The sea was not made of water.
It churned red, thick with the blood of gods and monsters—centuries of war liquefied into an eternal ocean. Above it, the sky was black and weeping, void of stars. The air was motionless, heavy with screams that had long since died into echoes. Amidst it all, he floated—alone—on a shard of a shattered island, the last remnant of a forgotten realm.
The Nameless.
He did not bleed. He did not breathe. And yet, he endured.
Monsters—once angels, once men—slithered through the crimson tides, snarling and clawing, drawn to him. But none reached. None could. Not yet.
He stood motionless on the blood slick rock, eyes dull, blade planted into the heart of the stone. It pulsed faintly beneath him, as if even the island remembered war.
"I have fought for days, for months, for years...no, for decades." he murmured, his voice dry and hoarse, not from pain—he did not feel pain—but from something far deeper. Soul deep.
"I was never meant to stop. I was never meant to rest. A being made for war, yet denied the solace of victory."
He looked at his hands. Empty. Still. Always still.
"I do not hunger. I do not sleep. I do not feel. And yet...I am tired."
There was no answer, only the distant shrieks of creatures circling ever closer.
"Was I truly meant to be? Was I ever more than a creation fighting in the light of those who would forget?"
The blood sea boiled.
His grip on the blade tightened, more out of instinct than purpose.
"If there is someone out there..." he whispered. "Anyone... save me."
The words dissolved into silence. He had spoken them before—countless times. And the world had never listened.
Far away, something tore the silence apart.
A scream. Raw. Human. Female.
It splintered through the shattered arches of the cathedral ruins, echoing like a forbidden hymn abandoned by heaven.
Elara was chained to the earth.
Not by metal.
By something older. Hungrier.
Black tendrils of demonic power slithered from the ground, burrowing into her wrists, her ankles, her spine — pinning her down like prey offered to forgotten gods. Her body lay in a twisted sprawl, robes torn and soaked in blood, breath shallow, eyes cracked open just enough to know she still existed.
But that's all she did.
Exist.
Around her, the cult moved in shadows — robed beasts with human hands and predator eyes. Their voices chanted in tongues that turned the air sour, summoning powers from beneath the crust of reality. They did not kill her anymore. They didn't need to.
Because she died already.
Again and again.
Every heartbeat was a rebirth.
Every breath, a punishment.
Her body would rupture.
Reset.
Resurrect.
Again.
And every time, her soul came back a little dimmer.
Immortality was not a gift. Not in this world.
It was a curse carved into the bones of those who dared defy fate.
Elara had endured longer than memory.
But pain... pain remembers.
It burns away everything else. And in that fire, something stirred.
A thought.
No — a face.
A name she never knew, but her blood did.
Her lips trembled.
"Why... won't I die...?"
She wasn't asking the cult.
Or the demons.
Or the gods.
She was asking herself.
Because the curse held only as long as she fought it.
As long as she wanted to live.
And now…
She didn't.
Her head slumped forward. Her breathing slowed. Her soul flickered like a candle nearing its end. And in that surrender — in that final breath of defiance — the black tendrils cracked.
One by one.
The chains quivered. The demonic seals on her limbs sizzled, hissing like beasts in retreat. The magic binding her roared in protest, then shattered into dust.
And she fell forward — not limp, not broken — but free.
Blood dripped from her fingers as she raised a trembling hand and drew in the air.
A shape. A mark. A forgotten sigil fractured by time.
The war god's rune.
One the world had not seen since the seven god's have buried its strongest being alive in a realm made of unending war.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Return to me."
She coughed blood. Her body cracked with every breath.
"Please... find me."
The ash carried her words.
And somewhere... it heard.
Beneath a mountain of corpses in a realm where war never ended, something stirred.
A crack.
A pulse.
A low hum vibrated through the ground. Crystals embedded deep in a figure's spine flared with dark light — one of Seven Crystals. Dormant no longer.
He rose.
His body, stitched together by violence and memory. Cloth clung to him like smoke. Blood dripped from his skin as if remembering every death he'd dealt.
His face was unreadable. His hair drenched, matted to his cheeks.
But his eyes…
They burned.
Not with power.
Not with life.
With wrath.
A fury ancient enough to shame gods.
"I don't know who you are," he thought, the fog in his mind peeling away.
"But someone I was… loved you."
And that… was enough.
His feet moved before the thought did.
A demon turned, lips curling.
"Another corpse who—"
It didn't finish.
Its throat burst open from within.
Blood sprayed the walls like a dying chorus. The Nameless didn't blink.
Another reached for a blade.
A rib pierced its heart before it even moved — sharp and wet with the marrow of the fallen.
A third fled.
It was smart.
But not smart enough.
The Nameless raised a hand.
Behind him, droplets of blood floated — like stars trapped in orbit.
He closed his fist.
And the fleeing demon detonated from the inside.
"I don't remember her."
"But I remember how i function, the war has never stopped in my reality."
He walked.
Each step like a judge's hammer.
"And I…
Am death to the ones who touched her."
The cathedral groaned.
The robed beasts screamed.
Their chants broke.
Their illusions melted.
Their fire died.
They ran.
They fought.
They prayed.
It didn't matter.
He moved through them like a god through ash.
Limbs bent the wrong way.
Eyes imploded.
Souls were ripped clean from flesh.
The puppets — the human ones — he spared.
They were victims.
Not enemies.
But the others?
The ones who rejoiced in her agony?
He peeled them apart.
Slow.
Precise.
Like unmaking art.
And then...
He reached her.
Elara.
She was lying still.
Skin pale, body flickering between life and death.
He knelt.
Touched her face with bloodstained hands.
Her breath caught.
Eyes fluttered.
And something passed between them.
A memory.
A spark.
Recognition born from the marrow of their souls.
"You remembered me when the world didn't."
"I swear to the shattered sky…"
His hand gripped hers.
"I will not forget you."
He looked up.
There was no sky.
Only the void.
But on his spine…
Out of the seven crystal's, The first one has pulsed.
And far away…
Something ancient awakened.