HeWhoKneels
In the wake of the Great Fracture, the old kingdoms fell to a new, ruthless philosophy: The Law of the Sinew. Under the absolute rule of Empress Thalastra, a woman of monstrous strength and terrifying ambition, the social order has been violently inverted.
Within the borders of the Thalastrian Empire, biology is destiny-enforced by the lash and the blade. Every woman is drafted into the Ascension Program, a brutal regime of physical transformation and combat training designed to turn them into towering icons of dominance. Those who fail are cast out; those who succeed become the new aristocracy, ruling over a broken population of men who have been stripped of their names, their strength, and their freedom.
As Thalastra prepares her legions for a final, world-ending conquest against the last "Traditionalist" kingdoms, a young recruit must prove she has the cruelty to lead, while the Empire's enslaved labor force struggles to survive under the literal weight of their new masters' glory.
It is a world where mercy is a myth, and only the strongest are fit to hold the whip.