demonic mutation; it was the suppression of laws from a higher dimension, seemingly originating from the very depths of the world.
'Could this wavelength be recorded in the "Holy Bloodline"?' The Executor's voice trembled. He leapt backwards, instinctively pressing the communicator to his ear. 'Coordinates 402! A major anomaly has occurred at the Clock Tower outpost, suspected to be from a lost royal race. Requesting support from the White Tower High-Ranking Executor! Repeat: requesting the immediate deployment of the 'Etheric Suppression Field'!" "
In the Holy Blood Council's setting, the world is divided into 'Pure Sequences' and 'Impurity Sequences', and the workers of the Maya District were originally considered to be at the lowest level: 'Impurity'. However, a few ancient documents mention that, before the formation of the Etherpunk civilisation, there existed 'True Kings' who could communicate directly with the Primal Crystal. Once their bloodline imprints had awakened, they could ignore all man-made Ether circuits and rewrite the logic of reality directly.
Aaryan didn't immediately get up; his back resembled an erupting volcano, the purplish-gold imprint radiating an almost sacred majesty through his tattered work clothes. This was the 'King's Decree', representing the highest level of realm suppression in a world where fantasy and technology intertwined.
'Cyrus, take everyone back to the protective circle of the core.' Aaryan's voice sounded like countless superimposed syllables, carrying a soul-shaking resonance.
Despite the excruciating pain in his shoulder, Cyrus helped the semi-conscious Balthazar support Dahlia. He knew that Aaryan had entered a dangerous state called 'Bloodline Resonance'. In this state, Aaryan was both a saviour and an ethereal nuclear bomb that could destroy the Maya region at any moment.
'Aaryan, don't let that light devour you!' Although she couldn't see, Dahlia could sense the devastating energy fluctuations. She cried weakly, "The core can neutralise your pain. Refine it as your 'spiritual root'!" In this world, 'cultivation' isn't about absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but rather about taming the rampaging primal ether within one's body through specific high-tech mediums (such as the Spacetime Core). If Aaryan allows the mark to erupt unchecked, his body will crystallise rapidly; however, if he uses the '1969 Zero Spacetime Core' as an energy converter, he will transcend the limits of mortals.
On the distant horizon, several silver-white streaks of light pierce the sky — the Holy Blood Council's reinforcement force, the 'Wings of Judgment'. Amidst the ruins of the stronghold, Aaryan slowly rises. He grabs at the air with his right hand and the core, which was previously seized by the Executor, spins wildly back into his hand as if sensing its true master.
'Want a sacrifice?' Aaryan looks at the densely packed Judicators in the sky, a cold smile playing on his lips. 'Then let's see who truly rules this abyss.' "
Beneath his feet, the stagnant, corrosive water had been purified by golden light and intricate refining formations had spread across the ground of the clock tower. The suppression of the first stage had reached its peak. The resolve before the abyss was about to transform into a storm that would sweep across the entire city.
The thick, grey fog was torn apart with a violent force, and a deep, sacred chant echoed throughout the city. Six pure white 'Wings of Judgment' warships, arranged in a wedge formation, descended from the clouds. Rather than for rescue, their tractor beams were used to drop six massive 'Ark Shackles'. These enormous metal pillars embedded themselves precisely in six locations around the clock tower stronghold, with each pillar's tip spewing forth dark golden lightning.
'Etheric Absolute Silence Field, activate.'
A cold broadcast resounded through the streets. Within the five-hundred-metre radius of this cylindrical area, all demonic energy, spiritual power and steam power were instantly and forcibly stripped away. Cyrus let out a scream. His steam-powered prosthetic eye, which relied on etheric energy, shattered in its socket due to the severe metal fatigue caused by the instant energy drain.
'Damn it... that's the "Demon-Suppressing Domain"...' Cyrus clutched his bleeding cheek and collapsed into the ruins.
Aaryan, who had been gradually building up his counterattack momentum, suddenly froze. The royal mark on his back was still flashing, but it was compressed beneath his flesh by this overwhelming suppression of law; it was like a wildfire trapped in an iron cage, scorching his meridians.
The pain was excruciating. His royal bloodline made every cell roar with pride, but the shackles of reality pressed his soul firmly into the mire.
"Don't you understand, Aaryan?"
The Executor, who had previously retreated, now floated back to the surface. Six wings of light, composed of high-frequency ether, unfurled from his back and he pointed his spear at the crowd in the centre of the ruins. 'In this world of order constructed by the Council, bloodline is merely fuel. We are the ones who ignite the fire.'
In response to the Executor's signal, hundreds of Purifier infantrymen parachuted from the warship. Rather than attacking immediately, they fired their 'blood-red grappling hooks' at their captured demonic labourers.
'No… help me!' screamed an elderly worker, his shoulder blade pierced by a grappling hook.
A gruesome scene unfolded as the hook tightened and the thin ether that existed within the demon race's bodies mixed with blood and was drawn through a transparent tube towards the warship in the sky. This was the ultimate form of the 'Crimson Pact': live draining. At this moment, Malakor's ambition was laid bare—he intended to use the lives of thousands of members of the demon race as lubricant for the central axis of activation.
Dahlia struggled to her feet, more blood seeping from her blind eyes. She attempted to sense the fluctuations in the air through her spiritual root. However, all around was deathly silent, only emptiness. 'Aaryan… they are harvesting souls… if we don't stop those six pillars, everyone will become dried corpses…'
Baltazar tried to swing his broken sword, but without an etheric supply, he was no stronger than an ordinary person. A Purifier infantryman casually swung his hammer, sending the former war god flying several metres and crashing heavily into the barbed wire.
'Weakness is the original sin.' The Executor landed in front of Aaryan, pressing his silver boots down on his fingers as he reached for the Time-Space Core.
The metal soles crushed with a teeth-grinding sound as Aaryan's finger bones broke. His forehead was pressed against the cold, damp ground and his vision was filled only with the figures of his comrades lying in pools of blood.
Through his blurred vision, he could see the '1969 Zero Time-Space Core', which was clutched tightly in Dahlia's arms. It emitted a mournful resonance as it sensed the massive dissipation of souls around them.
'Aetherpunk Worldview Completion: The condition for awakening as a 'True King' is not the completion of cultivation, but utter despair at the distorted order. When an individual's anger resonates with the lamentations of the entire city, spacetime will cease to be a tool and become part of the body.'
'Kneel down and pray to the Holy Blood. Perhaps I'll let you die with some dignity.' The Executor looked down at him mockingly.
Aaryan let out a low laugh that gradually grew wilder and finally transformed into an inhuman growl.
'You think this is the Abyss?'
He suddenly raised his head. The purple-gold mark, which had previously been suppressed beneath his flesh, was no longer trying to break through the surface. Instead, it was frantically absorbing the surrounding suppression field — supposedly 'absolute silence'.
The dark golden lightning spewing from the Ark's shackles seemed to be drawn towards Aaryan's back. His skin appeared covered in dense crystalline patterns — not a collapse, but some kind of extremely high-density reorganization.
'What are you doing? You're insane! You're absorbing this destructive energy! You'll explode!' The Executor was horrified to discover that his Aether Wings were shrinking uncontrollably as energy was forcibly plundered from the air.
'Malakor wants a sacrifice...' Aaryan slowly stood up, his fingers broken and his body covered in blood. Yet his mere presence caused the entire 'Demon-Slaying Domain' to begin to crumble. 'Then I'll give him... a sacrifice he can't afford.'
In the sky, the once snow-white 'Wings of Judgement' warship fleet suddenly emitted a shrill alarm. The dot representing Aaryan on the radar screen instantly changed from grey, which represented the 'Demon Race', to a forbidden deep purple that the system couldn't recognise.
The acid rain in the air solidified into crystals as it fell.
The first stage of suppression reached its breaking point at this moment, and Aaryan raised his head. Purple-gold royal scales had already appeared on the left side of his cheek. The broken finger bone, activated by the mark, gripped the spacetime axis core again with a crisp crack as it reset.
'Now, it's my turn.'
With this whisper, the 'Demon-Slaying Domain' surrounding the clock tower appeared to be cleaved open by an invisible giant axe. A beam of purple-gold light shot into the sky, piercing the foremost warship directly.
As the purplish-gold beam pierced the sky, the etheric silence field — which had previously represented 'absolute order' — emitted a piercing, mournful sound like shattering glass.
'This... this is impossible!' the Executor, suspended in mid-air, roared in terror. He realised that he could no longer control his prized high-frequency etheric wings, which were now trembling violently behind him like a fledgling bird encountering its natural enemy.
Aaryan remained kneeling, his right hand gripping the '1969 Zero Spacetime Core' tightly. The complex core, which had originally required the coordinated activation of hundreds of steam engines, instantly came alive with dark golden runes the moment it touched Aaryan's blood, creating a breathtaking scene. Like dense electronic veins, the runes rapidly spread along his arm, ultimately connecting with the royal mark on his back to form a perfect energy matrix.
This was the ultimate form of 'Refining' — human-machine fusion and bloodline control of the artefact.
"In your eyes, this city is a pasture, and life is fuel." Aaryan slowly rose to his feet. With each step he took, the rubble beneath his feet automatically levitated and reformed into crystalline lattice platforms, shimmering with a purplish-gold light.
He raised his head and saw that his left eye, once covered in blood, was now crystalline and purplish-gold in colour. In the centre of his pupil, the miniature gears of the spacetime axis were faintly visible, spinning rapidly. 'But you've forgotten that this land's original name was "King's Territory".'
"Fire! Fire immediately!" The Executor had completely lost his composure.
The five 'Wings of Judgement' warships in the sky simultaneously adjusted their cannons. The 'Crimson Hooks', which were originally intended for harvesting souls, switched to the destructive 'Holy Diamond Pulse Cannons'. Five almost transparent white energy beams merged into one, carrying temperatures high enough to vaporise everything, and crashed down on the clock tower stronghold.
"Aaryan!" Dahlia and Balthazar cried out simultaneously. An attack of this intensity would have flattened a third of the entire Maya district.
However, the anticipated explosion did not occur.
When the destructive beam of light was only metres above Aaryan's head, he calmly raised his left hand and gently flicked his fingers.
In that instant, time seemed to sink into a viscous swamp. A visible ripple erupted from the core of spacetime. The previously raging Holy Diamond pulse strangely deflected and folded upon touching this ripple, winding backward along the arc of Aaryan's fingertips towards the six 'Ark Shackles'.
'Royal Decree—Reverse Interference.' All Holy Blood technology is essentially a clumsy imitation of the primordial ether. Aaryan, who possesses pure royal blood, has the highest level of 'management authority' over these energies.
'Bang!' Bang! Bang!'
After six loud bangs in quick succession, the six pillars driven into the ground failed to suppress the energy; instead, they became lightning rods for an energy overload. Accompanied by soaring purple lightning, the absolute silence field collapsed instantly. The backlash energy surged back into the warships along the traction beam.
Fireballs exploded in rapid succession in the sky, and the warships that symbolised the Council's inviolable power plummeted like doves with broken wings into the sea of acid rain below.
'Now, it's time to pay the price.'
Aaryan vanished from his spot and reappeared a second later in front of the Executor. Instead of using any flashy moves, he slammed his fist, covered in purple-gold scales and carrying the rage of the entire city, heavily onto the silver-white Holy Blood visor.
With a crack, the indestructible visor shattered into dust and the usually haughty face of the Executor contorted with extreme fear.
'Malakor is watching from the top of the tower, isn't he?' Aaryan grabbed the Executor by the collar, his voice icy and devoid of emotion.
He turned around, the royal insignia on his back bursting forth with dazzling light. In the ruins of the stronghold, the demonic workers who had been on the verge of death discovered that the crimson hooks piercing their bodies were transforming into gentle life energy, healing their wounds.
"Tell him this is just the beginning."
Aaryan swung his right arm sharply, unleashing a powerful surge of purple-gold energy that swept across the area and instantly hurled the remaining Purifiers away. The giant bell in the clock tower, sealed for centuries, emitted a deep, ancient and majestic rumble of its own accord.
Dong!
The sound echoed throughout the Maya District, reaching the ears of the survivors hiding in the shadows and the towering Holy Blood Floating Tower.
The scene of intertwining ruins and miracles came to an end. Aaryan stood high above, his tattered work clothes billowing in the wind and revealing the fully awakened crown-shaped burning mark on his back.
He was no longer the lowly demonic creature hiding in the machine factory.
He was the only one who had been determined to reach this point.
The flames at the Clock Tower Stronghold gradually subsided, but the air was still filled with lingering purple-gold aftershocks, causing subtle ripples in space.
Aaryan re-embedded the '1969 Zero Time-Space Core' into a specially crafted brass arm guard. As the core returned to its place, the burning royal mark on his back finally faded, transforming into a dark red scar deeply etched into his flesh and soul.
'We've got it, but we've completely lost the Shadow,' said Cyrus hoarsely, looking at the city streets outside the ruins, which were now under martial law. Due to Aaryan's awakening, the entire Maya District's 'Ethernet Network' had been instantly reconnected and the Holy Blood Council's previously held surveillance privileges were now largely ineffective. This was a huge advantage — they finally had the foundation for a counterattack and the armed force to protect their people.
However, there was a price to pay.
At the top of the Holy Blood Floating Tower, Malakor stared at the words 'Royal Lineage Rebooted' displayed on the screen and grinned maniacally as he pressed the red 'Abyss Purification' command.
'Aaryan...' Dahlia suddenly grabbed Aaryan's arm, her white eyes lit up and filled with an unprecedented terror. 'I could hear it... not a sound, just the "heartbeat" of the entire city slowing down. They've activated the ultimate agreement of the 'Crimson Pact'."
No sooner had she finished speaking than steam pipes originally used for energy supply in the tens of thousands of slums in the distant Maya district began to spew thick black smoke, and the mechanical parts inside demonic workers with inferior prosthetics began to heat up violently. A forbidden virus called 'Clockwork Plague' was spreading through the global network under orders from the Council.
The real crisis did not come from the warships' encirclement, but from the Holy Blood Council's decision to eradicate all 'bio-batteries' in the region.
Aaryan helped the injured Balthazar to his feet and gazed at the horizon, which was stained blood-red by the setting sun. 'Next stop, we'll knock on the gates of the floating tower and reclaim our lives.'
In the shadows behind them, the severed limbs of an executor who should have been dead twitched slightly as he sent final coordinates into the void. 'Royal bloodline confirmed.' Location: Sewage outlet number 13, Maya District. Execute 'Final Judgement'."