BULLET HEAVEN

They landed in fire.

The wormhole dropped them into a world already dying—an imperial wasteland where black pyramids pierced a sky of smoke. The ground was scorched with past rebellions. Ash fell like snow.

Talis rolled out from her crash trajectory, her mech skidding to a halt. "Where the hell are we?"

RAID scanned the horizon. His sensors whispered one word: ASHERON.

Once a throne-world of the multiversal empire. Now a haunted crown with no king.

Sovereign Red flexed its armor. The mech was scarred, but eager.

"Looks like we're in someone's graveyard," RAID said. "Let's make it messier."

I. THE FALLEN REGALIA

Scouts approached—warlords in exile riding rust-beasts, wearing broken banners as capes. Their eyes were burned out, replaced with eternal flame.

They called themselves The Crownless, the last royalists of a dead god-emperor.

Their leader, a six-armed woman with a floating throne-mech, spoke:

"Bow, outsider. Or be consumed."

RAID laughed. "You wear a crown of rust and call it royalty?"

He didn't wait.

Blades out. Sovereign Red surged forward like a comet. His strikes were brutal and poetic—each move rewriting the battlefield with violence. One warlord tried to intercept—RAID snapped his arm and used the mech to batter the others.

Talis tore through the flanks with surgical precision. Blood sprayed into the ash.

The battlefield burned.

"Now who's crownless?" RAID asked.

II. THE WAR-FORGERS

Deep beneath the ruins, they found the Forge Cores—ancient war factories that once built gods. The forges were alive, whispering in metal-tongue.

Inside, dismembered divine mechs still twitched on racks.

"Something's still here," Talis warned.

And it was.

The Forger-King, a fusion of molten throne, industrial war-engine, and prophet, emerged.

"THOU ART THE RED UNNAMED. THE ONE WHO BREAKS ARMOR AND FAITH."

RAID stepped forward, voice low. "That's Commander Tyrant to you."

The fight was monstrous.

The Forger-King threw molten chains, each link made from past victories. RAID countered with raw aggression—charging into the heat, slicing with Sovereign Red through molten armor, mockery in his voice.

"You call yourself a king? I've dethroned gods with more presence."

He slammed his mech's core blade into the Forger-King's heart-engine.

Explosion.

The factory collapsed around them.

III. ASH CROWN

RAID emerged from the forge with its last remaining crown—a floating fragment of divine command circuitry.

Talis approached. "Are you really going to wear that?"

RAID stared at the ash-covered artifact.

"I don't wear crowns," he said, crushing it in his fist. "I burn them."

Suddenly, the sky turned red.

A beacon activated.

From above, a storm of Dread Heralds descended—agents of the true gods who'd been watching RAID's multiversal kill-count grow.

The war just escalated.

And RAID smiled.

"Finally," he said. "Someone worth my time."