With the royal funeral over, the Empire went back to its usual ways, but one problem continued to plague the Emperor: the Tartarusios kept escaping.
Emperor Johan Adrin was a man of immense pride who tolerated neither failure nor opposition, and to prove a point he would not hesitate to wipe out whole planets — even whole star systems — if that was what it took to remind his enemies who ruled the void. To him, mercy was a weakness that rivals and pretenders could exploit. That belief had not been born of arrogance. It had been bred into him from birth, because Johan Adrin had been raised, shaped and tempered by his father, Volnir Adrin, the former Emperor of Terria.
Volnir had been a towering man, tall, broad and terrifying to stand near. The only thing that softened his grim appearance was his long golden hair — though the moment his piercing green eyes met yours, any calm you had left you entirely. Under his reign the Empire expanded faster than ever before; whole systems were annexed and whole civilizations brought to their knees. He was a soldier to his bones. Though royals were exempt from service, he was one of the very few who had taken up arms himself and fought on the front lines. Years of conquest taught him the lesson that would define both his reign and his son's: fear is the most powerful weapon a ruler can wield. And he wielded it without restraint.
Those who served under Volnir knew that rule by fear left no room for error and no space for failure. He despised defeat more than anything else in the world, and whenever the Empire lost a battle, there was hell to pay. His outbursts became known as the Imperial Thunders. Whenever one struck, everyone within a hundred meters was ordered to clear the area — not because he feared being seen, but because anyone who valued their life knew to stay away. Walls cracked, furniture shattered and guards fled. For the unfortunate officers who had failed him, the Emperor delivered judgment personally, strangling them with his bare hands and watching the life leave their eyes as though he were punishing weakness itself. Fortunately for the Empire, such storms were rare. Only three campaigns failed during his reign, and only five Imperial Thunders were ever officially recorded. What happened during the other two remained the subject of frightened speculation, whispered only in private long after his death.
As age crept up on him, his advisers urged him to secure an heir. He agreed, and soon afterward he was introduced to Lady Celest Kaelthorn, daughter of Duke Harold Kaelthorn, head of one of the most powerful noble houses in Terria. Harold had two other children — a younger daughter, Mira, and a son, Martin Kaelthorn, who would one day become the father of Aurelion. The marriage between Volnir and Celest was arranged, but fate had other plans for it. The royal wedding was the grandest Terria had ever seen. Celest, radiant in her bridal gown, seemed to glow beneath the golden light of the palace, her long dark hair cascading down her back like silk and her deep brown eyes calm and warm, a living contrast to her husband's hardened face. And Volnir, a man who had known nothing in his life but bloodshed and strategy, was struck by something he could neither command nor understand. He fell in love. People said the beast had finally been tamed.
Their marriage produced one child: Johan Adrin, the future Emperor. From the moment he could walk, Johan was shaped by his father's iron will. Volnir raised him to be both noble and ruthless and poured every lesson and philosophy he had learned on the battlefield into him. He made sure his son would never become another pampered ruler confined to palaces and politics; Johan served in the military, led campaigns, and saw the horrors of war with his own eyes. But of everything his father taught him, one command burned brighter than all the rest: an Emperor must never lose. Johan took those words as scripture. He gave his youth to perfection — mastering war, politics and science alike, not merely a soldier or a scholar but a fusion of both, a mind sharpened by discipline and a heart hardened by duty.
Yet of everything he studied, what fascinated Johan most was the history of his own Empire.
By galactic standards, the Terrian Empire was young — barely three centuries old — and it had risen to dominance through one extraordinary discovery: the Orbitons. Terrian explorers had been the first to uncover the remains of ancient war machines buried deep in forgotten sectors of the galaxy, relics of an age long before recorded history, and in the end, six of them were found. Their discovery began a new era, the Age of Orbitons. Through years of painstaking study and reverse-engineering, Terrian scientists uncovered two mysteries about them that defied all logic. The first was their power source. No known reactor or fusion core, and no element anywhere in the Empire's databases, could replicate the limitless energy that ran through their frames. The second was far stranger: every one of the six Orbitons was alive.
Something conscious lived inside each of their cores — an intelligence that was part of the machine and yet separate from it. Each one had a name, a voice, a personality, though only those who carried the Artifact Implant could hear them. The implants were biomechanical constructs woven into the nervous system that allowed a pilot to merge with an Orbiton and synchronize body and machine into one. And power, as always, came at a price. To pilot one of them required two things — an Artifact Implant and a living, capable body — and every time an Orbiton was awakened, it demanded something from its pilot in return: strength, memories, or even years of life. The price was different for each of them.
The first Orbiton ever discovered was called Helios. It stood tall and imposing, a humanoid form sculpted with precision and purpose, its armor a sleek blend of matte white and gunmetal gray marked with crimson and cobalt along its joints and chest, and at its center an orange-red core glowed that pulsed like the heart of a dying sun. Its narrow head was crowned with a single horn-like antenna, half knight's crest and half signal array. In its right hand it carried a long modular rifle called the Spear of Dawn, built for precision orbital strikes. Folded across its left arm were solar panels that served as both a shield and an energy collector and gave it near-limitless endurance in sunlight. Helios became the foundation for the Empire's first mass-produced line of Orbitons, the Clost class — bulky, angular machines in dark gray and black armor with streaks of pink and white marking their tactical systems, their compact visors glowing pink as their neural systems echoed those of their ancient ancestor. The Closts brought a golden age of conquest. With them at the head of its fleets, the Empire swept across whole regions at breakneck speed.
But expansion brought corruption with it — spies, betrayals and industrial leaks. Within a few decades the Clost blueprints had spread across the known universe, rival powers were building their own versions, and the balance of power shifted once again. Even so, the Terrian Empire pressed forward, and it was in those turbulent years that it made a new discovery: not one ancient Orbiton, but three more.
Perciosa. Sirius. And Montern.