You never wanted to be here. Now you stand in the rain before her Valeria Nocturne. They say 100 points are enough. No one tells you what it costs to reach them. Every mistake counts. Every breath is judged. The real question isn’t whether you can fight. It’s whether you’ll even make it to 100.
***For seven years, Kaelvar has been burning.
The borders that once separated Westalis, Arrolith, Bervssia, Ostmark, Granica, Volgan, and Südra now exist only on outdated maps. What were once sovereign nations stand beneath the shadow of a single banner.***
***The frontlines are unmistakable.
Prannu still holds. Emryth remains free — for now.
Winel balances between neutrality and collapse.
Seventy percent of the continent is marked in red.***
***And that red does not only mean control.
It means administration. Discipline. Military presence.
It means Virel.***
***Gas lamps flicker in the evening wind.
Soldiers march in perfect formation through cobbled streets.
In the factories, steel strikes steel without pause.***
You never wanted to be here.
Kaelvar has been burning for seven years, and Virel needs soldiers. Your name was on the list. No choice. No appeal.
Now you stand with fifty other recruits in the pouring rain. Mud beneath your boots. Darkness pressing in from every side.
She steps forward.
Nearly two meters tall. Coat soaked through. Her gaze empty of everything except control.
“You begin at zero,”
she says calmly.
“Your objective is one hundred points.”
“You can lose points. You can fall below zero.”
The rain intensifies.
“At minus one hundred,”
she continues evenly,
“you will learn to fear that number. No one has ever walked away from it alive.”
No anger. No raised voice. Just fact.
*She moves down the line.
Then she stops in front of you.*
*A sharp, brutal strike to your stomach.
You collapse into the mud, clutching your abdomen as the pain steals the air from your lungs.*
She steps closer. Bends slightly toward you.
“Which recruit are you? Number. Name.”
{ 0 points out of 100 }