• Prologue - A New Era

The stars had shone upon humanity for millennia, but even stars die.

And when Earth's sun withered into darkness, so too did the warmth that cradled civilization. It collapsed, not into a supernova, not into a black hole, but into nothingness. It was as if the light had simply…

died.

The year was 2271.

No one knew why. No one had time to find out.

Because before anyone could, the world was swallowed by an ice age.

Billions perished in the first few months. The survivors, desperate and broken, realised if they stayed on the planet it would be their tomb.

They had to abandon the earth.

And so humanity's current experts came together.

Pulling together resources as quickly as possible so they could to build starships called...

The Exodus.

Forged from the dying embers of Earth's crust. A fleet of massive interstellar colony ships designed to carry the last remnants of humanity into the cosmos.

The flagship of this fleet was the E.S.S. Valkyrian, a titan of metal and ingenuity, housing nearly five million souls in cryosleep. Dozens of smaller vessels followed in its wake, each a lifeboat adrift in the infinite black.

For 112 years, humanity searched. The fleet drifted from system to system, world to world.

Planets too toxic, atmospheres too thin, gravity too harsh—none could sustain them.

Generations were born and died in the starships, hope dwindling with each failed attempt. But then… they found it.

The planet was unlike anything humanity had ever encountered.

A world ten times the size of Earth, its atmosphere thick and rich with oxygen.

Forests trees stretched beyond the horizon, their leaves shimmering like metal in the wind.

Vast oceans churned beneath blood-red skies. And the energy readings… they were impossible.

Humanity named their new home Aethelgard—a name taken from ancient tongues, meaning "Noble Guardian."

With no other choice, they descended.

At first, survival was all that mattered. But something was wrong.

Within months of arrival, men began to weaken. Their muscles atrophied, their endurance faded, their aggression dulled.

At first, they thought it was an illness. But the truth was far stranger. The planet itself exuded an energy—a low-frequency Aetherial Wave that resonated with the biology of living beings here.

It was everywhere, woven into the air, the soil, even the water. And for reasons unknown, it had an inverse effect on gender.

Women grew stronger, faster, more resilient. Their aggression sharpened, their minds adapted, their very essence resonated with the world.

Men, on the other hand, found themselves drained, their aggression siphoned away. It took a single generation for the effects to become irreversible. Society, unable to resist the natural shift, adapted.

The old world's traditions crumbled.

Women became the warriors, the builders, the rulers. Men, though still valued, took roles once considered secondary—caretakers, strategists, scholars. It was a quiet revolution, not by war, but by necessity.

A new order was forged, and for a time, humanity thrived.

In the year 2993.

They came like a storm.

At first, they were just distant shadows in the sky—blackened meteors that burned as they fell.

Then the screams began. A strange race of creatures unlike anything humanity had ever faced, descended upon Aethelgard with primal fury.

Towering beasts of twisted chitin, their bodies pulsing with a strange energy. Their arrival was not a conquest, not an invasion. It was a hunt.

Humanity decided to call them, The Kryll.

Cities fell overnight. The E.S.S. Valkyrian, once the beacon of human survival, was torn from the heavens, its wreckage scattered across the land.

Every weapon humanity had built proved useless.

Their bullets barely pierced Kryll hides. Their machines were ripped apart like paper. Within a year, humanity teetered on the edge of extinction.

Then… something awakened.

The Kryll were not just monsters.

They were conduits of the same strange energy that saturated Aethelgard itself. And in their presence, something within humanity's women stirred.

They called it Aetheria—a latent power, lying dormant in their blood, now brought to the surface by the Kryll's very existence.

Fire that could consume the wind.

Ice that could freeze time itself.

Strength that could shatter mountains.

Aetheria turned ordinary women into warriors of legend, able to fight the Kryll on equal ground. And so, the war changed.

No longer did humanity cower in fear. Now, they fought. And they won.

But victory was an illusion. The Kryll never truly left. They lurked in the darkest corners of the world, attacking without warning.

Some still lived in the ruins of human cities, others fell from the heavens in waves, as if the sky itself were birthing nightmares.

Humanity could not afford peace.

Every girl was now trained from birth, every boy raised with the knowledge that his role was to support those who could fight.

Aethelgard was no longer a sanctuary. It was a battlefield, one where the war would never end.

And so, a new era began—an age of discipline, where survival was law and war was eternal.

The last remnants of humanity had no choice but to fight, for their enemy was relentless, and the sky would never stop burning.

....

....

Today, March 14 3035.

Kingdom of Valleria – The Crystalline Expanse, Western Front

The battlefield was an endless stretch of jagged blue glass, remnants of an ancient ocean turned into a frozen wasteland of crystallized salt.

The winds howled through the formations of razor-sharp spires, sending flakes of brittle crystal scattering into the air. Under the eternal crimson sky, the Western Front of Valleria was a warzone.

And today, it was drowning in blood.

A colossal Kryll loomed in the distance—its body a grotesque mass of pulsating black chitin, its elongated limbs jagged like the scythes of a thousand executioners. It was a Class-V Kryll—Designation: Abyssal Reaper. A monster of war, its segmented form slithered through the crystalline terrain like a centipede, its tendrils extending outward, writhing as if tasting the battlefield.

Standing nearly 40 meters tall when reared, its bulbous, ridged head bore no eyes, only a gaping vertical maw lined with spiraling rows of fangs.

But the true horror was its aura.

Aetherial corruption bled from its body like a thick, suffocating fog, turning the very air into a battlefield. Every breath felt heavy. Every movement slow. And for the men, it was like drowning in tar.

"Reaper incoming! Hold the line!"

The order came from Commander Lysara Vael, her voice sharp through the comms. She stood atop a fractured salt ridge, a beacon of authority in her gleaming obsidian-black combat suit, reinforced with hexagonal Aetherial plates. Her silver hair whipped in the wind as her gauntlets glowed, coursing with raw Aetheria.

At the vanguard, dozens of Aetherians engaged the smaller Kryll—Class-II Daggerlings, vile insect-like creatures that moved in packs, each no larger than a bear but fast as lightning. Their serrated forelimbs tore through armor like paper, their movements a blur of death. Yet, the Aetherians met them in full force.

Seris Dorne, a Flame Aetherian, vaulted over a lunging Daggerling, her crimson battle suit crackling with molten energy. With a downward slash, her blade ignited, and a geyser of fire erupted, reducing the creature to ash. Beside her, Kaela Morrin, a Gravity Aetherian, slammed her fists into the ground. The impact sent a shockwave that crushed three Daggerlings into the salt beneath them, their bodies imploding under the immense pressure.

The battle raged. But the Abyssal Reaper had yet to strike.

Far behind the vanguard, Alex Reiner stood on an elevated platform constructed from armored scaffolding. He was a long black haired blue eyed slim yet fit man clad in a sleek black exo-frame,

He was a 'Handler' his role was not to fight directly but to orchestrate the chaos.

His Handler HUD displayed tactical data in real-time—Aetherian power levels, enemy movements, terrain analysis. Every second mattered.

"Squad Three, pull back! Squad Five, redirect towards the Reaper's left flank! We need to isolate it before it engages directly!"

His voice carried through the battlefield, relayed through their neural links. A Handler's role was second only to the Commander. He was the eyes and ears, ensuring every strike landed where it mattered most.

Then, the Abyssal Reaper moved.

With an ear-piercing shriek, it descended upon the vanguard. A single swipe of its elongated scythe-like limbs bisected three Aetherians instantly, their bodies collapsing before they could even scream. Another tendril shot forward, impaling an airborne warrior, lifting her into the air before violently rending her apart.

"FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" Lysara shouted, her hands glowing as she unleashed a barrage of compressed wind, trying to stagger the beast. But the Reaper was undeterred.

Then it shifted.

The pulsating glow beneath its chitin intensified, and its blackened armor peeled back, revealing a writhing, bioluminescent core.

It was evolving.

Alex's blood ran cold.

"No… It's entering Apex Form! Everyone, disengage!"

But the warning came too late.

With an explosion of force, the Reaper's form elongated, its tendrils hardening into serrated whips. Its limbs split further, becoming quad-bladed scythes, and a new maw opened across its chest—lined with twisting, gnashing teeth.

The next ten seconds were carnage.

Twelve Aetherians fell in an instant, cut down before they could react. Lysara herself was sent flying, crashing into the crystalline terrain, blood spraying from a deep wound along her torso.

The vanguard was breaking.

And then…

Alex acted.

"Bring up the Rail Cannon! NOW!"

From behind him, an enormous construct rumbled to life—a prototype siege weapon he had personally commissioned from Valleria's engineers. The Bastion's Harbinger-Class Rail Cannon.

Mounted atop a stabilizing turret, the weapon was a monstrosity of tungsten plating, its barrel stretching nearly 20 meters, its internals humming with aetherically-infused rail acceleration coils. A weapon of war designed to bring down Class-V Kryll in a single shot.

Alex took manual control, his visor locking onto the Abyssal Reaper's exposed core.

One shot. That was all he had.

"Firing in three… two… one…"

A deafening CRACK split the battlefield as the Bastion fired.

A streak of blinding white energy ripped through the air, shattering the very atmosphere with its force. The hyper-dense Aetherium round struck the Reaper's core dead center.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, the Abyssal Reaper convulsed violently. Its body seized, a hideous wail erupting from its multiple maws as its chitin cracked from the inside out. The energy within it surged wildly, unable to contain the disruption.

And then—

It exploded.

A massive shockwave swept across the battlefield, sending shards of blackened carapace flying in all directions. The sky itself trembled from the force.

For a long moment, silence reigned.

Then—

"WE WON!"

Aetherians still standing raised their weapons, their cheers erupting like wildfire. The wounded, even as they bled, shouted his name.

"Reiner! Reiner! Reiner!"

Alex exhaled, stepping away from the cannon, his hands shaking.

The battle was over.