The first sign came with the smoke.
A thin, dark line against the crimson sky, miles beyond the jagged ridge where Kael and his students trained. Tarin noticed it first, squinting through the glare of the setting sun.
"Fire," he said, tension sharpening his voice.
Kael followed his gaze, frowning. It wasn't the natural burn of the wild forests—he knew those well. This smoke was heavy, oily. It had the stink of engines and burning metal.
Someone had landed.
And not by accident.
Kael gathered the children swiftly, moving them into the natural tunnels hollowed by wind and water beneath the rocky plains. As they waited in the dark, he sent his mind outward, reaching with his psychic senses—something he had long neglected in favor of physical survival. Now, though, he needed to know.
What he found chilled him.
A mind like iron and ash. Twisted, burning with hatred. Familiar.
Not just slavers. Not just scavengers. Someone like me.
He pulled back, breathing slow and steady. He had hoped for more time—time to build, to prepare. But the galaxy was always impatient.
As they huddled in the dark, Kael spoke to the children.
"Listen carefully," he said, voice a quiet rumble. "The ones coming—they're not like the slavers you fought before. They're organized. Armed. Trained."
Tarin's jaw tightened. "So are we."
Kael allowed a ghost of a smile to flicker across his face.
"Not yet," he said. "But if you listen—if you trust your suits, trust yourselves—you will be."
He knelt, meeting Tarin's eyes. "When the time comes, follow my lead. Survive. Adapt."
"And if we can't?" whispered one of the younger girls, her voice trembling.
Kael's gaze softened. "Then die fighting. Better to burn free than live chained."
⸻
Night fell.
The fire on the horizon grew brighter, spreading like a sickness.
And then the enemy came.
They moved through the forest in a tight formation—armored figures draped in blood-red banners, their suits heavy and brutalist, built for shock and terror. Their helmets bore snarling visors shaped like beasts, and psychic energy flickered from their gauntlets like leaking wounds.
At their head rode a figure larger than the rest, mounted atop a cybernetic beast stitched from dead flesh and steel. His armor was black as the void between stars, etched with cruel runes that pulsed faintly in the dark. A massive war axe rested across his back, humming with barely contained psychic force.
Kael knew him immediately.
Vorren Kade.
Once a commander of the Empire's vanguard legions. Once a brother-in-arms.
Now… something worse.
A breaker.
One who had embraced the collapse of the psychic network. Who had turned the Aegis Forge inward, feeding off the minds of others to grow stronger. A parasite in living armor.
Kade's voice boomed across the valley, amplified by his suit's systems.
"I know you're here, Kael Riven!" he roared. "You can't hide forever! The galaxy burns, and only the strong will rule the ashes! Bring me your whelps, and I might even let you die clean!"
The children around Kael flinched at the raw hatred in the man's voice.
Kael rose from his crouch, the ground cracking beneath his armored boots. His suit, once dormant, flared back to life—white and silver, sleek as a blade drawn under moonlight. Energy crackled along his arms, forming the outlines of weapons not yet fully born.
He turned to the children, his expression unreadable behind his visor.
"This is not just training anymore," he said. "This is war."
Tarin stepped forward, the first to ignite the psychic blade shaped by his own will—a rough, jagged thing, but blazing with fierce light.
"We're ready," he said.
The others followed, weapons shimmering to life. Crude, imperfect—but theirs.
Kael nodded once.
"Then let's show them," he said, voice a low growl, "that the Ivory Dread was never just one man."
And with that, he led them into battle.
⸻
The first clash was brutal.
Kade's forces, expecting terrified refugees, instead met a coordinated assault from warriors whose suits moved with the speed and unpredictability of living thought. Kael struck like a storm, carving through the front ranks with lethal precision. His white dreadlocks trailed like comets as he moved, a ghost born of rage and purpose.
Tarin and the others fought with reckless bravery, their suits adapting mid-battle—growing armor where strikes landed, forming spikes and blades from sheer will. Tarin's blade broke in the first few minutes, but he didn't hesitate—he grew another, sharper and faster.
For every child that stumbled, two more rose in their place, their fear burning away under the crucible of combat.
And Kael?
Kael sought only one.
Through the chaos and blood, he locked eyes with Vorren Kade across the battlefield.
Two relics of a dead empire. Two warriors shaped by the same master. Two monsters, born from the same dream.
Their collision shook the ground.
Kade's axe met Kael's psychic claws in a thunderous clash, sparks and blood flying into the night. The force of their blows sent shockwaves ripping through the trees, tearing up the earth around them.
"You should have joined me!" Kade snarled, driving Kael back with a brutal overhead strike.
Kael caught the axe with both arms, his armor groaning under the strain. "I saw what you became," he spat. "I'll die before I become a butcher like you."
Kade's laughter was hollow and cruel.
"Then die you shall!"
They broke apart, then clashed again, faster than the eye could follow—two gods of war, fighting for the soul of the future.
And above it all, unseen, the Aegis Forge thrummed with new life.
The world was changing.
The children were evolving.
And the galaxy… would never be the same.