Selena, the once-untouchable Storm Empress—now officially Skyreach’s Prisoner 001—was curled up on a rigid steel cot.
Her ornate dress, supposedly woven from clouds and starlight, was permanently stained a greasy charcoal gray from mud and dried blood. The right wing, her ultimate symbol of aerial supremacy, was gone. Only a jagged stump wrapped in rough medical gauze remained.
The harshest irony was the heavy black-iron collar locked around her neck, its warning light blinking a steady red. The very same Mana-Inhibitor she had mass-produced to enslave the wolves and enforce her high-pressure regime was now bolted to her own throat.
Hearing the hinges groan, Selena snapped her head up. Her silver eyes carried the feral, cornered glare of a trapped animal.
“Did you come down here just to gloat, Alex?”
She forced herself to sit upright, straightening her spine to maintain whatever pathetic scraps of divine dignity she had left.
“What interrogation methods are you going to deploy to extract the storm crystal incantations? Save your breath. I would rather rot down to the marrow than bow to a mud-covered grub.”
“I don't give a damn about your magic words.”
Dragging a metal folding chair across the concrete, I sat down.
“You know that half of your floating island is currently jammed into the side of the mountain? I need you to bypass the royal bio-magic lock on the underside and boot up the emergency suspension arrays. Then, you're going to hand over the exact coordinates for the primary load-bearing nodes. I’m sinking steel pillars under them.”
Selena blinked. A second later, she burst into a harsh, grating laugh that echoed off the concrete walls, dripping with cruel satisfaction.
“You want to prop up my divine miracle with your crude scrap metal? Keep dreaming!”
Surging to her feet, she lunged at the iron grating, her chains rattling like a maniac.
“The entire anti-gravity array is hardwired to my bloodline! Without me manually disengaging the bio-lock, the whole system suffers total structural failure in less than twenty hours! Millions of tons of rock are going to roll down that cliff and grind your little settlement and your precious factories into dust!”
Staring at me through the bars, a sick thrill lit up her eyes. “Beg me, mortal! Drop to your knees, and maybe I’ll show enough mercy to keep your city afloat!”
Looking at her, I let out a heavy, exhausted sigh.
“If the mountain actually gives way, you're right. I’ll lose a few production lines and roughly half my labor force.”
Raising my eyes, I met her malicious glare head-on.
“But if it collapses, it triggers the seismic fault. The dragon wakes up. When that happens, it’s not just my problem. You, me, and the thousands of your people sitting in the POW camp outside will all get flash-fried in dragon fire.”
Selena’s smile locked up.
“Plus,” I stood up, brushing the concrete dust off my work pants, “Garza is running hot lately. He hates your species down to the bone. Every single day, he submits a request to use your people as chew toys. I’ve been denying the requisition forms, but his wolves are practically drooling on your subjects' necks.”
Her pupils contracted violently, the blood draining from her face. “You wouldn't dare... that is blasphemy! A violation of the sky bloodline...”
“Then come take a look.”
I didn't have the patience to listen to her recycle old propaganda. Turning toward the cell door, I gestured for the guards. “Let’s see exactly what your sky bloodline is outputting right now.”
...
Ten minutes later, I dragged a handcuffed, collared Selena out onto the catwalk overlooking Sector Two’s heavy industrial zone.
Months ago, when she visited as a high-and-mighty monarch, she had dismissed these smoke-belching steel behemoths as garbage. Back then, she believed magical superiority could crush any machine.
But today, I wasn't showing her the hardware.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Pointing down at the massive open-air shop floor, I leaned on the railing. “Look down, Selena. Check on your people.”
She probably expected to see her kin chained to boulders, getting whipped like pack animals around the clock.
But when she followed my finger, her entire worldview, built on centuries of prayer and blood, snapped.
Across the sprawling floor, the high-tier Storm Mages—elites who used to wear pristine silk robes and float above the dirt—were now zipped into baggy, grease-stained canvas coveralls.
To prevent their wings from getting caught in the drive belts, they had strapped their "noble" appendages flat against their backs using heavy-duty cargo straps. Every single one of them wore a standard-issue yellow plastic hard hat, working shoulder-to-shoulder with heavily muscled bear-kin and chattering cat-kin.
Next to a three-story high-pressure steam boiler, Selena spotted a familiar face. It was her former Chief of the Royal Guard Mages.
Right now, the grand archmage was holding his wand in one hand, carefully casting a sustained Breeze spell directly onto the overheated casing of a massive steam turbine.
Beside him, a short, ugly goblin foreman jumped up and slapped the mage’s thigh—since he couldn't reach his shoulder—screaming over the din of the factory:
“Hey! Bird-boy! Gearbox Three is running too hot! Crank the wind up two notches! Keep it stabilized at fifty degrees, or I’m docking your meat ration tonight!”
And the formerly untouchable royal guard didn't snap. Wiping a streak of soot off his face with a greasy sleeve, he shouted back:
“Copy that, boss! I’ll get the temps down! You know my airflow precision is within spec!”
The harsh blast of the lunch whistle cut through the noise.
Selena stared in absolute disbelief.
They weren't being herded into cages. A wolf-kin laborer casually tossed the Chief Mage a chunk of roasted meat. Catching it, the mage actually used a tiny spark of fire magic to light the cheap cigarette hanging out of the wolf’s mouth.
The crew dropped right onto the concrete floor in a corner reeking of sweat and machine oil. They loudly mocked each other’s shoddy welding jobs, tearing into their rations without a shred of aristocratic grace.
No gods. No slaves. No castes.
Down here, everyone shared the exact same operational status: workers keeping the city’s engine turning.
Gripping the rusted railing until her fingernails chipped, Selena’s voice came out in a horrifying rasp. “You contaminated the sky bloodline... You downgraded my people into undignified ants...”
“You think that’s a downgrade? Watching a high-tier mage take orders from a goblin?”
“Wrong, Selena. You were the one treating them like consumables.”
“Up on your floating island, anyone with low mana output was shoved deep into the mines to dig out sunstones. Your extraction arrays drained their lifespans until they dropped dead. You labeled it a ‘sacred sacrifice.’ Down here, I don't run a sacrificial altar, and I don't use disposable parts.”
I pointed at the eagle mage currently bumming a smoke off the wolf.
“Even if all he can do is blow a little breeze, as long as he keeps that boiler from going critical, he draws a full ration. He survives until tomorrow morning with his spine intact. I don't use a whip on them...”
“I use a labor contract.”
Biting her lower lip, Selena’s eyes went red. She stared at her people—people who had fully integrated into the grime, people who were actually laughing. She couldn't process a single counter-argument. Her entire religious operating system suffered a fatal error and crashed.
“Your era of magic is obsolete, Selena,” I told her. “But I can construct a real sky for them.”
“I am going to build a massive steel rail network straight up the spine of the Blackrock Peak. Furnaces on the bottom deck, commercial sectors in the middle. And at the summit... I am going to take the wreckage of your floating island and weld it permanently into the sky using millions of tons of structural steel!”
“As long as the underground boilers keep burning, as long as my power grid stays online, your city stays in the clouds! No lifespans required for fuel. No mud, no soot up top. I’ll even install a high-speed elevator so your people can commute from the dirt to the stratosphere in five minutes flat.”
Turning my head, I watched her pupils tremble.
“Now, give me the coordinates for the load-bearing nodes under the wreckage. You refuse, and tomorrow morning, every single one of them gets reassigned to the bottom level of the Blackrock Mines.”
“You agree, and you're helping them. You'll be personally laying the foundation for their return to the sky.”
“You might just be a defeated prisoner of war right now, but long-term, you're still their matriarch. Make the call.”
Wind swept across the catwalk, carrying the distant, heavy thud of pneumatic hammers.
Selena listened to the rhythmic, cold-blooded, yet violently alive pulse of the machinery below.
Slowly, her proud head finally dropped.
“You are a lunatic...”
Her voice was raspy, laced with bitterness, but also carrying the distinct relief of a system finally venting its excess pressure.
“A terrifying lunatic.”
Shoving her thumb into her mouth, she bit down hard.
A drop of golden god-blood welled up, radiating a terrifying, pressurized aura.
She turned to look at Mykra, who had been standing in the shadows the entire time. I gave the assassin a short nod. Mykra pressed the remote detonator in his hand.
The red warning light on Selena’s Mana-Inhibitor collar flipped to green.
Suppressed mana surged out of her like a blown dam. Standing on a catwalk above a steel foundry reeking of oil and smoke, the broken Empress closed her eyes and pushed her core to the limit, chanting an ancient, encrypted storm incantation.
She pointed her bleeding thumb through the empty air toward the distant Blackrock Mountain.
VMMMMMM!
A massive concussive wave of magic temporarily muted every machine on the floor.
Miles away, at the base of the floating island wreckage jutting from the mountain, a blinding, pure-blue magical halo hundreds of meters wide violently ignited!
Accompanied by several deep, grinding thuds that sounded like the earth itself locking into gear, the agonizing momentum of the landslide miraculously halted.
The emergency runes had been forced online. Massive upward thrust clamped down on the local gravity, locking the dead weight in place.
Dumping that much output completely burned her out. Her legs gave out, knees hitting the dust-covered steel grating hard as she gasped for oxygen.
Drenched in sweat, she weakly lifted her head. She checked the stabilized wreckage in the distance, then looked back at me.
She forced the words out, her voice barely a whisper over the idling machines.
“I just handed you my life, Alex. Bring my people... home.”
Question of the Day: Alex just used "capitalism and labor contracts" to defeat "divine right." Do you think the Storm Mages will ever try to rebel, or is the 8-hour workday too addictive? (Click to choose)
?? A) They’ll rebel eventually (Pride is hard to kill).
Result: The mages might try to organize, but wait until they hear about "Union Benefits."
?? B) They’re workers now (Steady rations win every time).
Result: Selena watches in horror as her "high priests" become "senior technicians."
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