Ari had known war for fifty years, but on the dawn the sky first broke, even the veterans felt it: something worse was coming.
Saki rose before the suns, as he always did. Drekkara's jungle still hummed with the night chorus—chirping glow-beetles, the distant roar of vine-lions, the low whisper of the wind weaving through the canopy like a spirit giving warning. It was a peaceful sound, or at least the closest thing to peace his world had known in his lifetime.
He stepped out into the clearing behind his farmhouse, breath clouding in the cool morning air. His hands moved on instinct—checking the field stakes, testing the irrigation lines, brushing dew from the roots of the moltha vines. Farming hadn't been a noble profession in Drekkara; it was a stubborn one. A deliberate act of hope. And Saki had needed hope—especially after the wars had swallowed everything else.
He looked up at the faint light climbing the horizon. Two moons hung low, pale against the fading night. The third—Veklar, the blood moon—sat dark, its cycle still days away. Normally, the view steadied him.
But this morning the sky carried a strange shimmer. Like heat haze. Like a wound.
He blinked, unsure. Then—
A streak of silver tore across the heavens.
It didn't fall like a meteor. It moved with intention.
Saki's chest tightened. "No… not today."
The war between the three continents—Drekkara, Zyntheris, and Varkal—had cooled in recent years. The clashes had grown smaller, the commanders older, the armies weary of blood. There were whispers of peace. Of reunification. Of restoring the harmony that King Gorthan the Unifier had once forged generations ago before the Dark Ages fractured the world.
But this—this was not Arian.
This was something else.
His daughters raced out of the house, still wearing their sleep mantles. Little Mara grabbed his leg. "Papa, the sky is making noise!"
He crouched, forcing a smile. "It's just thunder, little one."
But thunder didn't burn white across the clouds.
Behind them, his wife Elyra stepped onto the porch, sleep-tangled hair falling to her shoulders. "Another Varkali weapon test?" she asked, though her voice betrayed doubt.
"No," Saki said softly. "No one on Ari makes light like that."
The silver streak multiplied—three, then five, then dozens—peeling open the sky, leaving glowing scars. A deep rumble followed, not in the air but in the bones.
Elyra whispered, "What are they?"
Saki answered only with silence.
Foreign, he thought. Alien.
But the word meant nothing to Arians. They had only themselves to fear.
Until now.
The first craft broke through the cloud layer, shining like a blade. It descended in a controlled arc, fire trailing its wake. The sound that came with it was unlike any instrument of war he had ever heard—metal screaming, engines roaring with unnatural power.
Elyra took the children inside.
Saki stood unmoving, heart pounding, as more vessels followed, streaking toward the horizon—toward Zyntheris, toward Varkal, toward every corner of the world. Each descent shook the ground. Birds fled the forests. The vine-lions' roars turned frantic.
Something enormous landed far away—too far to see, close enough to feel. A shockwave rippled through the trees. Moltha vines trembled violently.
Then the smoke rose.
Dark. Thick. Wrong.
The air filled with the smell of burning metal.
Saki whispered a Drekkaran prayer, one he had not spoken in many years. A prayer for the innocent. A prayer for strength. A prayer for survival.
He sprinted back toward the house.
Before he reached the threshold, the blast came.
A blinding white flash. A roar so loud it erased all other sounds. A pressure wave that tore the trees from their roots.
Saki hit the ground hard, vision spinning.
When the ringing in his ears faded, when the dust settled, when he forced himself to rise despite the pain—he saw what remained of his home.
The walls had collapsed. The roof was splintered. Flames licked the broken beams.
And inside—
"No," he gasped. "No, no, no…"
He clawed through the wreckage with bare hands. Moltha thorns cut him, wood shards pierced him, smoke burned his eyes, but he kept digging.
He found Mara first.
Then Elyra.
Then his youngest, still tucked behind her mother's arms.
He screamed until his throat tore.
Above him, the sky rumbled again.
More ships.
More lights.
More death.
Saki collapsed beside the ruins of his life. The jungle around him burned in patches where fire had rained. The ground trembled with distant explosions.
The invaders had not come for peace.
They had come for conquest.
And somewhere, far beyond the sky, a dying Earth had sent them.
A voice rose behind him. An elder from the village. Then another. Footsteps approached, frantic. Someone touched his shoulder. Someone whispered, "Saki… we must go. They are killing everyone."
He did not answer.
He did not look away from the bodies of his wife and daughters.
Tears dripped silently onto the soil.
Then—slowly—he rose.
His hands shook. His knees trembled. But his eyes were no longer clouded with grief.
Something new lived there now.
Resolve.
"Gather everyone," he said. His voice was low, but it carried the weight of a storm. "The people of Drekkara will not die on their knees."
"But the invaders—"
"They bleed," Saki cut in. "I saw one fall from its machine. Whatever they are, they can be killed."
He picked up a broken spear haft from the ruins of his home—half-charred, splintered, useless. But he held it like a promise.
"We will survive this," he said. "And we will make them regret ever setting foot on Ari."
Far in the distance, a massive explosion lit the horizon.
The war of the continents was over.
A new war had begun.
The war for Ari.