Chapter 43: Zenith Citadel

From the hill, Zenith Citadel looked less like a settlement and more like someone had dropped an entire piece of civilization into the wilderness.

Jet stood for a while with one hand resting near the Vorpal Blade, taking in walls that stretched across the valley until distance swallowed their ends.

He had seen photographs and old broadcasts of Citadels before, of course. None of those images had prepared him for the scale.

After his first Descent had consisted of trees, blood, monsters, and one murderous rabbit, the sight of an actual city felt almost absurd.

Citadels were the reason humanity could maintain a permanent presence in the Beyond at all.

The First Generation had discovered them during the chaotic years following the First Red Moon, already standing in places no human hands had built them.

Who had constructed them, how old they were, and why they had been abandoned remained questions fifty years of exploration had failed to answer.

Ancient mechanisms buried somewhere within their foundations maintained protective boundaries that ordinary Beyond Monsters instinctively avoided and, when necessary, could not easily cross.

Markets followed the explorers, Guilds followed the markets, and before long the Citadels became places where Walkers could sleep without expecting teeth around their throats before morning.

Jet started down the hill. The five Citadel ranks came back to him from school: Outpost, Bastion, Fortress, Stronghold, and Crown.

An Outpost might sustain only a few thousand people, while a Bastion could support tens of thousands.

Fortress Citadels ranged from roughly a hundred thousand residents to nearly a million; Strongholds could hold millions, and the handful of known Crown Citadels were cities in every sense of the word, capable of sustaining more than ten million people.

Population alone didn’t decide rank.

Territory, defenses, the strength of the ancient protection, surrounding resources, strategic position, and economic importance all mattered.

Zenith was classified as a Fortress. Looking at it now, Jet found that fact slightly ridiculous. If this was only the middle of the scale, he wanted to see what the hell a Crown looked like.

He wasn’t alone on the road anymore. Small groups emerged from side trails and forest paths, converging toward the same gate.

The Second Red Moon had produced an entire generation of newly awakened people practically overnight, and many were making their first trips into the Beyond.

One young man walked with a spear over his shoulder while loudly explaining to three friends that his B-Rank Rune would make Lesser Monsters "basically free money."

A woman beside him kept telling him to stop saying that before the Beyond heard him. Another group compared the glowing marks on their arms while arguing over whose Divine Rune had the better first ability.

Jet glanced down at the dried monster blood near one knee of his trousers and decided he preferred looking used.

The veterans were harder to miss once he knew what to look for. They didn’t talk much. Their armor was repaired instead of pristine, weapons sat where hands could reach them without thought, and nobody wasted time staring at the walls.

On Earth they would all simply be called Awakeners, the broad name for humans changed by the Red Moon. Here, people called them Walkers, an old term born from those who had first walked beyond Earth’s boundary and survived.

Fifty years later it had stuck so completely that calling someone an Awakener inside a Citadel sounded almost formal.

Every Walker was an Awakener. Plenty of Awakeners, however, had never taken a single step into the Beyond.

The closer Jet came, the more ridiculous the walls became.

They rose more than fifty meters above the road, built from blocks of dark stone so enormous that he couldn’t imagine what machinery had placed them.

Thin lines of muted blue light ran through sections of the masonry like veins, disappearing beneath newer repairs where humanity had reinforced damaged areas with steel, concrete, and fitted monster materials.

The main gate was wide enough for several heavy transport vehicles to pass side by side. Above it, weathered symbols from an unknown script had been left untouched, while a newer metal sign had been fixed beneath them.

ZENITH CITADEL.

A line had formed before the entrance, although it moved steadily. Jet joined it behind a party of five young Walkers who couldn’t stop looking upward.

Guards worked from several inspection stations built beside the gate, checking licenses, examining suspicious cargo, and collecting entrance fees. The fee was simple: one Lesser Monster Core per person.

Earth money wasn’t useless because nobody wanted it; it was useless because a bank balance on Earth couldn’t feed an expedition ten days from a return point.

Monster Cores had become the Beyond’s practical currency because every Walker understood their value, every Citadel had a use for them, and they could be carried anywhere. Shops might price expensive goods in larger quantities or higher grades, but the principle remained the same.

Out here, monsters were money.

When Jet reached the front, a broad-shouldered guard held out his hand without ceremony.

"Walker License."

Jet produced the dark card, and the man pressed it against a compact reader. A pale screen flashed his registered information before disappearing.

The guard’s eyes lingered briefly on the 1-Star classification, then shifted to Jet’s weapon and the stained harvesting pouch at his belt.

"Entrance is one Lesser Core. First time in Zenith?"

Jet nodded and retrieved one of the Cores he’d collected on the way.

The guard took it, dropped it into a sealed container beside him, and returned the license.

"Keep your weapon sheathed inside the inner market unless you’re in a designated training area or defending yourself. Guild compounds have their own rules. Cause trouble and Citadel security won’t care what rank your Rune is."

Jet slipped the card away. "Understood." The guard jerked his chin toward the opening.

"Welcome to Zenith."

Passing beneath the gate took longer than Jet expected. The wall was thick enough that the passage felt like a short tunnel, its ceiling lined with old stone beside newer lights and security equipment.

Noise reached him before daylight did. Voices, metal striking metal, engines, merchants shouting prices, laughter, arguments, and somewhere nearby the unmistakable hiss of meat hitting a hot grill.

Then Jet stepped out of the gate’s shadow and stopped so abruptly that the Walker behind him nearly walked into his back.

From above, Zenith Citadel would have looked like a vast, uneven circle built outward from an ancient center.

The original districts occupied the heart, where dark structures of unknown origin clustered around a towering central complex.

Humanity’s additions spread from there in layers: residential quarters, markets, warehouses, workshops, medical halls, training grounds, inns, restaurants, Guild compounds, and trading houses, all contained by the enormous outer wall and connected through several major avenues leading toward different gates.

Some districts were orderly grids. Others had grown wherever space had been available, producing crooked streets and stacked buildings that looked as though three different centuries had argued over the same patch of land and nobody had won.

Near the gate, that history was visible in every direction. Ancient stone arches stood beside steel loading platforms, while electric lamps had been bolted beneath carvings nobody could translate.

A convoy of vehicles rolled toward another district carrying crates marked with Guild insignias, and pedestrians moved aside without surprise.

The place wasn’t preserved history. It was alive.

At street level, the result was even stranger. A man in plated armor walked past someone wearing a modern ballistic vest and carrying a spear.

Two women in matching Guild jackets argued with a blacksmith displaying axes beneath a holographic price board. Shops had been built into ancient stone buildings, their signs flashing MONSTER CORE EXCHANGE, RELIC APPRAISAL, EXPEDITION SUPPLIES, WILDERNESS MAPS, MONSTER MATERIALS, and TEMPORARY STORAGE.

A restaurant across the street had several skinned creatures hanging behind glass while a digital menu advertised today’s dishes.

Porters pushed reinforced carts through the crowd. Information brokers called out route updates.

Apothecaries displayed bottled medicines beside bundles of unfamiliar plants.

Somewhere farther down the avenue, a recruiter stood on a crate promising newly awakened Walkers excellent benefits, professional training, and "a Guild that treats you like family," which made Jet immediately distrust the Guild.

He moved with the crowd, allowing himself to look without gawking too obviously. The Beyond wasn’t some untouched fantasy wilderness waiting for his generation to discover it.

Humanity had been coming here for half a century. People had married here, opened businesses here, spent years mapping dangerous territories, and built fortunes hauling resources back to Earth.

Zenith Citadel alone served the region connected to Zenith City and several surrounding second-tier cities.

The name wasn’t ancient. Humanity had given it that name because Zenith City was the largest city feeding Walkers, money, equipment, and supplies into this part of the Beyond, while several of the major Guilds responsible for managing the Citadel were headquartered there.

The relationship between Earth and the Beyond wasn’t a neat map laid over another map, but regional Descent patterns were consistent enough that the connection mattered.

Jet passed a broad intersection where a stone fountain had been converted into a meeting point.

Newly awakened Walkers crowded around maps projected from public terminals while veterans ignored them and headed toward inns or trading halls.

He checked the fountain, then the street beyond it.

No Frey. Jet pulled out his phone out of habit before remembering there was no ordinary network here and shoved it back into his pocket with an annoyed click of his tongue.

Of course Frey would choose the largest settlement Jet had ever entered and somehow expect them to find each other without deciding on an exact meeting point. That sounded precisely like him.

Jet walked another street, checked the entrance of a busy restaurant, then doubled back toward the fountain.

He scanned faces again, searching for black hair, a silver cross earring, or one obnoxious gold tooth among hundreds of strangers. Nothing.

His patience lasted another thirty seconds before he muttered, "Where the hell is Frey?"

A finger tapped his shoulder.

Jet turned.

Frey stood behind him with that stupid cheeky smile on his face.