Ashes of the First King
The bells of Caelum tolled like a funeral dirge.
Ren stood at the edge of the Lower Gardens, the weight of the Clockwork Crown spinning slowly behind his head. Its glowing symbols painted the smoke around him crimson. Beneath his boots, ancient gears whirred to life, awakening machinery older than any living soul could remember.
The Forgotten Titan towered over him, steam hissing from its broken plates, eyes burning like twin furnaces. Behind it, the wreckage of ancient defense systems flickered and sparked, auto-turrets rising, cannons rotating like sleeping giants stirring from slumber.
Above, the sky was a swirl of black smoke and neon artillery fire. Caelum was preparing to unleash everything.
Mira coughed beside him, holding her bleeding side, her eyes locked on him with a mixture of horror and devotion. "Ren... this is war."
Ren glanced at her only briefly. His gaze was locked on the horizon where the spires of Caelum glistened in the distance, pristine and untouched by the suffering below.
"No," he murmured. "This... is justice."
---
Citadel of the Lords
"Deploy the Sovereign Fleet," the eldest Lord commanded.
Around him, his peers exchanged nervous glances. The Sovereign Fleet had not flown in over a century. It was once used to annihilate rebellious sectors, not to combat forgotten weapons buried beneath their own city.
"Are you certain?" another whispered. "If the old fleet malfunctions, the upper rings will burn too."
The eldest Lord smiled, sharp and knowing. "Then let them burn. We will rebuild. But first, he dies."
Below their feet, massive hangars yawned open, and the Sovereign Fleet rose from its slumber: black, angular airships bristling with war engines, weapons humming with ancient plasma cores.
---
Ren could feel the energy resonating beneath his skin, could feel Ashir whispering ancient commands into his ears.
"Speak the name, child. Speak the name of kings past and claim the Armory."
He exhaled, the breath coming out like steam.
"Ashveil."
The ground beneath him trembled.
From the broken earth, monolithic structures began rising—half temple, half war machine. Enormous clockwork vaults peeled open, revealing weapons designed for a forgotten war. Swords the size of towers. Cannons etched with runes that glimmered faintly.
And standing sentinel around the Armory…
Titans.
Dozens of them, like the Forgotten Titan. Half-dead, rusted, broken—but still moving, still obeying.
Ren extended his hand.
"We march."
---
The Sovereign Fleet opened fire first.
The sky erupted into hell. Plasma lances screamed down from the heavens, cutting through the outer Gardens like divine punishment. Towers crumbled, streets shattered, bodies—both rebel and innocent—were vaporized.
But as the smoke cleared, the Titans moved.
Cannon fire glanced off their rusted armor. One fell, splitting open like rotten fruit, but three more stepped forward.
Anti-air cannons hidden for centuries roared to life on their shoulders, spitting green lightning into the sky. The first Sovereign dreadnought exploded, splitting in half, raining molten metal on the streets below.
Ren marched beneath the falling debris, unflinching.
Mira limped beside him, clutching her ribs, watching her world dissolve into madness.
"You're going to burn everything," she whispered.
"Everything they built," Ren corrected, his voice quiet, dangerous, steady. "Everything they stole. Everything they kept hidden."
He looked up at the smoke-choked sky.
"And when the ash settles, we build it again. Properly this time."
---
Within the High Citadel…
The eldest Lord sat back, swirling his glass of wine.
"Let it burn," he murmured.
One of the younger Lords, pale and shaking, hissed at him, "This is madness! We could still negotiate!"
"Negotiate?" The eldest's voice was velvet wrapped around razors. "With a king wearing the bones of our ancestors? No. The machine has awakened. The world will burn regardless of what we choose. All that remains... is deciding who rules the ashes."
He lifted his glass in toast—to the burning city, to the end of their world.
---
As the first of Ren's Titans breached the perimeter of the Upper Gardens, alarms screamed.
Families of the elite fled in sleek skycraft, abandoning their homes, their wealth, everything they'd hoarded for generations.
The first Titan crushed a golden archway beneath its foot. The second ripped an anti-air cannon from its mount and hurled it like a spear through the engine housing of a fleeing dreadnought.
Ren didn't blink.
The Clockwork Crown behind his head spun faster now, symbols shifting, translating languages long dead into living, burning light.
Ashir whispered like a knife against glass. "They called us parasites. Let them see what true rot looks like."
Mira stumbled as they ascended the broken staircases toward the Inner Citadel.
"Ren… What about the children? The servants? The ones who didn't choose this?"
His jaw clenched. For a moment—one moment—he faltered.
Innocents.
Were there innocents?
The machine didn't care.
But Ren did.
"No civilian targets," he growled. "Only the Lords."
The Titans hesitated, gears screeching slightly as ancient protocols wrestled with his new command.
Mira looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time again.
He wasn't gone yet.
---
But the Lords weren't finished.
High above, something far worse than the Sovereign Fleet awakened.
The First King's Engine.
A machine of impossible scale. Not an airship. Not a Titan.
A fortress.
It detached itself from the highest spire of Caelum, unfolding massive, skeletal wings of obsidian metal. Runic cores flared beneath its armor, humming with apocalyptic energy.
Mira's breath caught. "What the hell is that?!"
Ren's lips parted slightly. Even he didn't recognize it.
Ashir's voice trembled—not with fear, but with reverence. "The throne of the First King. The god-machine of Caelum. Their final sin."
It began to descend.
---
Ren looked down at Mira. "Get clear."
"No."
"I'm not asking."
"I don't care. I stay."
Ren's heart twisted.
For the first time in years, something besides rage flickered in his eyes.
"If I don't stop that," he said softly, "it's not just Caelum that burns. It's the world."
Above, the god-machine unfolded weapons of impossible scale—cannons longer than entire city blocks, glowing with the light of collapsed suns.
The Clockwork Crown flared to life, gears spinning wildly. Ancient glyphs swarmed across Ren's body like molten tattoos.
Ashir whispered his final gift:
"One King must fall… so another may rise."
Ren took a breath.
The Broken King stepped forward, his army of rust and ruin behind him, as the First King's Engine aimed its guns at the world.
The war for the machine had begun.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]