She had no name worth remembering.
They called her "stray," "beggar," "rat."But once, long ago, her mother had whispered a different name while dying in a plague-ridden alley:
"Eris."
That name stayed buried deep inside the girl as she grew up scraping food from gutters, hiding from guards who beat or branded the poor, and learning quickly that the gods favored the rich and forgot the small.
She lived in Eldareth, the polished capital of the New World, where golden towers touched the clouds and corruption rotted the alleys.
At age fifteen, she knew one truth:
No one comes to save you.
The Night It Happened
The orphanage had been shuttered.
Too many mouths. Not enough bribes.
Eris wandered too far that day. And that's when she was taken.
Dragged into an abandoned hall of what once was an ancient church.
The men laughed — rich uniforms, bearing the emblems of local priests and noble soldiers. This wasn't rare. The poor were easy prey. No one would listen. No one would care.
They pushed her down.
Tore at her clothes.
And when she screamed, they laughed harder.
"You think some god will save you, girl?""There are no gods left!""Be grateful we even looked at you—"
"Please," she whispered through tears. "If there's anyone… anyone at all… god, please—help me…"
Silence fell.
Then—
He answered.
The Return of the Storm
The air bent.
Time twisted.
Shadows recoiled as a figure stepped into the ruin — silent, hooded, face hidden.
At first, the men were confused.
Then, one stepped forward.
"You lost, old man? This is no place for—"
The stranger raised his hand.
And the man's entire body bent backward, bones snapping one by one as if pulled by invisible wires.
Screams erupted.
The second tried to draw a weapon. It melted in his hands.
The third ran. Got five steps before the ceiling crushed him with impossible gravity.
Eris blinked in terror.
The hooded figure walked toward her slowly, like a ghost from a dream.
The remaining men — once so proud — fell to their knees, begging now.
"We were wrong!""We didn't know!""We're men of faith!"
The hooded figure spoke then, and his voice was soft… but beneath it was thunder and death.
"If there truly was a god watching this... then they were your accomplice."
He raised his hand again.
And the men began to burn — not with fire, but with light.
Light that seared the soul.That exposed their sins.That made them scream until their lungs dissolved into ash.
When it was done…
Only silence remained.
The Girl and the Immortal
Eris cowered.
The figure stood over her, then slowly knelt, pulling back his hood.
And for the first time in ten thousand years—
Someone saw Caelum Verrian's face.
Silver hair fell around storm-gold eyes, ageless and tired and full of things no human was meant to endure.
Eris stared.
"You're not a man," she whispered.
He did not answer.
She asked again, her voice trembling. "Then… what are you?"
Caelum looked at the burning corpses.
And softly said:
"I am what comes when the gods look away."
The World Begins to Shift
That night, word spread like fire.
Of a girl saved.Of men of faith torn apart.Of a hooded figure who stepped from nowhere, bearing an aura that made angels weep.
Some called him an avenger.Some, a demon.Some… began to remember the old stories.
"The man who cannot die.""The cursed blade.""The one who killed the twenty-seven heroes."
Caelum said nothing.
He returned to his hidden city of silence, leaving Eris with a cloak to wear and a crystal — one of Lysia's old memory shards.
But deep in the stars, something stirred.
And in the divine planes, one god awoke — terrified.