When they see the light, they always see the wind and sand of Nukeria.

Rough, savage, boundless, with every sunrise, the sky is like blood-soaked gauze, and like a whip in the gladiatorial arena, constantly whipping on the skin of each of them, constantly reminding them of what a terrible world they live in.

Remind them: they live on damn Nukeria.

The desolate Nukeria, the extravagant Nukeria, the golden mansions, the coppery smell of blood in every inch of the air: its rulers parasitized the minarets above the heads of the people, enjoying with their fat fingers the jewels that could buy an entire country, and with the timid pupils of maggots, they watched the fools they had enslaved at their wanton.

The maggots call themselves the high riders, and no one knows how they gained the dominion of the whole world: they are fat, greedy, and weak, and they can neither unite and form a firm class, nor can they arm themselves into brutal warriors with the powerful high-tech weapons in their hands, and they are unable to form a real partnership with the poor at the bottom, because the only thing they can master is endless exploitation.

Therefore, the rule of the high-ranking riders is weak, like the fat on their bodies: with just a small spark, the maggots will become a burning torch.

They knew that they needed a reliable solution: a moral policy, a kind of entertainment, an invisible deal, in exchange for these people at the bottom to continue to live in ignorance, instead of thinking about why they were the high-ranking riders, but not the poor people, who got more.

Thus, the gladiatorial arena was built.

Hundreds of gladiators were thrown into the crimson sand, where they would fight the beasts, mutants, and each other, and with their bloody wails to please the mad populace: no one cared about the riches of the high riders, for they were all too busy flocking to the arena to give their thumbs up to the losers.

And on the most ornate platforms, the high riders sang the edict known as "Bread and Entertainment", and drank and rejoiced: every death wail under their feet made their rule more unshakable.

In this way, death, entertainment, and power, each biting the tail of the former, finally formed an eternal cycle on Nukeria, devouring the lives of countless fighters, and extending the blood-stained prosperity to eternity: and with it the endless wind and sand above the sky.

Until......

Until a war cry pierced the blood-colored veil.

It was an outrage, an uprising, a fire of revolt kindled by hundreds of gladiators: it had risen from the darkness of the end and devoured an entire city of lies, but now it had been cornered, a beast dying.

And all this is an unfortunate genetic protoplasm, the original chapter of fate.

——————

Anglon had never liked the wind and sand on Nukeria.

He had too many reasons to hate the copper-smelling whirlpool of screams.

After all: they trapped him, they whipped him, and they witnessed the sad fate of him, the son of the mountain, along the way: it was in a storm and sand that he was brought into the gladiatorial arena of the Talk family by a team of slave hunters, and it was in the endless wind and sand that he began to enjoy the cheers of the gladiatorial arena for him for the first time, the first time he shed tears, and the first time from the heart.

The cheers of the stupid killing frenzy once became his motivation, the goal of life that he had prepared for himself, and they would merge into the wind and sand, forming a different kind of wild laughter, and it was under the witness of this wild laughter that Angelon actively or passively killed everything in front of him.

Beasts, mutants, brutes, modified monsters, gladiators he didn't know, gladiators he knew, gladiators he knew, and those who used to call him brothers and friends.

They were all dead.

Died at the hands of Angelon.

In the end, it was his closest relative.

In the end, it was Otto Hammers.

His predecessors, his guides, his battle brothers, if he could, even like the mortals, call him his father: Ottomarmos did all the duties of this title, and he was like the only ray of sunshine in the sandstorms, constantly telling Angelon that the world was not only completely crazy.

But Ottomarmos is still dead.

He was killed by Angron himself, sentenced to death by the butcher's nail in the mind of the son of the mountain, and by the spectators in the colosseum, and swallowed up by the long wind and sand of the world: Angron could no longer hear the earnest teachings of the old man who was like his father in his ear, he could no longer hear the roars and cheers of the gladiatorial arena that disgusted him more and more, and he could no longer even hear the never-ending sound of wind and sand on Nukeria.

The Butcher's Nail devoured them.

The damned spike roared at Angelon in a twisted roar of untold pain, devouring all of the Sons of the Mountain's past: whether it was Ottomarmus, the Colosseum, or the wind and sand on Nukeria, even Angelon himself was now devoured by it.

The Son of the Mountain had been cornered, driven to the end by the high-ranking riders and their nails, and he and his siblings were now trapped on this snow-capped mountain: even the wind and sand on Nukeria seemed so nostalgic compared to this icy and snowy land.

There was nothing here, only the iron-gray sky and the blinding snow, only the impenetrable army surrounded by the snow-capped mountains, only the butcher's nail in the skull, which inflicted pain and curse on him all the time.

Only, a group of brothers and sisters who are willing to fight him to the death in this hellish place.

These are all that the rebel fighter named Angelon has now.

“……”

As he sat at the mouth of the cave, listening to the sound of his brothers and sisters huddled together laughing and cursing at each other, and looking at the bright morning light in the iron-gray sky in the distance, Angelon thought of all this.

He smiled at it.

He knew that this was the end for him: in the face of doomed death, everything seemed less terrible.

He knew that when the sun officially rose, he and his brothers and sisters would be out of the cave that had been hiding for months, out of the snow-capped mountain, and after bidding farewell to their brothers buried behind the cave, they would rush towards the army of the high riders with their heads held high: it would be the last bloody battle.

The Son of the Mountain will fight alongside a mighty army: the hundreds of fighting brothers with whom he broke through the arena are now the only fifty-two of the most determined Avengers after a long battle.

No one has fled, no one has flinched, just like everyone in this cave now: the only reason the City Eaters have survived is to let the High Riders drain their blood.

And tomorrow, when the sun rises, is the best chance: almost all the high-ranking riders have gathered under the snowy mountains, and Angelon's brothers and sisters have reached their limits, they can't find anything to eat on the snowy mountains, and the son of the mountain even cuts his veins, allowing his brothers and sisters to take his blood and swallow it together with the cold snow cover to barely survive.

But this did not make up for it, but only delayed death for a while: in the end, before they were killed by cold and hunger, everyone thought they should rush down the mountain and shed their last blood in the ultimate revenge.

Even Angelon himself could not refuse such an idea.

And so, the group of warriors who had escaped from the duel pit huddled together and laughed at the crazy and sweet revenge a few hours later: almost no one wanted to sleep, but no one bothered Angron, who was sitting at the mouth of the cave, until he was dragged to sleep by an irresistible exhaustion.

They knew that Angelon was thinking: he was smarter than any of his brothers and sisters, and he was the only core of the rebels, their spear and shield, so that although Angelon had long been convinced to die with his brothers and sisters, he would always think more before embracing death, and no one would choose to bother him.

The Son of the Mountain sat there, motionless for hours, his eyes closed, like a mighty statue, his hand tightly holding the silver vines: these armed implants, standard for the guards of the High Riders, the trophies of Angron's last hunt.

He killed the prey of a squad. The youngest of them was probably not yet fifteen: however, it was not a successful hunt, for by the time Angelon had temporarily left his siblings, an unknown shadow had crept into their base.

They may have been killers from the high-ranking riders, or maybe they were someone else: in Angron's memory, there had never been a warrior in dark blue armor, unusually tall and wearing an abominable bat mask, but he gave him an indescribable familiarity.

But it didn't matter, what mattered was that these dark blue ghosts had stolen four of Anglon's brothers from the base, and his four most important brothers, Jochuka, Kleist, Cromacchi, and Flett, had been taken from their posts and disappeared to the edge of the camp of the High Riders.

Enraged, Angron failed to recover his comrades, a defeat that even cast a shadow over the pre-death feast in the cave: no one wanted to imagine the fate of the four brothers. No one spoke of them anymore, and they forced themselves to forget about it, hoping to remember them as other brothers who had died in previous battles.

But Angron couldn't do that, his superhuman memory could clearly remember those four faces, especially Jochua, his little brother, the junior he admired the most, the immature face, who had spent fifteen years in Nukeria.

He had intended to raise him, just as Ottomarmos had raised the Son of the Mountain, to make him his heir: and by tonight, he would be willing to cut off the heads of more maggots in the name of this little brother of his in the doom of the City Eaters.

“…… Sigh ......"

The angry hand clenched into a fist, and in an instant, countless snake-like cracks appeared in the hard wall.

But all this was in vain, and the end of Jochuka was one step ahead of him.

Every time he thought of this, a tidal wave of anger welled up in Angelon's mind, and even suppressed the pain that the Butcher's Nail had given him for a while: in the past, the Son of the Mountain was willing to drive away the pain caused by the Butcher's Nail for the sake of Jochuka and the rest of his brothers and sisters, because he had already been robbed of everything by this damn thing, and he would not let it rob him of his brotherhood again.

Even now, that's true.

He believed that Jochuka and his other brothers and sisters would be waiting for him on the Yellow Springs Road, and that he would meet his own end with the rest of the battle brothers: to hell with the damned Butcher's Nail, after dawn, neither he nor the High Riders would ever be able to enslave the Children of the Mountain again.

…… Never......

……

…… No matter who it is......

Angelon lowered his head and carefully withdrew his palm, silence in the cave behind him, his brothers enjoying the last moments of peace in their lives.

But Angron, who needed no sleep and had not eaten for weeks, began the last thought of his life in those red eye sockets: the previous contemplation of Jochuka and the Butcher's Nail reminded the son of the mountain of his adventure a few days earlier.

That struck him, because it was the only thing in his short life that he couldn't answer with his own wisdom: he didn't tell anyone about it.

He remembered vividly that just three days earlier, when he had once again slaughtered an entire army of high-ranking riders' guards, and had stripped off the silver vines they were proud of, ready to give to Jochuka as a gift.

The golden, blurred, dazzling circle of light appeared in his mind for no reason: it was brutal and domineering, and it made a sound more majestic than the rolling thunder in the sky, and even the butcher's nail parasitic in Angelon's mind chose to retreat in the face of this voice, and in turn in anger, began to torment Anglon's already broken heart even more.

Angron reluctantly responded to this voice in confusion and pain, and the voice in the golden circle of light called himself the emperor, the creator of Anglon, and the master of all fate and life of the son of the mountain: even those high-ranking riders would not be so eager in front of Angelon, they knew how to use false feelings to bewitch the son of the mountain.

Just as Angelon burst out laughing at this series of arrogant titles, the voice arrogantly said that it would take the Son of the Mountain out of this world and into the stars.

Angron didn't know who the so-called emperor was, and he had never had time to look up at the stars before: in the face of this frivolous and abrupt, yet arrogant voice, Angron was only extremely sure, and said his only request.

He's going to take his brothers and sisters.

It didn't matter who the voice was: if he could really get his siblings away from Angry Kyria, Angelon wouldn't mind hearing his voice.

But the voice rejected him, more resolutely than he had imagined.

The Son of the Mountain rightfully reciprocated, and Angron declared with contempt that his brothers and sisters were everything to him: in his eyes, the voice was no different from that of the High Riders, and perhaps just another tool they used to bewitch the Son of the Mountain.

To Angron's surprise, the voice finally didn't haunt him anymore, and it disappeared into the buzz of the Butcher's Nail, becoming an episode in a long bloody battle: the only thing that disturbed Angron was that just a day after the voice, the dark blue ghosts stole Jochuka and the other three brothers.

In the last hours of his life, Angron pondered the meaning behind these two events: however, he didn't think of anything in the end, the knowledge in his mind was so scarce, and the life in the gladiatorial arena made him have no connection with the word "learning".

He was more like he was just passing the time than thinking.

And it turned out that this kind of arbitrary thinking was a good way to pass the time: when Angron looked up again, the sunlight climbing the mountains was mercilessly stinging his eyes, and behind him, his brothers and sisters were moving, choosing their weapons, and encouraging each other before the last battle.

"Angelon!"

He heard someone calling him. So he turned back and looked at the faces: the fifty-two faces, the fifty-two soldiers who were willing to entrust their lives and faith to him, and he addressed them that short pre-war speech.

"Let's go."

The son of the mountain laughed.

"Let the maggots bleed like a river."

And in response to the son of the mountain, there was only the clash of swords and the cheers that shook the sky.

They all know it: rivers of blood.

——————

"A river of blood!"

It's a war cry.

It's a rant.

It was a proclamation of the fate of each of his opponents.

Rivers of blood flowed, and that would be the ultimate fate of every high-ranking rider, guard, mercenary, and militiaman who were stupid enough to dare to stand in front of Angron this early morning: no matter how good the armor they used to protect themselves, no matter how advanced and incomprehensible the silver vines, gravity-defying armor, sonic jammers, and matter-converting waverators in their hands were, the sons of the mountain were bare-handed. When he rushed into the ranks of the high-ranking riders, his battle cry was the verdict of all fate.

The battle broke out in the first rays of the morning, and the last exhortation of the high riders to surrender to Angron became a laughing stock for the rebels, who shouted and rushed into battle with their leader: at least half of them died in the first instant, while the rest rushed into the array of the guards, and with their brass broadswords and daggers, they fought against a salvo of terrible weapons that they could not even name.

Angelon rushed to the front, his bare hands, his heavy palms already full of traces of blood and internal organs, which came from the first high-ranking rider he killed in battle: he had been an announcer in the gladiatorial arena, and his sharp and caustic voice accompanied Angron's entire life, and it was under his inception that everyone in the gladiatorial arena gave Angron the verdict in unison.

Nail.

"A river of blood!"

In the next five seconds, Angron killed forty-five more men, most of them were high-ranking riders who were stupid enough to dare to stand in his range of attack and challenge him, he rushed left and right in the defense line composed of shield walls and silver vines, like the demon god in an ancient story, and everywhere he went, he stirred the entire battlefield into a crazy blood prison, and the blood prison in turn turned into an invisible river, pouring everything on the battlefield into Angelon's ears.

The son of the mountain could hear the voices of his brothers, he could hear his fighting brothers being struck down in the face of those mighty weapons, flesh and bones turned to smoke, blood boiling into steam, silver vines burrowing into the human body, destroying organs and grinding their bones into powder.

No one screamed, no one begged for mercy, and every City Eater took as many opponents as he could before he died, until more than a minute after the start of the war, until Angron was sure that in a maximum of ten seconds, he would lose all his brothers and sisters, fighting alone.

But this did not affect him at all, he grabbed the spear on one side, stabbed through the high-ranking rider hiding in the sky thousands of meters away, and then grabbed the Guards officer on the other side, tearing him in half, snatching the huge glittering battle axe in his hand, looking for his next prey.

But he didn't manage to throw the axe out.

Because, time froze.

Just as Angron raised his axe, as he searched for his last remaining battle brother and the next prey among the panicked high-ranking riders, a sensation never before seized him: first an unpleasant silence, angry thoughts confined to the imprisoned flesh, and then the familiar golden light.

He remembered the light, the power of the man called the Emperor, the hypocrite who had advised him a few days ago: he had trapped Angelon in power now.

Instinctively, Angelon felt creepy, and he tried to struggle, but found that he could not do anything in this force, he could not even move his eyes to glance at the frightened faces behind him.

It lasted for a moment, or a second, until a harsher light took its place, until the smell of blood on the battlefield turned to the stale smell of ozone, until a heart-rending pain worse than the Butcher's Nail pierced through the Son of the Mountain, and he was released from the merciless cage, and fell to the sand in embarrassment by inertia.

“……”

No, it's no longer sand.

Rather, it was a layer of rich, mosaic tiles, more luxurious than those laid in the palace of the most extravagant high-ranking riders on Nukeria, and Angelon was dazzled by these extravagances, and then more noise poured into his ears: no longer the wails and shouts of the battlefield, but other sounds, the roar of machines, and the crackling of a power halberd.

When he looked up.

He's already on the Emperor's Dream.

He was already in front of the so-called emperor, and beside them was a large group of samurai wielding power halberds and wearing dazzling golden armor.

These warriors were so close to him, even closer than the guards on the battlefield, they were so unreasonable, the power halberd that pointed at him flashed dangerously, but they were so weak: before the Butcher's Nail had turned Angelon's eyes back into blood-red, he had discovered dozens of weaknesses in the golden warrior closest to him with a single glance.

Without any hesitation, the fury on the battlefield needed more venting, only to see Angelon stretch out his hand, and in a moment, the foolish man who dared to approach him was torn in two, and his lifeless flesh fell, staining the large mosaic floor with blood.

The slaughter drew the wrath of the other Golden Warriors, and the indifference on the throne: the Emperor, who was like the sun, just stared at it coldly, as if it were not his guardian who had been killed, until Angelon gasped heavily, and pounced on the second man at the urging of the Butcher's Nail, that the Emperor finally stretched out his hand.

+ Stop. ＋

He spoke, and Angron had to fall to his knees, his stomach churning and a mouthful of blood spitting out of his mouth.

It was only then that he really saw the emperor's appearance, and he really heard the emperor's voice: as arrogant and pretentious as ever, just like those high-ranking riders on the surface.

The Lord of Humanity walked up to his heir, looked down indifferently, opened his mouth, called the name of the Son of the Mountain, and told him who he was, his mission and duty: Angelon was a genetic protogen, and he should leave with the Emperor to fight for the fate of the entire human race in the distant stars.

He was greeted by only a bloody laugh from Angron: just like a few days ago. Angron did not change his conditions, he demanded to stand with his brothers and sisters, and if he was allowed to leave, then to take his remaining brothers with him from the surface, otherwise, let him die with his brothers.

+ I wouldn't agree. ＋

+ You won't go back either. ＋

+ The affairs of Nukeria are over: they have nothing to do with you, and stop thinking about losing your life in that inconsequential slave war. ＋

+ It's not your fate. ＋

And in the face of this obvious request, the Lord of Mankind only stared at his heir in silence with a frosty face, and only after a long time did he spit out this answer.

And just as Angelon's eyes roared in anger and grief, the ruler of the Human Empire waved his hand, and the flash storm captured the Son of the Mountain again: in the next second, he disappeared in front of the Emperor, and also disappeared on the Emperor's Dream.

"Emperor, what should we do next?"

After a few seconds, one of the Praetorian Archons bypassed his dead brother and walked up to the Emperor, lowered his voice, and asked.

And the emperor just closed his eyes, he was silent for a long time.

——————

+ etc. ＋

(End of chapter)