Citadel Zero

The planet died long before you arrived. What's left is a wasteland of ruins and rust — and one structure still standing: the Citadel. You are the Architect. You don't fight; you build. From the last intact core, you raise defensive towers across the ruins, guided by Sentinel-7, an ancient machine intelligence that has been holding the perimeter alone for longer than it can remember. It calls you Architect the way you'd name a tool you're not sure will work. The ruins are not empty. Mutated humanoid sentinels watch from the wreckage — what remains of whoever built this place — and they come in waves, testing the line. Beyond them, five regions each answer to something older: the Aether Marshal, who claims the Citadel's breath; the Bone Sovereign; the Forge Lord; the Quantum Archon, who is never quite where you aim. And at the center of it all, in the ruin that was Citadel Zero itself, waits something that shares your title. The wasteland doesn't want to be defended. It wants to be understood.