The sky over Alexandria was blackened not by clouds, but by the endless smoke of war.
Herzl stood atop the remains of what used to be a hillside village, now reduced to dust and embers. All that remained were the silhouettes of charred homes and hollowed-eyed survivors—if they could still be called that. He looked down at his trembling hands. No blood today. But the stench of death was unrelenting.
Behind him, Grim lit a cigarette.
"This isn't about territory anymore," Grim muttered. "This is about survival. Of our ideas. Of our species."
The Republic's bombing campaign had pushed deeper into the Kingdom's heartlands. Both sides now retaliated daily with airstrikes—long-range bombers, UAVs, and experimental jetplanes enhanced with Inn reactors that made them faster, more lethal.
But it wasn't the planes Herzl feared most.
It was the growing whispers of a new figure emerging from the Eastern Wastes.
A general? A warlord? No—something worse.
They called him Veyrion, but those who had seen him and lived spoke only one word:
Void.
He was said to manipulate not just Inn, but an ancient, lost form—Shatter Inn—a version that corrupted both user and world. Crops withered where he walked. Soldiers died in their dreams. Even machines malfunctioned in his presence.
Rumor had it he once served the Kingdom.
Until he decided that both sides deserved extinction.