The transition from the scorched silence of the Red Wasteland to the outskirts of Aethelgard, the Human Capital, was a violent shock to the senses. Behind us lay the ancient, rhythmic humming of the Lithic-Wolves; ahead of us lay a sprawling, vertical labyrinth of neon, chrome, and suffocating noise. The city didn't just exist; it throbbed like an infected wound on the surface of the earth. Huge holographic billboards projected the face of a man who looked like a savior but felt like a predator—Julian Vane, the "Iron King," his eyes as sharp as a falcon’s as they watched over the teeming millions below.
"That’s him," Silas whispered, his voice crackling over the internal comms as we sat huddled in the back of a delivery van. "To the world, he is the philanthropist who rebuilt the grid af
