The war is tearing Aurelia apart, plowing up its lands with trenches and constricting it with barbed wire. But in the colonies of the Dark Continent it began much earlier. An officer of the Ecumenical Empire makes a voyage to Central Africa. On instructions from the command, he must pick up Colonel Conrad from there, a first-class saboteur who deserted with the entire regiment. The deeper the main character penetrates into the continent, the more he and his companions plunge into the abyss of primeval madness, no longer restrained by law or morality. From the author: A prequel story to a series of stories about the best mercenary.