Night on Gaeth-9 was not night.
The sky remained choked with orbital soot and artificial glare, a false twilight painted in hues of rust and radiation. But in the slave districts, where the Empire's eyes grew thin, shadows stretched long enough for a rebellion to begin.
Kiro crouched beneath a ruptured pipeway overlooking the northern Imperial supply outpost—Outpost C-97, a logistics hub feeding ammo and plasma cores to the city garrisons. Guarded, but not fortified. The Empire never expected slaves to fight back.
They would learn.
Behind him, the first cell of the Ash Rebellion waited.
Dozens of them. Miners, welders, scavengers, waste-haulers. Their tools were crude. A few scrap-blades. A stolen shock baton. Molten iron rods pulled from smelters and wrapped in cloth.
But Kiro had already begun teaching them.
Not how to fight like soldiers.
How to kill like monsters.
"Strike hard," he said. "Strike once. Don't speak. Don't think. When you fall, bleed where they can see it. Make them afraid to win."
A young man nodded, gripping a piece of rebar like it was sacred. "What about you?"
Kiro looked toward the outpost, where spotlights swept across motion-triggered fences. Patrol drones hovered silently, their blue eyes gleaming like insect gods.
"I am already dead," Kiro said. "They just haven't buried me yet."
He leapt.
Not with finesse. Not like a trained assassin. He moved like something thrown by the world itself—his body a weapon, his will the ignition point.
The first sentry died before the alarm rang. Blood Venom whispered through the air, sliding between the gaps of armor and thought.
The second shouted, and Kiro drove a stolen spear through his throat, snapping it off inside the man's collarbone.
Alarms screamed.
Spotlights turned inward.
The Rebellion charged.
The outer wall crumpled under an improvised explosive—a mining charge stolen from a refiner and rigged by a madwoman who used to build furnaces for the nobles. Slaves poured in, howling not in joy but in rage—pure, unfiltered wrath that had waited too long for release.
Imperial guards fired back. Plasma bolts tore flesh from bone. Men and women died. But they did not break.
Kiro moved through the chaos like a storm front. Blood Venom fed with each kill, the System drawing energy from the dying.
Core Evolution: Stage I Threshold Reached.
Initiating Mutation: Blood Core Stabilization.
New Ability Unlocked – Crimson Pulse: Emit a burst of volatile blood energy, destabilizing Viora channels within a 10-meter radius.
The words flashed behind his eyes as he landed on a tower and raised his hand.
The pulse exploded.
Red light surged from his body in a wave of twisted sigils, warping the air. Every Kruger soldier channeling Viora screamed as their bodies convulsed—energy networks rupturing, nerves boiling under the stress.
Three dropped dead.
Two fled.
The rest broke formation.
The Ash Rebellion surged forward, overwhelming them. Weapons were taken. Armor pried off corpses. A comms dish was shattered beneath a hammer, severing the outpost from Imperial command.
Smoke rose high.
Kiro stood in the center, a tattered Empire banner burning at his feet. His skin shimmered with residual red light, veins lit like molten lines carved into steel.
Someone approached—one of the rebels, face bloodied, eyes wide.
"What now?" she asked, voice ragged.
Kiro looked toward the sky.
"The fire has been lit," he said. "Now we make the whole world choke on its smoke."