The sky above Umbryss was a colorless void, heavy with ash and unseen currents.
Through the dead fields and skeletal woods, a caravan moved — a river of black-robed figures chanting in voices not meant for mortal throats.
Their robes were stitched from coarse midnight cloth.
On their backs, every priest bore a crimson sigil — a swirling, blood-red mark that pulsed faintly, as if alive.
The symbol spoke of blood oaths, of covenants too ancient for mortal minds to grasp.
Each obstacle that barred their path — beast, bandit, or unnatural horror — was torn apart with brutal precision.
And their broken corpses were not abandoned.
The priests dragged the dead behind them, tying them to carts and piling them high, a grim harvest for rites yet to come.
At the heart of the procession, they carried a single precious burden:
A boy.
Cradled not in pity, but in awe.
The boy who did not cry.
The boy whose presence turned the mist to silence.
The pawn chosen by something greater than gods.
Villagers who glimpsed the caravan fled, bolting their doors and weeping behind locked windows.
But prayers were useless here.
Because the Nameless did not ask permission.
They Took.
And ahead of them, rising like a heretical fang from the broken land, stood their destination: the Nameless Church.
It was no temple.
It was a wound in reality itself.
A structure of shattered black stone and cold iron, twisted unnaturally as if it had sprouted from the earth against its will.
There were no walls to shelter from storms.
No towers reaching for the heavens.
Only raw defiance.
It stood naked beneath the black sun, as if daring the universe to strike it down.
Before entering the desecrated threshold, the priests performed one final rite.
They dragged the mutilated corpses they had harvested along the way into a vast circle before the church.
Using the blood of the slain — thick, black, and steaming in the cold air — they traced ancient glyphs upon the cursed soil.
The symbols twisted and writhed unnaturally, alive with forbidden power.
Their meanings were lost to mortal tongues, but the message bled into existence:
"We fear neither gods above nor demons below.
Come. Try and make us kneel."
The very earth shuddered at the completion of the sigil.
A low hum filled the air, deep and resonant, as if the world itself was forced to acknowledge the blasphemy carved into its skin.
Then, without hesitation, the priests carried Froy across the bloodied threshold.
The doors of the Nameless Church creaked open — not by human hands, but as if the structure itself hungered to welcome him.
The chosen pawn had arrived.
And the first act of a far greater calamity had begun.
The chosen pawn had arrived, and the first act of a far greater calamity had begun.
Above, unseen, the gods bore witness.
They judged in silence, and for the heretics who dared to defy the heavens,
only swift and merciless death awaited.