The wall was called the Iron Curtain, but no one remembered who named it. Thirty kilometers of reinforced concrete, layered with alloy ribs and carbon-etched plating scavenged from the old world and the first awakenings. It had been tested by hordes, by aberrant stampedes, by siege-mutants that could tear tanks apart.
The Iron Curtain had been standing long enough that people no longer remembered the fear that built it.
Children learned to walk in its shadow. Lovers met beneath its floodlights. Old men sat on overturned crates and argued about football teams that no longer existed, their voices carried by the wind that always seemed to move along the wall instead of against it.
Sector 4 had survived because of the wall.
Fifteen years of pressure. Fifteen years of sieges. Fifteen years of watching other sectors go dark on the maps while Sector 4 remained lit in dull, stubborn green.
The Iron Curtain was not a miracle anymore. It was a fact of life, as unquestioned as gravity. It had never failed.
Dante knew this because he'd helped patch it. Not as a soldier or as an awakened. Just another civilian with a ration stamp and a borrowed welding rig, sealing stress fractures for credits that barely kept him and his sister fed. He knew the texture of the wall's surface, the way the concrete sang faintly when pressure built behind it. He even knew its smell when rain hit the heated metal.
But that morning, it smelled totally wrong.
Dante used to think that if it ever fell, the sound alone would kill half the city.
He wasn't wrong.
The first thing that broke was rhythm.
Dante noticed it while sorting salvage near the outer transit road. The air felt heavier. Neither hot nor cold. But simply heavier, as if breathing now required attention.
A child asked her mother why the birds were flying away. They fled in a single, unified surge, wings beating in blind panic toward the inner sky. Conversations faltered as people followed the birds with their eyes, confusion spreading faster than words.
Dante looked up. High above the Iron Curtain, so high Dante had to crane his neck until it hurt, something stood where nothing had ever stood before.
At first his mind refused to process the sheer scale. The wall had always been the tallest thing in his world. Even the old skyscraper ruins bowed beneath it in memory. But the figure beyond it rose higher still, its upper body lifting into the cloud line, its outline sharp against the pale morning sky. Its presence bent perspective. The wall, once dominant, now looked like an afterthought.
People began to gather without realizing they were doing it. They drifted into the streets, drawn by the same instinct that made animals freeze before earthquakes. No one screamed yet. No one ran.
The figure leaned forward. It placed one massive hand against the wall.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the Iron Curtain screamed.
The sound was deep, resonant and structural, a vibration that traveled through the city's foundations and into every living being's bone. Dante felt it in his teeth, in his chest, in the old fractures of badly healed injuries.
The wall buckled.
Concrete didn't shatter. It was compressed. Alloy ribs warped inward as if crushed by invisible pressure.
With a slow, deliberate motion, the monarch peeled a section of the Iron Curtain away from the city.
Thirty Kilometers of reinforced defense came apart like wet cardboard.
People didn't scream right away.
They stared.
Some laughed in disbelief. Others dropped to their knees. A few began praying to gods that had died years ago. Soldiers along the ramparts froze, their military training screaming at them to fire but their instincts whispering that it wouldn't matter.
The soldiers on the wall saw it clearly.
Men who had held firing lines against stampeding hordes stepped backward from the parapet. One of them dropped his rifle. Another raised binoculars with shaking hands, then lowered them slowly, as if afraid the thing might notice being observed.
A whisper moved through the crowd.
"One of the Three mornachs. Iron Goliath of the triarchy"
The Triarchy Monarch leaned forward.
Its movement was unhurried, deliberate in a way that suggested patience measured in centuries. When its hand touched the Iron Curtain again, the wall reacted like a living thing under unbearable strain. Concrete groaned and steel screamed.
Dante's teeth vibrated. His vision blurred for a second as the ground trembled beneath his feet.
The wall began to deform.
It folded inward, its surface compressing under pressure that ignored human engineering entirely. The Monarch's fingers tightened, and a section of the Iron Curtain came away in its grasp, peeling loose in slabs that disintegrated as they fell.
The city inhaled.
When the wall collapsed, it did so inward, raining debris into the outer districts. Buildings shuddered. Vehicles overturned. People were thrown to the ground as dust and shattered concrete surged outward like a storm front.
Dust rolled across the outer districts in choking waves. Sirens finally found their voice, howling evacuation codes that everyone had memorized and no one believed they would ever hear for real.
Dante stood frozen, staring at the breach.
The wall that had defined his entire adult life was gone.
Then came the horde.
They moved as a single, coordinated mass, pouring through the opening with terrifying discipline. Bodies climbed over bodies. The dead did not trip over rubble, they flowed around it. Those that fell were trampled without hesitation, limbs torn loose and left behind as the rest pressed forward.
And above them all, the monarch watched.
Dante could not see it, but he knew with certainty that the Monarch was not alone. The horde shifted subtly, reorienting itself as if responding to another sovereign presence. Far above the city, the clouds churned in slow, unnatural patterns.
Dante stood frozen for a heartbeat too long.
Then he remembered his sister.
She would still be there. He ran as fast as his legs could take him.
The streets were already changing. Soldiers tried to form firing lines, shouting orders that dissolved into noise. Civilians surged in every direction, clutching children, dragging the injured, tripping over fallen debris. A man collapsed in front of Dante, blood pouring from a head wound, and no one stopped to help him.
Heavy cannons and rounds flew. Awakened artillery that burned through armored alloy like paper. "Fall back!" a soldier screamed over comms. "Heralds are on the way, hold the line for thirty minutes!"
Thirty minutes.
That was how long Sector 4 Command thought the city had.
The Iron-Goliath stood where the wall had been, thirty feet of calcified muscle and fused bone, its body compressed so densely it distorted the air around it. It didn't roar or posture. It took one step forward, and buildings within a hundred meters fractured as if slapped by gravity itself.
The shells of the soldiers hit the Iron-Goliath and vanished into its mass, swallowed without slowing it down.
Dante ducked as a shockwave flung a transport vehicle sideways. A squad of soldiers sprinted past him, faces locked into expressions that had nothing to do with bravery anymore. These were veterans. People who had survived years of attrition. Their fear was quiet, focused and efficient.
One of them grabbed Dante by the collar and yanked him behind a barricade as debris rained down.
"Inner ring!" the man shouted. "If you're not awakened, you don't stop moving!"
"My sister," Dante gasped. "she's in medical tent C—"
The soldier's jaw tightened. He didn't answer immediately, and that hesitation told Dante everything.
"That sector's compromised," he said finally. "Blister-Wight breach. They're already popping."
Dante shook his head. "She's not infected. She was fine this morning."
The soldier met his eyes, and for just a second the man looked exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the battle.
"Everyone's fine until they aren't."
Dante sprinted off immediately. As he pushed forward through numerous blockades, the ground shook again. The medical tent loomed through drifting dust and smoke.
Somewhere inside it, his sister was still alive.
At least he hoped. Until something vast moved deeper into the city.
The pressure in the air intensified, pressing down until breathing felt like pushing against water. People slowed. Some dropped to their knees without understanding why. Dante felt his legs threaten to lock, his instincts screaming at him to hide, to lie flat, to make himself small.
The pressure was not from the Iron Goliath but from something much worse. He forced himself forward. He had heard of the tales of the Dreadlord, second mornarch of the Triarchy.
He did not see the cause of the unnatural fear yet, he merely felt it.
Fear sharpened, no longer diffused but focused, as if the world itself were drawing a line and daring him to cross it. Dante staggered, grabbing the edge of a shattered storefront to keep his balance.
As he turned backwards, he noticed a detail he failed to register before. A young girl was pressed against the remains of a collapsed kiosk, too frozen to run, her body locked in place by a terror so complete it had overridden instinct. Her eyes were wide, glassy and unfocused. She was about the same age as his sister and she saw everything unfold in black and white.
The Iron-Goliath crushing a tank beneath its foot. The horde pouring in behind it, bodies colliding, climbing over one another with boneless urgency.
Then the sky darkened as something vast and wrong shifted above the smoke.
The Dreadlord arrived without sound.
There was no sound of movement or wind displacement Just a sudden presence, like reality had decided not to be where it should.
Dante felt it before he saw it, a pressure that settled on his thoughts, squeezing emotion flat until only raw fear remained.
People around the vicinity dropped to their knees. Some vomited. Some others laughed hysterically. A few simply stopped moving, eyes rolling back as their minds shut down to escape what their bodies could not.
The Dreadlord unfolded from the smoke like a sketch drawn in ash and malice. Tall and unnaturally thin. Limbs bending at angles that suggested the wrong number of joints. Its skin was stretched pale over a frame that looked unfinished, like a concept abandoned halfway through creation.
It didn't acknowledge the dead littering the street.
It didn't turn toward the screaming civilians scrambling for shelter.
It's attention was fixed on the girl.
Several maws split open along its torso and neck, a chorus of shrill, eager screeches vibrating with anticipation. The air around it thickened, pressure bearing down as the girl's fear spiked, raw and unfiltered.
The Dreadlord leaned forward slightly, interested.
Dante didn't remember deciding to move. He slammed his shoulder into the little girl, shoving her sideways just as the Dreadlord's arm lashed out. The impact sent them both crashing into a narrow alley clogged with shattered concrete, torn canvas, and abandoned stretchers.
The Dreadlord's fingers sliced through the air where the girl had been standing.
They missed her by centimeters.
They did not miss Dante.
Something like metallic bone struck his side with crushing force. He felt ribs give way as he was lifted clean off the ground and thrown back into the alley wall. The breath was torn from his lungs. Pain bloomed white-hot and blinding. He hit the ground hard, skidding through blood and ash.
The Dreadlord's head tilting, curious, as if amused by the interruption.
Its many eyes, set too far apart, blinking out of sequence, focused on Dante. There was no anger in them. No urgency. Just plain curiosity
Dante didn't wait for it to decide what he was, food or fodder.
The Dreadlord stepped forward. Each movement was deliberate and measured as if a predator was stalking its prey.
Dante tried to push himself up. His arms shook violently, refusing to lock. One hand slipped in the grime beneath him as he tasted copper and grit.
He glanced behind him and saw the little girl. She wasn't crying. She was past that. Her chest hitched in rapid, shallow bursts as if her lungs were forgetting how to work. He felt a strong emotion and sense of connection towards her.
That did it for him.
Dante forced himself upright just as the Dreadlord reached for him again. He swung wildly, fist connecting with something hard, too hard. The impact sent a shock up his arm, numbing his fingers.
The Dreadlord recoiled half a step.
Not hurt but showing more signs of interest. Feeding off the fear of Dante and the little girl.
Several maws split open along its chest and throat, releasing a chorus of distorted sounds, too many tones layered over one another. The pressure in the air intensified. Dante felt it crawl into his skull, clawing at fear he hadn't realized he was holding back.
The thing lunged.
This time, Dante saw it coming.
He ducked. Barely, the motion tearing agony through his side. The Dreadlord's limb smashed into the alley wall instead, pulverizing stone and sending debris raining down. Dante staggered backward, coughing, vision swimming.
He grabbed a length of broken metal pipe from the rubble and swung with everything he had.
The pipe bent around the Dreadlord's forearm.
The creature didn't even flinch.
It backhanded him.
Dante felt himself lift again, spin, then crash into the ground. Something in his leg snapped. The pain was immediate, overwhelming. He screamed despite himself.
The Dreadlord loomed over him now.
Close enough that Dante could see the fine cracks in its pale skin. Close enough to feel the cold and fear radiating off it, leeching warmth from his body. One of its maws lowered, opening wider, sound warping into a low, reverberating vibration that pressed into his chest.
Bone rot fingers closed around his shoulder, and the joint disintegrated with a sound like wet gravel. Pain detonated through his nervous system so violently his vision went white. He screamed, the sound tearing itself apart in his throat as the creature lifted him off the ground.
The world shrank to a numb sensation.
The tearing of muscle. The snap of ribs. The hot, arterial spray of blood against cold rain. His body knew it was dying long before his mind caught up.
The Dreadlord brought him close. Its jaw unhinged, not like an ordinary animal snapping wide, but like something forgetting it had limits. Bone slid over bone. Flesh split to accommodate angles that shouldn't exist. A maw opened within a maw, rows of uneven teeth grinding together as if eager, impatient.
Dante thrashed weakly. His good hand struck the creature's chest and felt nothing. No resistance, no warmth. Just a hollow firmness, like striking dead stone wrapped in skin.
The bite came viscerally. Calcified teeth punched through his collarbone and neck in a single, crushing clamp. He felt cartilage shear. Felt something important give way. The pain was so absolute it erased thought entirely.
Then it chewed.
The Dreadlord shook him once, violently. Something tore loose inside Dante's chest. His scream broke into a wet, choking sound as blood flooded his mouth and lungs.
And then, he felt something entirely different.
It wasn't cold or numb, It was heat.
Liquid virus surged from the bite, flooding into his veins like molten lead forced under pressure. Dante convulsed as it raced through him, every nerve lighting up at once. His heart slammed erratically, then stuttered, struggling to keep pace with something that didn't belong.
It felt like his blood was being replaced. Like something was crawling through him, rewriting him from the inside out.
His vision returned in flashes, red, then black, then screaming white.
Every heartbeat drove the agony deeper, spreading it outward from the wound, down his spine, into his limbs. His fingers clawed uselessly at the air as his muscles locked and released in violent spasms.
The Dreadlord held him there, biting deeper, longer than necessary and savouring.
When it finally released him, Dante collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap. His body was broken and his vision was dimming as the world receded into distant noise.
Rain washed over him, mixing with blood that refused to clot. His chest barely rose. Each breath gurgled.
The heat didn't stop when the bite stopped. It burrowed into his nervous system. It burned all his body's resistance and antibodies and It claimed him and rewrote his entire existence
He dragged himself forward anyway, toward the little girl, toward his sister, toward the alley mouth, toward anything that wasn't this thing as his fingers left streaks of blood behind him.
The last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the girl scrambling away, sobbing now, terror finally finding release.
His heart gave one last, faltering beat.
The world went black. The pain vanished.
But as his human consciousness faded into the grey, something else in the dark opened its eyes.