Before kingdoms.Before names.Before light ever touched the bones of this world there was Grimm.
He did not arrive. He awoke.
Beneath the skin of the earth, in the space between sleep and silence, a pulse echoed. Not a heart. Not a soul. But something older. Something that dreamed before dreams were born. And in that moment, the world changed. not with thunder, but with breath.
Grimm opened his eyes.
He saw the world raw and untamed, a land still shaping itself. The creatures were simple. The sky quiet. Too quiet. There was no fear. No ambition. No power.
He found this… disappointing.
So he created a gift. A system.
He tore threads from the fabric of existence itself and wove them into three forces fire, ice, and shadow. Elements meant not just to shape, but to test. And then he whispered them into the hearts of mortals.
Power was born.
He built no throne, no temple. He walked the world cloaked in gray, faceless, ageless. He watched. He waited. And in time, the system he forged began to grow teeth.
People evolved.
They fought. They climbed. They devoured each other for strength. And when the strongest among them reached level 100, their souls became tethered to Grimm.
Their will bent.
Their names vanished.
Their eyes turned dark.
He called them his "Chosen."
Vortan was one of them.
But before Vortan, before any of them… came the first nightmare.
The world had no nightmares until Grimm tore open the sky. From beyond the stars, he called it, something coiled in sleep, born in the cold death of collapsed suns. A dragon not of fire, but of memory twisted. It brought with it whispers and waking terror.
That was the beginning of Drakenshold.
The meteor was no accident. It was a gift. A seed. A message.
Grimm watched as the dragon cracked the world and spilled dreams into daylight. He smiled when men built walls to keep the dark out. He laughed when they forged weapons, not knowing the system they used had already chosen its master.
He had no army. He needed none. Every power that rose served him. Every hero that climbed the path walked a road he paved.
And now, with the Chosen stirring and the old seals weakening…
Grimm waits again.
But this time, he is no longer in slumber.
He walks beneath hoods and behind faces. He speaks in thoughts and silence.
And somewhere, far beneath Elderhollow, beneath the roots of the world, his voice whispers through the last sealed door:
"Rise. Ascend. Break.The world owes me fear."