Arthur leaned back on the edge of the balcony, the night wind brushing against his coat.
Cain sat in his lap, arms wrapped around the old man's chest, warm and still.
The boy was barely three, but his eyes were already sharper than most.
"What story do you want tonight?"
Cain's eyes lit up.
"I want to hear the legend of mankind!"
Arthur chuckled, patting the boy's head gently.
"Alright, alright. Just like my father told me..."
He looked out into the starless sky, and began.
"Six hundred seventy years ago… There was a tremor once — not just of the earth, but of the world itself. A quake so large it cracked the continents and shattered the seas..."
"The land peeled open, the sky was torn asunder and everything we thought was myth… came crawling out."
"Gods above, with halos too bright to look at. Demons below, dragging chains of bone behind them."
"And on the surface — giants, cultivators and titans."
"Every single one sees us as nothing but lambs to the slaughter."
Cain held tighter onto Arthur's coat, eyes wide.
Arthur glanced down at him, smiling softly, then continued.
"That day, every global satellite sent its last signal. Moments later, they were all destroyed."
"Every device out there lit up. From phones, TVs, all of it. One message, a call to arms — for every man, woman, and child still able to stand."
"Code Black. That's what they called it. Not a protocol. Not an evacuation. It was a collective effort to resist the imminent doom."
"The governments knew no bunker would save us. No deep-space colony had enough time."
"We launched everything."
"From rusted atomic bombs to next-gen graviton weapons still locked in prototype vaults — we fired them all."
"But it didn't matter. They came from every direction — some looked benevolent, some monstrous… some looked exactly like us."
"When the guns went silent, all we had left were rifles, bats… even planks of wood. We fought for our homes, our streets, our own."
"The world burned for three days, Cain — and blood followed, in shades of red, purple, and gold, washing over the land."
Cain swallowed, quietly.
"But how?"
Arthur nodded solemnly.
"It wasn't until we discovered magicules — divine, demonic, elemental, even spiritual and from each, we took a piece… then forged our own."
His machine hands glowed, alive with a shifting spectrum of colors. Each hue pulsing like a heartbeat, a symphony of raw energy flowing beneath synthetic skin.
"This is our only key to fighting back. But by then… it was too late."
"99.5% of mankind had been wiped out. Some as collateral damage. The unfortune — sacrificed to power their twisted relics and artifacts."
"It all happened during those three days the bombs were falling. All our machines were blindsided by their supernatural tactics."
"We call it the Days of False Hopes. And the last of our ancestors? They went underground."
"With nothing left but scraps and spite, we survived."
"Beneath that ruined surface, we built again — megacity upon megacity, each one a fortress, a statement, a promise."
"We recovered with a single thing in our hearts — not peace, Cain…"
"It was a burning vengeance."
Arthur's voice faded into the wind.
Cain looked up, jaw trembling but eyes determined.
"…Did we win?"
Arthur looked back toward the horizon.
"We're still answering that, boy."
Cain leaned against Arthur's chest, eyes wide with wonder.
"Another story, Grandpa. Tell me about when you fought."
Arthur gave a low hum, doing his best to mask the smugness beneath it.
"You've heard that story a dozen times already."
"Please."
Cain begged, eyes shimmering, his little hands clutching at Arthur's coat.
Arthur sighed. The kind of sigh that carried decades.
"Alright."
"But to get to that part, I have to continue the last story first."
Cain beamed with delight.
"Let's hear it!"
Arthur ruffled his hair with one mechanical hand, sparks of warmth humming beneath alloy fingers.
"It didn't start with grand battles or cities in the clouds."
Arthur began.
"It started with skirmishes. Small and almost imperceptible. Barely coordinated. But they were enough."
"Each fight, each corpse. They dropped manuals like scraps. Worthless to them, but to us? They were treasures."
"See, Cain, we didn't have what they had. No meridians like cultivators. No cores like the titans or the giants. No crystalline minds like demons and the divine. We had but a thing. Cells."
He tapped his chest.
"Inside every one of our cells was a remnant. A spark. A trace of something lost — some ancient power we forgot we once had."
"We had no meridians, only nerves — fragile, crippled pathways."
"However in each cell — a nucleus, a dreg of a core. But to fight? That was more than enough."
Cain listened in silent awe.
"That spark let us hold energy. Not much. But enough. Enough to grow."
"Each generation armed with keener of mind, steadier in flesh, and fiercer in spirit."
"Not immune, but enduring — through plague, through storm, through time's own cruelty."
"They rose, not by miracle, but by design. Until men no longer chased gods, but became them."
Arthur's voice grew quieter now.
"Three hundred years ago. I was fifty when I took that first step."
"My grandfather was a scientist. So was my father. So was I."
"None of us were soldiers. No one forced us into the procedure to be a machine."
"We didn't seek strength. We only knew the truth — if we didn't do it, no man could."
Cain looked up in awe at the old man's towering mechanical body.
"To drive a fortress?"
Arthur nodded.
"It wasn't just about driving it — we became the fortress. We stood at the front, shielding the mages who rained destruction, and gave the wounded a chance to breathe."
"And if things went wrong... we were the last to leave."
He paused, eyes drifting with memory — distant.
His optical lenses flickered with quiet pride as he added something new to the story tonight.
"I never cried when they died. Not because I didn't love them…"
"But because… even now, their fortresses still stand."
Cain blinked.
"Still?"
Arthur nodded once.
"Near every new city you'll see one — an old war machine, rooted in the ground."
"Rusting, maybe — but never broken."
"Monuments of steel and sacrifice. Built into the foundation of mankind's return."
Cain curled deeper into his chest, silent for a moment.
As the story came to a close, Arthur gave Cain's shoulder a light squeeze.
"That's enough stories for tonight. Sleep early — you've got lessons with your Aunt Roberta tomorrow."
Cain pouted but nodded, dragging his feet as he stood.
"Good night, Grandpa."
"Night, kid."
Arthur murmured, watching him disappear into the corridor.
Far above the scarred land, the two had been sitting atop a four-kilometer-tall moving fortress — a steel colossus cutting across the broken world.
One boy. One man.
The third generation... and maybe, Arthur hoped, the last.
He turned his gaze to the horizon, war still flickering in distant clouds.
'A thousand years of blood, steel, and sacrifice.'
"Too long. Far too long."
He clenched his fist, almost wishing just this once — that a legend could end with peace.