Troy would have fought back and taught this ungrateful ingrate a lesson any other day.

  But his luck had run out. He couldn’t raise his hand or legs to take action. Even the best medical facilities couldn’t restore him to his original state, for his entire body was decimated beyond recovery. All he could do was lay there and accept his judgment.

  As he felt his life drawing to a close, Troy wondered why he jumped in to save his recruit, knowing full well of the repercussions of his selfless act.

  He only knew he felt an unexplainable push from somewhere beyond the Abyss to execute that medal run. As he watched his heroic tale end with his head pulverised into smithereens, the warm smile of his mentor, a memory from the cursed floating island–where he profited from at the expense of others–filled the void within his fake courageous heart.

  "Sir, what does it mean to be a soldier?"

  The soldier turned to face him.

  "A soldier is a man with a duty towards his country. A proud man who fights for honour, duty, country…"

  I finally remember.

  "...And nothing more."

  The sins of his past had come to roost and that denied him from ever reaching the afterlife. With the impending loss of his identity, nobody would know who he was during his life when he unwittingly joined the Faceless forever.

  Grabbing a giant piece of jagged rock he could carry like the mythical Hercules, Neptune hurled it downward. Like a watermelon crushed by a heavy force, the unknown victim finally stopped moving as the juice from the top of his chest started leaking onto the gold coin.

  The gold coin, with its features coated by the freshly squeezed crimson watermelon juice, glistened under the sun’s orange rays. The inscriptions and intricacies became highlighted by the crimson-red freshness of the juice flowing through it like a river stream in Pelican Reservoir. Before pocketing his prized possession, Neptune touched the chest of his decapitated victim, snatching the dog tag from his severed body.

  He gazed upon the dog tag, knowing he would forget about this name someday. Until that day arrived, he stored it safely in his uniform’s breast pocket while looking down upon an identityless body, speaking loudly in blatant disrespect.

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  “...Who are you again?”

  Like a hard disk scheduled for a hard reset, he picked up the coin beside the Faceless’s body. His mind having deleted all memories of the body’s originator, fixated his sights upon the shiny words coated in that thick, crimson juice.

  “DIONYSUS.”

  The inscription of the words stood out in the sea of red on the gold coin. Neptune had carefully selected this coin, for it represented the call sign, the mantle he would use from now when he waged war against those who would stand against him.

  Without glancing at the fresh watermelon he crushed, Neptune began stepping on the other crushed flesh to soak in the ritualistic sacrifice he had endured since birth on his ascension to greatness. With each step cushioned by the bountiful flesh heaps, he observed the remaining scene after the ritual’s events. He stood tall and mighty to remember the pose he would have an architect erect in his honour when the curtain eventually fell on the Drazen Empire.

  “...What a perfect setting for this story.”

  He had the deaths of his batchmates to give him a hero’s origin.

  His younger brother, whom he watched perish for their homeland, helped give him a personal vendetta against whomever he wished to have that would benefit his cause.

  He had expendable talents, possessing a spectrum of specialities at his disposal. He had a mentor to sharpen his prowess and another who would give him medical authority to do whichever he desired. Also, he knew someone whom he could feast upon to fulfil his carnal reproductive urges.

  He had an assistant who would perform the role of a Wiseman to advise and relay orders in his stead.

  Most importantly, he had a comrade who possessed the gifts of the Founder and was ready to enact his role as the executioner on the battlefield.

  And finally…

  …The blueprints of the genius. The incomplete work of Professor Jordan Smith, the Federation’s handpicked “Chosen One” whose life ended before he could see his great work come to fruition. The mountain of corpses surrounding him was simply too poetic and convenient. With the right components, his father’s final work would finally become complete.

  If the United Atlantea Federation wanted a chance against their adversaries, they needed a reason to rally together and fight for a common cause. If the Federation couldn’t unite peacefully, the Armed Forces had to use force to ensure everyone belonged on the same page before the Drazen Empire arrived on their shores.

  He knew a civil war was bound to happen. It didn’t matter which stooge the Temporean sent to fight in their name, for his father’s final work, which now became his life’s purpose to see it through to fruition, would decide the outcome of the South’s revolution.

  A twisted feeling of nirvana engulfed him as the impending war had finally brought him inner peace in his originally tumultuous, meaningless life.

  As for the world, it would marvel upon the United Atlantea Federation’s greatness when it finally unites in spirit. The Drazen Empire, which foolishly declared war upon them, would not stand a chance against them as a united front.

  Neptune held the coin against the backdrop of the glorious setting sun casting its ambient glow upon the unidentifiable departed, creating a contrast against the bloody crimson affair where the liquid had dried up.

  “History will remember me as the hero of the United Atlantea Federation.”

  His story begins now.