Robes

Inside Amira's courtyard, Draco and Amira were getting into a white SUV.

After buckling themselves in, the SUV headed out towards the direction of the central palace.

Seeing this, Draco asked excitedly, "Are we going into the palace?"

However, Amira shook her head, "Sort of, but we're not going into the central areas of the palace. We're heading towards the Ḥāmin Tower." she said.

"The Ḥāmin Tower?" Draco asked, curious.

Amira nodded her head, "It is a tower where the majority of the Ḥāmin reside. However, It is a silent, soulless place, so I usually try to stay away from it."

Draco became even more curious when he heard this, 'I wonder what kind of place this, Ḥāmin Tower is.' he wondered.

Soon, their car came to a stop outside of a massive white tower.

The tower was attached to the central palace, and since it was hundreds of meters tall it looked like a white skyscraper. Atop the tower was a large, golden dome, and Draco realized that this was one of the four towers he had seen when they were flying in.

The tower itself had a huge metal door, and Draco figured that the door was around 20 feet long and 30 feet tall.

However, what immediately drew Draco's attention was not the massive tower, but instead the large group of people in front of the tower.

Draco saw that arranged in ten neat rows of ten, were one hundred Ḥāmin training in the courtyard.

The Ḥāmin were wearing their signature white robes, and they moved in sync as they executed numerous basic combat forms.

Looking at the one hundred guards in front of them, the only thing Draco could hear was the swishing sounds of fabric as they continued to train.

Draco was mesmerized as he got out of the SUV. The only time he had ever seen a similar sight was in Karate action movies, but it was entirely different seeing such a thing in person.

Draco saw that Amira was walking towards the tower, so he followed her.

Amira led him through the columns of Ḥāmin, and Draco could feel his hair blowing as the Ḥāmin's attacks created gusts of wind around them.

Reaching the entrance, Draco expected the massive door to start sliding open, but instead they headed towards a small metal door built into the corner of the main door.

The door was opened by a lone Ḥāmin, and Draco followed Amira into the tower.

Entering into the tower, Draco was amazed by what he saw. He didn't know what he was expecting, but what he saw inside left him speechless.

"Is this also an effect of those, space compressing.. things that you were talking about?" Draco asked Amira.

"Spatial compression artifacts, yes. However, the one in here is many times more powerful than the one in Muhammed's plane."

Looking around, Draco could tell that it was true.

The entirety of the tower seemed hollow, but it extended upwards so far past his vision that he couldn't actually see the ceiling.

Alongside the walls of the tower seemed to be hundreds upon hundreds of square shaped holes. Looking closer, Draco noticed that some of the 'holes' were actually closed off by metal doors.

"Amira, what's up with all the holes in the wall?" Draco asked, curious.

"Those are the rooms of the Ḥāmin, they are domiciles where they can eat and sleep. I call them rooms, but in reality they are just slots in the wall that can barely fit a bed. Luckily, the Ḥāmin hardly ever need to sleep or eat, so they spend little time in them." Amira replied.

Draco was surprised when he heard that each of those rooms belonged to a Ḥāmin, as there must have been at least a thousand of them lining the walls of the tower.

In the center of the tower was a massive white dome, and there were a steady stream of Ḥāmin entering and exiting it.

Amira walked towards the dome, and Draco followed her as he observed the Ḥāmin around the tower.

As Draco watched the Ḥāmin walk around the tower, something made him uncomfortable. It was only when he and Amira had reached the dome's entrance did he realize what it was.

'Damn, it really is silent and soulless in here.' Draco thought, only just now noticing that it was eerily quiet in the tower.

Even though there were well over a hundred Ḥāmin walking around, Draco could only hear his own footsteps. When Draco focused, he realized that he couldn't hear Amira's footsteps either.

Since the Ḥāmin made no noise when they walked around, and spoke no words, the populated tower felt like a ghost town.

As Amira and Draco walked into the dome he noticed that it was separated into two sections.

Judging from all of the exercise equipment, and the shirtless Ḥāmin working out on them, Draco guessed that this first section was a gym. It made probably the most noise in the entire tower, but that was only because of the rhythmic clinking of metal weights.

The other section of the dome was walled off, and was separated by a heavy duty steel door.

Outside the door were two Ḥāmin guards, who both kneeled to the ground as Amira and Draco approached them.

Amira typed something into the control panel, and then placed her hand upon it. The control panel glowed with light, and the large metal door slowly slid open.

Walking into the room, Draco eventually realized that he was standing inside of an armory of some sort.

Along one wall of the room were hundreds of weapons of every variety. There were swords, spears, bows, axes, and throwing weapons of every kind.

On another wall Draco saw that there were hundreds of firearms.

Draco spotted numerous rifles, pistols, and shotguns. Leaning against several crates Draco even spotted a few rocket launchers. He imagined that inside the crates there were countless other weapons.

When Draco looked to the last wall, he saw that it was lined with dozens upon dozens of the Ḥāmin's trademark white robes. Next to the robes was what looked like a dozen heavy suits of armor.

The metal on this armor was pure white and glistened in the light of the room.

Judging from the faint yellow light emanating from the crevices of the armor, Draco concluded that it was probably powered by some sort of energy.

"Jesus." Draco whistled, "You could take down an entire country with the sh*t that's in here."

Amira laughed, "Several, actually."

Draco watched curiously as Amira walked towards the side of the room with the armor, and stopped before the row of white robes.

"So, I imagine you're wondering why we're here." Amira said.

Draco nodded his head and waited for Amira to explain.

"Now that you are one of the powered under my care, I have to make sure that you look the part. After all, as my servant I can't have you bringing shame to the Khalid Dynasty now can I?"

Draco seemed to understand where she was going with this, and shamelessly replied, "No can do! So… what do I get? Maybe some of this high-tech armor right here?"

Amira just chuckled and shook her head, "Keep dreaming, Draco."

She then reached towards the wall and pulled a set of white robes off of it.

After she had walked up to Draco she said, "This is a set of Savior Robes. They're standard-grade artifacts that are both bulletproof and self repairing."

Draco looked at the white robe in a renewed light, "They're that powerful?"

Amira nodded her head, "Indeed, even the standard gear that the Ḥāmin receive are powerful artifacts."

When Draco heard this, he had another question, "Amira, what are these 'artifacts' you keep talking about?"

"Artifacts are the tools that we powered use to fully utilize our strengths. However, not all of these tools are made equally." she said as she motioned around the room.

"Artifacts are separated into five grades. Those grades are low-grade, standard-grade, high-grade, mythical-grade, and finally legendary-grade."

"Legendary-grade?" Draco asked, curious.

Amira nodded her head, "It's the rarest and most powerful grade of Artifact. Most have existed for millennia, and they're so powerful that entire nations have been destroyed by them. In fact, even non-combat legendary-grade artifacts can change the world."

She continued, "However, since even the weakest Progenitor already inherently has strength equivalent to a mythical-grade artifact, legendary-grade ones are highly sought after by the greatest powers of the world."

Draco struggled to comprehend the power of an artifact that could destroy an entire nation, but he still nodded his head.

"It's crazy to think that these standard-grade robes are so strong, when they're not even the third most powerful kind of artifact." Draco said as he looked at the white robes in Amira's hand.

Amira chuckled, "The Khalid Dynasty has the best of the best."

She then handed the robes to Draco.

"Go ahead and try them on, don't worry about the sizing as they will automatically tailor themselves to fit you." she said.

Draco took the robes from Amira with a stupid grin on his face.

He was excited to experience what it would feel like to wear the infamous robes of the Ḥāmin.