In the world of Falstne, the Human Realm sat at the heart of the continent, flanked by the primordial, mist-shrouded forests of the Elven Realm to the west and the sprawling, untamed tribal lands of the Beastmen to the east. For centuries, the Boundaries of the Great Realms kept the three races isolated. The elves sought eternal paradise within nature's embrace; the beastmen sought freedom and primal power; and the humans sought the ascendance of both body and mind.
But no one could have foreseen the day when the sky itself would turn against them.
Within the Human Realm, three great kingdoms rose from the ashes of the past: Pyraeth, the Sun-Forged Realm of Fire; Ondoria, the Tide-Crowned Kingdom of Water; and Kaelenor, the Iron Bastion of Metal.
Lydia, the capital of Pyraeth, stood as the most glorious city in the realm. Before the Umbral Blight twenty years ago, Lydia had been merely the youngest of Pyraeth's five major cities. But when the sky tore open and the Umbral Phantoms descended—ethereal, parasitic entities from beyond the world that fed on mortal souls and wore their bodies like stolen garments—they turned millions into mindless, rabid Hollowed. It was King Ferius and his Holy Paladin, Reimus, who held the line. They became the saviors of humanity, and Ferius ascended the throne to forge a fragile, hard-won peace.
Today, two decades after the Blight, Lydia was preparing for the Decennial Congregation of Kings.
Inside the Great Hall of Lydia, the air was thick with tension. The massive obsidian doors groaned open.
"King Ferius has arrived!"
A deep, imposing voice echoed through the vaulted ceiling. Instantly, the assembled monarchs and high nobles rose to their feet.
King Ferius strode into the hall. He wore a majestic violet robe interwoven with golden threads, and a dazzling golden crown rested upon his brow. With every step he took, the ambient mana in the room trembled, resonating like distant thunder. In his right hand, he held a long metallic staff topped with a blinding white gem, radiating a holy light that made his presence utterly overbearing. To look upon him was to look upon the zenith of human power.
Behind him walked a man whose very existence seemed to warp the air around him. Holy Paladin Reimus.
He wore pompous, gleaming golden armor, his stride matching the King's. A brilliant red cape with a crimson cross fluttered behind him. Reimus possessed striking golden hair and eyes, but his handsome face was locked in a mask of absolute, chilling indifference.
Yet, to a keen observer, there was something deeply unsettling about the Paladin's aura. It was suffocatingly heavy. His holy light was a brilliant, blinding white, but at the very edges of his aura, where the light met the shadows, there was a faint, almost imperceptible rim of pitch-black. It was as if his sheer willpower was the only thing keeping a bottomless abyss from spilling into the room. He was not merely stoic; he was concentrating with every fiber of his being.
King Ferius took the grand throne at the head of the circular table. Reimus took his place directly behind him, a silent, immovable statue.
King Ferius raised his staff. A dome of impenetrable, shimmering white light erupted from the gem, engulfing the entire hall and sealing it from the outside world.
"The Second Congregation of Kings shall now commence," Ferius's voice boomed, shattering the silence. "Twenty years have passed since the Umbral Blight. Yet, we cannot afford complacency. While our ranks of Holy Mages and Paladins have grown, the Umbral Phantoms have not been eradicated. They merely hide in the shadows."
The kings listened in grim silence. The memory of the Hollowed—humans and beasts twisted into monstrous, soulless husks—was a nightmare that still haunted their dreams.
"Furthermore," Ferius continued, his eyes narrowing, "the recent surge of Hollowed Aetherborn attacking the border villages is no coincidence. The beasts are being driven. Someone is orchestrating this. The Eclipse Ascendancy is moving in the dark, seeking to break our faith and our walls from the outside."
Before the kings could murmur in agreement, a deafening crack echoed through the hall.
A beam of blinding, ethereal light pierced straight through Ferius's impenetrable barrier. The white light of the King's magic didn't just fade; it shattered like fragile glass against an invisible, crushing gravity. Shards of dissolving mana rained down upon the hall.
Alarmed, every mage and knight in the room flared their mana, readying their most lethal spells. Within the Human Realm, only a handful of existences could casually tear through a Saint Magus's barrier.
"You children are too rash. All your magic combined would not even scratch me. Dispel."
The voice was frail, raspy, and echoed from everywhere at once.
Instantly, the mana in the room was suffocated. The kings and their guards found their spells fizzling out into nothingness. Their bodies grew heavy, pinned to their seats by an atmospheric pressure that felt like the bottom of the ocean.
At the center of the circular table, where no one had been sitting a moment before, an old woman now sat.
She wore crude, tattered robes and leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden cane. She looked so fragile that a strong gust of wind could knock her over. Yet, as she sat there, the temperature in the grand hall plummeted to freezing. Frost crept up the golden legs of the thrones. The shadows cast by the chandeliers began to stretch unnaturally, reaching toward her like desperate, grasping fingers.
"G-Granny Zisa!" King Ferius gasped, immediately rising and bowing his head. Half the veteran kings in the room followed suit, their faces pale with a mixture of awe and terror.
The two younger kings, who had not lived through the Umbral Blight, looked on in confusion. But the veterans knew. This frail old woman was the Second-in-Command of the Empyrean Concord—the mythical World Government that lived in the skies, the true protectors of Falstne. She was Granny Zisa.
"What a bunch of foolish children. Stop kneeling, go sit," she sighed, waving a wrinkled hand. The crushing pressure instantly vanished. "I am only here for a moment. I only need to convey the prophecy of Malzahar."
The kings slowly sat, exhaling breaths they didn't realize they were holding.
"Oh, but before that," Granny Zisa added casually, her milky eyes scanning the room. "Lydia needs a new king. In a few years, I will be taking Ferius with me to the Concord. His job on the ground is done. Perhaps the young paladin behind him would make a suitable replacement."
The words dropped like a boulder. The hall erupted into hushed, shocked whispers. Even Reimus's indifferent mask slipped for a fraction of a second, his golden eyes widening.
"Why are you children so shocked? Sigh… wet behind the ears, all of you." Granny Zisa shook her head. She raised her cane, and a new barrier erupted. This one was not white, but a deep, swirling violet that made Ferius's previous magic look like a candle next to a sun.
Suddenly, the old woman's spine snapped straight. Her milky eyes rolled back, turning pitch, abyssal black.
The temperature in the room dropped so fast that the breath of the kings turned to ice in their lungs. The shadows in the hall detached from the walls, writhing and dancing to a silent, horrific rhythm. A crimson aura, laced with sparks of black lightning, began to bleed from her frail body.
When she spoke, it was no longer the voice of an old woman. It was a chorus of a thousand whispering voices, echoing directly inside their skulls.
"For the humans have sinned again, they shall perish. Blood shall flow once more, and death will consume everything. In these times, a Black Moon shall appear. When the Black Moon rises, the darkness that once roamed Falstne shall return to claim its throne."
A single, glowing crimson tear fell from Granny Zisa's pitch-black eye. As it struck the stone floor, the sound of a dying heartbeat echoed through the hall. The kings, overwhelmed by the sheer, cosmic dread of the aura, fell from their thrones, prostrating themselves on the freezing floor.
"But the heavens are never cruel. They are only saddened because you have sinned," the entity continued, its voice trembling with a terrifying, sorrowful weight. "Fate shall bring an interesting twist. A vessel of ash, and a vessel of gold. Humanity shall be saved, or it shall perish, in the hands of those fated to bear the dark."
The crimson aura violently snapped back into Granny Zisa's body. Her eyes returned to their normal, milky brown. She collapsed to her knees, coughing up a mouthful of blackened blood, her physical form smoking as if burned from the inside out.
The shadows snapped back to their rightful places. The temperature slowly began to normalize.
"Ferius," Granny Zisa wheezed, looking up at the King with a sharp, lucid gaze. "Do you understand what this means?"
King Ferius's jaw was tight. He bowed his head deeply. "I understand, Elder."
Through a secure telepathic link, Ferius's voice echoed in Reimus's mind. "Reimus. The Hollowed beast attacks in the border villages are not random. Someone is actively summoning an Umbral Phantom. The dogs of the cult are making their move. You must investigate this immediately. Do not fail."
Reimus gave a single, stiff nod. In the next instant, he vanished from the hall, leaving only a faint ripple in the air—and the faintest, lingering scent of ozone and something distinctly rotten.
"Not a single one of you shall speak of these words. Farewell," Granny Zisa whispered.
White flames consumed her frail body. Her violet barrier made an eerie, shrieking noise before shattering into nothingness. When the flames cleared, she was gone.
Silence reigned in the Great Hall of Kings.
King Ferius remained seated, his knuckles white as he gripped his staff. He slowly raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the trembling monarchs in the room. His eyes lingered on a few specific faces. One of them, Ferius thought, his heart burning with a mixture of wrath and cold dread, is a traitor. One of them serves the Eclipse Ascendancy Cult.
He waved his staff, and the white barrier of the Saint Magus reformed, sealing the room once more.
"Let us resume," Ferius spoke, his voice terrifyingly calm.
The Congregation of Kings continued, but beneath the polite words and shared wealth, a deadly game had begun. The Black Moon was stirring, and the shadows were already lengthening.