The Kruger Induction Camp was nothing like the El'Vertigo academies.
No velvet carpets. No ceremony. Just concrete walls, iron grates, and the constant thrum of drills and screaming. Pablo stood in formation beneath the blistering sun of Moonbase Helix, the air thin, the gravity heavy, sweat burning down his spine as if the planet wanted him gone.
"Na?" the drill officer barked.
"Pablo," he said, stopping himself from finishing with El'Vertigo. "Initiate-class. No sigil."
The officer smirked. "A noble who crawled here without a na. You'll fit right in."
Around him, the recruits—battle-born or broken—glanced with suspicion. So whispered. That's him. The one with the Leviathan. The Blood Apostle's shadow.
Let them whisper. Pablo didn't co to make friends.
He ca to beco sothing harder than his na.
[Kyros One – The Ridge, Hour 1]
Kiro stood atop the red escarpnt, his crimson cloak rippling in the wind. Below him, his fledgling settlent still smoked from their frantic construction—half-built walls, improvised forges, training fields of dust and sweat. All of it now cast beneath the dark shadow of Arion ships.
They had promised twenty hours to surrender.
They lied.
A single barrage of autonomous drones fell from the heavens like tallic hail. They didn't target defenses.
They targeted hos.
Explosions blood like burning flowers. Shacks shattered. Craters tore through water reserves and storage crates. n scread. The scent of molten alloy and burning flesh filled the air.
"Evacuate!" Kiro bellowed. "Fall back to the cavern system—now!"
The six hundred n, all that remained of Krugo's legacy, broke ranks. They weren't trained soldiers. Not yet. But they moved—through smoke and fla—guided by Kiro's booming voice and the pull of survival.
Kiro stayed behind long enough to intercept three drones mid-air, blood system coiling around his arms like barbed wings. He crushed one, skewered another, and redirected the third into the cliff wall with a blast of pulsing red energy.
Then he vanished into the stone with his people.
[Moonbase Helix – Pablo, Day 12]
Blood. Pain. Exhaustion.
Pablo no longer flinched at bruises. His body had begun to harden, layer by layer, under the relentless hamr of Kruger discipline. His instructors drove him rcilessly, as if punishing him for the life he used to live.
"Think a rebel city makes you a hero?" a drill sergeant spat. "You think bleeding for a ghost buys you glory?"
Pablo didn't answer. He had stopped speaking during training. He let his fists speak. His silence was sharper than words.
And slowly, the whispers began to change.
He doesn't quit.
He doesn't break.
[Kyros One – Hour 2: The Caverns Below]
Kiro erged inside the winding tunnels beneath the Ridge, guiding the last wave of rebels through a narrow passage that sealed with the flick of a blood-forged sigil.
The system whispered in his mind, its voice low and cold.
Blood Domain recognized. Cavern network assimilated. Subterranean fortification initiated.
He looked around at the six hundred n—dust-covered, bloodied, afraid—and raised his voice.
"No one dies today unless it's on their feet," Kiro growled. "We are no longer slaves. We are the last blood of Krugo. And this stone will be our shield."
They rallied behind him, shaken but not broken.
They had lost the surface. But the war wasn't over.
Not even close.
[Moonbase Helix – Pablo, Nightfall]
Pablo sat on his bunk, unwrapping blood-soaked tape from his wrists. His knuckles throbbed, his spine ached, but he felt sothing shift.
Respect.
A recruit passed by and muttered, "They say he's alive. The Blood Apostle."
Pablo looked up.
"They say he held the Ridge. But the Arion are hunting him now."
Pablo turned to the narrow viewport, gazing into the black sea of stars.
"Good," he said.
"Then I still have ti to reach him."
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