~~~

  Vienna screamed.

  Not with voices—those had gone silent hours ago, swallowed by the unnatural darkness. No, Vienna screamed with twisting metal and crumbling stone, with the shrieks of abominations hunting through streets that no longer resembled anything human.

  Twenty hours since hell opened its doors and decided to stay.

  The crushing field pressed down on everything like the weight of a collapsing mountain, killing any weak-minded who dared venture outside the rapidly shrinking safe zones. The darkness was absolute—not mere absence of light but something active, something that devoured illumination like a living thing. Even the specially modified goggles distributed to guards and soldiers showed the world in shades of sickly green and pulsing red, making every corner hide potential death.

  Mathew Whitehart limped through the underground corridors of Bunker 7-Alpha, each step a fresh negotiation with agony. His crutch clicked against concrete in rhythm with the throbbing in his shattered leg. The bandages wrapped around it were already showing fresh blood seeping through the hastily applied dressing.

  Twenty hours. Feels like twenty goddamn years.

  His shoulder—dislocated and snapped back into place without anesthetic four hours ago—sent lightning bolts of pain down his arm with every movement. Essence reserves hovered somewhere around forty percent, maybe less. The stimulants keeping him upright and functional were burning through what remained of his life force like fire through dry kindling.

  When they wore off, the crash would be catastrophic. But that was a problem for Future Mathew, and Future Mathew was probably dead anyway.

  Old Hobbs, why did you have to leave me with this mess? Why couldn't you have lived another day, another hour? Just long enough to tell me how the hell I'm supposed to save what's left.

  But James Hobbs, their only Archlord ranker, was dead—had burned himself out maintaining city-wide barriers during the initial attack, buying time for evacuations that had saved maybe a third of the population. One old man holding back hell itself until his essence core shattered and his heart gave out from the strain.

  And now it's my turn to do the impossible. Lucky me.

  But rest was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not when people still depended on him to make the impossible work.

  The command center doors loomed ahead—reinforced steel that had once seemed like overkill for a municipal storage facility. Now they served as the last barrier between coordination and complete chaos.

  Mathew took a breath that rattled in his bruised ribs and shoved the doors open with his good shoulder.

  The metallic boom silenced every conversation instantly.

  Mathew limped into view, and despite everything—despite the blood-soaked bandages, despite the crutch, despite looking like death warmed over—something in his bearing made every soldier in that room snap to attention.

  They're looking at me like I have answers.

  The command center's emergency lights cast everyone in sickly yellow, turning exhausted faces into corpse-like masks. The main map table dominated the space, covered in colored zones that told Vienna's story in stark simplicity.

  Red zones: Lost. Overrun. No longer recoverable.

  Yellow zones: Contested. Fighting ongoing. Chances of survival measured in minutes.

  Green zones: Barely holding. Safe zones with barrier protection intact.

  Most of the map bled red now, spreading like an infection across Vienna.

  Each step toward that table sent jolts through his shattered leg. Mathew focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on projecting confidence he absolutely didn't feel, on being what these people needed him to be.

  "At ease," Mathew said, his voice coming out rougher than he remembered. When had it gotten so hoarse? "Status report. Bad news first."

  Captain Torres stepped forward—Overmortal rank, communication specialist, one of the few officers who'd survived the cathedral assault. His left arm hung useless in a sling. Burn scars covered half his face where a cultist's sorcery had nearly taken his head off.

  We lost too many rankers… Too many experienced soldiers.

  "Sir." Torres consulted a blood-stained notepad with his functional hand. "Current forces: seventy-three guards operational."

  Seventy-three...

  Cold sweat erupted across his skin despite the bunker's chill. A tremor went through him that he barely managed to control.

  Seventy-three out of eight hundred. Oh lord. Oh fucking hell.

  "Civilian casualties..." Torres's voice wavered slightly. "Estimated between sixty-eight and seventy-two percent of initial population. Approximately sixty to sixty-five thousand survivors remain, scattered across four safe zones."

  Lieutenant Chen spoke up from the station, another overmortal ranker, one of Mathew's most capable officers. Her normally perfect uniform was torn and stained, with dark circles under her eyes.

  "Safe zones status: Four remain operational. Bunker 7-Alpha, where we are now, the hospital complex in Sector 18, the old industrial warehouse in Sector 5, and the

  university's reinforced basement in Sector 23. Down from twelve this morning."

  Twelve to four in less than twenty hours. At this rate, we'll have none by dawn.

  "What about the cathedral?" Mathew asked, though he already knew the answer would be grim.

  Chen's jaw tightened. "Still active, sir. Energy readings increased by seventeen percent since the assault. Whatever ritual they're conducting... it's accelerating toward something."

  Private Yuki—twenty-one years old but looking forty after this nightmare—was changing bandages on her arm nearby. She spoke without being addressed, exhaustion and after what they had been through, Mathew waved his hand to his officers, who were no doubt about to scold her.

  "Can't believe we made it out of that Cathedral assault..." Her voice carried the hollow tone Mathew had heard too many times before, in too many survivors of impossible battles. "Barely fucking made it."

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  Corporal James Park, their demolitions expert, nodded grimly from where he was organizing what remained of their explosive supplies. "Lost half our assault team in the first five minutes. It would've been everyone if Commander Mathew hadn't bought us time to retreat."

  "Four ‘Lord ranked’ cultists!" Yuki continued, staring at her bloodied bandages, "Four of them. When did they become so common? How the hell are there so many here? In Vienna?"

  "I don't know." James's voice was quiet, tired. "Commander Mathew holding the line alone against four equal-rank opponents... that's the only reason any of us walked out."

  Eight minutes. I was outclassed…

  [Four Hours Earlier - The Cathedral Assault]

  …

  Cathedral Prime looming before their assembled force like a monument to corruption. Gothic architecture transformed into something that hurt to perceive directly—organic matter fused with consecrated stone, biomechanical horrors patrolling, and an aura of wrongness so thick that breathing felt like drowning in tar.

  "Teams Alpha through Delta, establish perimeter!" His voice had carried across the force with authority earned through three wars. "Teams Echo and Foxtrot, breach the eastern wing! Teams Golf and Hotel, with me!"

  They'd made it maybe fifty meters before four figures emerged from the cathedral's main entrance with leisurely confidence that spoke of absolute power.

  Four presences that made the air shimmer. Four figures wearing robes marked with the blood-eye symbol, painted in what looked disturbingly like actual blood.

  They didn’t speak, didn’t act, or taunt, just hovered in the air staring at him with dead eyes.

  I don’t like this…

  "Hold formation!" Mathew had roared, stepping forward to place himself between his soldiers and death incarnate.

  His Mantle—[Bastion]—had blazed to life in golden light, expanding outward to touch every guard within a hundred meters. The enhancement was immediate: reflexes sharpened, strength multiplied, and endurance increased several times over.

  But Mathew himself faced four equal-rank opponents, and his Mantle's power was split between combat and support.

  The first cultist moved like liquid shadow, dark essence forming bladed whips that carved stone like butter. The second wielded blood magic that turned Mathew's own life force against him, making every heartbeat a potential weapon. The third animated fallen guards as puppets—forcing Mathew to cut down his own dead. The fourth simply smiled and channeled something that made reality scream.

  Mathew's blade—enchanted to cut through magical defenses—had carved through shadow and blood with desperate efficiency. His Mantle pushed his body beyond all natural limits, letting him dodge attacks that should have killed him, land blows that actually made the cultists respect him as a threat.

  His ribs cracked under a blood-hammer strike. His leg was shattered when a shadow whip wrapped around it and squeezed until the bone splintered. His shoulder dislocated from overextending a parry that saved his life at the cost of his arm's function.

  When Mathew finally went down in a spreading pool of his own blood, it was Chen who'd grabbed him and ran, screaming retreat, while covering fire bought seconds measured in lives.

  Fifty-seven guards died in that assault. Fifty-seven soldiers who'd followed him because they believed he could lead them through the nightmare.

  I still hear them screaming sometimes. In the quiet moments. When I close my eyes.

  ---

  [PRESENT TIME]

  "Sir?" Torres's voice pulled Mathew back to the present. "Are you alright?"

  Mathew realized he'd been staring at the map without seeing it, his hand gripping the table edge hard enough to make his knuckles white. He forced himself to relax, to project the calm confidence these people needed to see in their commander.

  "Fine, Captain. We all have our fears. I’m okay." The lie came easily after twenty hours of practice. "Continue the report."

  Chen pulled up tactical data on one of the still-functioning monitors. "Intelligence gathered from the cathedral assault confirms what Captain Hicks died trying to tell us. The Church of Prime Members... Well, they're… missing. There are no signs of their member anywhere; either they were first to be killed, which is very unlikely, knowing the strength of the old bishop, or they were collaborating from the start."

  Silence fell like a funeral shroud.

  For most guards, for most civilians, the Church of Prime had been the bedrock of faith—the certainty that divine powers watched over humanity. To learn that bedrock was either dead or actively complicit in Vienna's destruction...

  "Sir… The Faith in the Prime Gods is..." Torres struggled to find words. "...is wavering. And honestly, I don’t know how to feel about that.”

  “Among the survivors. You can see it in their eyes. They prayed for twenty hours, and nothing came. No divine intervention. No holy champions. Just us."

  Private Marcus Webb—no relation to the deceased demolitions expert, but carrying his toolkit like a sacred inheritance—spoke up from the munitions station. "Sir, what about reinforcements? Surely the Capital has noticed Vienna went dark. Neighboring cities must have seen the veil go up."

  Every eye in the command center turned to Mathew, waiting for the reassurance that help was coming, that they just needed to hold out a little longer until the cavalry arrived.

  Mathew met Webb's hopeful gaze and gave him the truth, because these soldiers deserved nothing less.

  "Twenty hours. No word from the Capital. No word from neighboring cities. No word from anyone outside the veil." He gestured to the communication equipment that had been cycling through every frequency, every protocol, every emergency channel for nearly a full day. "The veil is blocking everything—sight, sound, essence signatures, communication spells.”

  “You can come in, but can’t leave."

  The hope drained from Webb's face like water through a sieve.

  "We're alone," Mathew continued, his voice carrying to every corner of the command center. "We've been alone from the start. No reinforcements are coming. No divine champions will save us. If Vienna survives this, it will be because we—seventy-three guards and sixty thousand civilians—find a way to make it happen."

  Someone in the back of the room made a sound that might have been a sob or a laugh. Mathew couldn't tell which, and it didn't matter.

  "Captain Torres, distribute the latest patrol assignments. Lieutenant Chen, coordinate with the other safe zones—I want hourly status updates. Webb, inventory our remaining munitions and prioritize distribution to active combat teams." Mathew's orders came rapid-fire, giving people tasks to focus on instead of despair to drown in. "Everyone else, you know your jobs. Time for grieving comes later. Right now, we fight."

  The command center erupted into controlled activity—officers moving to their stations, guards checking equipment, communication specialists attempting another round of futile contact attempts with the outside world.

  Mathew watched them work with something approaching pride. These people had every reason to give up, to lie down and accept death. Instead, they were still fighting, still trying, still believing that maybe—maybe—there was a way through this nightmare.

  I don't deserve their faith. But I'll be damned if I waste it.

  He dismissed the assembled personnel with hand signals, needing a moment alone with his thoughts before the next crisis inevitably erupted. Officers filed out in small groups, leaving Mathew standing before the map table with its sea of red zones marking Vienna's slow death.

  His eyes found Sector 12-East almost against his will. The labyrinth entrance. Red zone now, completely overrun, unreachable without a full battalion that Vienna no longer possessed.

  And somewhere in that red zone, if fate was particularly cruel, might be his son.

  Rudy.

  Mathew pulled a small photograph from his breast pocket with trembling fingers—creased and blood-stained now, but still showing three faces smiling at the camera. He himself was younger and unmarked by war. His wife, Sarah, and their children, Serena and Rudy, were at age twelve, grinning like the world was full of adventures waiting to be discovered.

  Are you gone? Rudy… I…

  The photograph offered no answers, no reassurances. Just three smiling faces from a time when the world made sense.

  At least Sarah and Serena are safe away from this hell.

  Mathew carefully folded the photograph and returned it to his pocket, right over his heart. Then he straightened despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, despite everything, and turned back to face the map table.

  Vienna is dying. But as long as I'm breathing, we're not dead yet.

  The cathedral district pulsed with malevolent energy on the map's display, a beating heart of corruption pumping darkness through Vienna's streets. Whatever ritual the cultists were conducting was accelerating, growing stronger with each passing hour.

  Time is running out. For all of us.

  Mathew leaned against the map table, suddenly feeling every one of his forty-eight years plus the additional decade this nightmare had aged him. His hands trembled slightly as he gripped the table edge, the only outward sign of the grief threatening to drown him.

  A single tear escaped despite his best efforts, cutting a clean track through the grime on his face before Mathew viciously scrubbed it away.

  No time for weakness. No time for grief.

  Commanders led. That's what they did. Even when leading meant carrying weights that would crush lesser souls.

  Mathew took a shuddering breath and forced his shoulders back, forced his spine straight, forced his expression into something approaching confident determination.

  Hold together just a little longer. That's all. Just... don't break. Not yet.

  ~~~

  Guys for all those who made it till here, My heartfelt gratitude to you all, I know there are places I've messed up, and I promise you I'm actively learning how to write and most importantly how to plot better. Coming chapters would be awesome, I promise!

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