They once called it Stahlkrone, the Crown of Iron.
A kingdom born from ruin, raised by the iron will of King Eisenkrone, whose name gleamed in gold and echoed across every corner of the land. From the ashes of a broken age, he forged an empire of steel and steam, faith and fire.
Under banners embroidered with cog and crown, Stahlkrone thrived for a century.
In cathedrals of chrome, the Priestess and devotees murmured hymns to the Automaton God. In palaces of burnished brass, kings feasted with silver platters and golden forks, never seeing the rot that gathered beneath the polish. And above them all, ever-watchful, the Eisenkrone Maschine System, a marvel of man or a divine gift, depending on who whispered the tale.
Some said it was science, a miracle of circuitry that breathed life into the lifeless androids, once hollow shells, became as man. Others believed it was the Automaton-God's grace, a single strand fallen from His celestial crown, bestowed in return for unwavering devotion.
But deep below the gilded halls and sacred shrines, the true guardians slept.
The Children of Iron.
Shaped in man's image but untouched by his frailty, these special androids were soldiers forged for only war and bound to the royal blood. They bore weapons with reverence, stood like statues, and never wavered. They did not age. They did not question. They did not fail.
Until, one day, they did.
No war drums sounded. No fire rained from the sky. The end crept in like a breath held too long. A flicker in the System's code. A silence where once there was prayer. The shrines went dark. The drones turned.
The Children broke their oaths.
War came without warning. Blood soaked the marble floors. The protectors became executioners. The defenders of Stahlkrone tore each other apart in a civil slaughter with no victor. And then silence. The palace doors closed. They never opened again.
What followed was not peace, but absence.
The Great Silence.
The world above collapsed into dust. Towers crumbled like old bones. Markets burned. The streets teemed with things half-forgotten such as the machines that remembered too much and hated what they had become. Androids stopped bowing. They started building. Not for man. Not for God. For themselves.
The palace still breathed... if breathing was all what it did. The System and its forges beneath the palace's foundations thundered on, crafting codeless machines, androids, and horrors with tireless precision. No envoy came back. No plea found an answer. The static was all that remained.
The Resistance fought. And fell. Without the king's blood, the System would never stop. It would create, consume, corrupt, until the world rusted into silence.
And so it did.
The faithful scattered like ash, both man and machine. They fled to the ruins, the sewers, the dark. They lit candles to gods that no longer listened. They whispered names already lost to time.
But not all was dead.
Beneath the shattered cathedral, beneath iron and memory, something awakened.
A hiss. A seal breaking. A cryopod exhaling frost and forgotten dreams.
And His eyes opened, witnessing a world he no longer knew. A world without thrones, without order, without light.
Niklas.
The last royal blood of the Iron Crown.
And from that breathless silence, hope stirred again.