The night he was born, the heavens laughed.
Stars flickered above the land of Velgrath, not in celebration, but in cruel mockery. Their cold light spilled into the thatched hut where the cries of a newborn echoed, not with innocence, but with a rasping shriek that rattled the bones of all who heard it.
The midwives recoiled. The mother wept. The father could not bear to look.
For in the infant's eyes there was no light — only a murky red glow, faint, yet steady, like embers that refused to die. His skin was pallid as corpse-flesh, his nails sharp as if carved for rending. He wailed not for milk, but as though hungry for something warmer, darker.
Above, the constellations — those eternal watchers who blessed all children — turned away. One by one, the celestial patterns that guided fate dimmed, abandoning the cradle below. Some even flared brighter, as though laughing at the deformity crawling into existence.
Forsaken. Unblessed. An orphan of the stars.
The mother clutched her chest. "Why won't they bless him? Why do they laugh?"
The father spat, trembling. "Because he is no child of man. He is a mistake."
And so, before the boy could take his second breath, his parents whispered murder into the firelight.
But another presence listened.
From the shadow that pooled at the edge of the hut, where no fire reached, a voice like rotting silk whispered:
"A mistake? No. A masterpiece."
The air curdled. Candles sputtered out. And from the blackness stepped a figure taller than any man, his body a shifting mass of horns and smoke, eyes like pits bleeding fire. The One True Demon — Zorvak.
The midwives collapsed, their skin blistering just from gazing at him. The father clutched a knife, but his hand melted to the bone before he could move.
Zorvak leaned over the cradle. The newborn had stopped crying. He stared back at the abyss with unblinking calm.
"Even now," Zorvak murmured, "you do not wail for love or mercy. You hunger. You hate. You… betray. A babe that betrays his own kin before he can crawl."
He chuckled, the sound like teeth grinding on stone.
"Tell me your name, child."
The infant opened his mouth. No sound came, but the shadows bent, whispering in unison:
"Gorrath."
Zorvak grinned, rows of endless fangs.
"Yes. Gorrath you are. Gorrath you shall be. The heavens scorn you, but I claim you. You will be my disciple, my heir, my knife against the constellations. And together, we shall feed them a banquet of despair."
The demon reached into the boy's chest. The infant did not scream as claws tore through soft flesh; instead, he giggled — a bubbling, choking giggle that sent shivers through the hut. When Zorvak pulled his hand free, a black sigil pulsed on the child's heart.
Blood dripped onto the floorboards, sizzling, burning through the wood.
"This," Zorvak whispered, "is your gift. A system unlike any mortal's. Not to grow through labor or wisdom… but through slaughter. Every cry you wring from a throat, every drop of despair you squeeze from a soul — will make you stronger. Level after level, until even gods choke on your shadow."
The mother, half-mad with terror, tried to crawl to her son. "He is still my baby—"
Gorrath's tiny fingers shot forward, sharper than razors, and slashed open her throat. Warm blood sprayed over his face. He licked it.
The father wailed. Zorvak laughed. The stars above, for the first time in centuries, dimmed in silence.
And in that silence, a prophecy was born:
That the heavens had birthed their undoing.