There was once a village, not unlike countless others, tucked away in the forgotten folds of a selfish Baron's sprawling, neglected land. It was poor, undeniably so, its fields yielding just enough to subsist, but it was not starving. It existed in a precarious balance, like a bone meticulously gnawed just enough to keep a hungry dog from biting the hand that fed it. The Baron, for all his avarice, was clever in his cruelty: he took just enough to keep the peasants alive, their bellies tight but not entirely empty, too little to rouse the desperate fury that ignites a riot. And for a long, bleak while, that fragile, oppressive balance held.
Until the bandits came.
They hit like a pack of starving wolves, teeth bared, eyes gleaming with feral hunger, their numbers thick and overwhelming. They descended upon the village without warning, a storm of iron and fire, their crude axes shattering doors, their torches setting straw roofs alight. The villagers screamed for aid, their desperate cries echoing across the fields towards the distant, mocking silhouette of the Baron's keep. But the Baron remained sealed behind his formidable stone walls and iron gates, nestled in self-serving luxury, his well-fed knights standing idle, their polished armor reflecting the distant flames. No warning flags were raised from the keep's battlement, no rallying horns were sounded to call for aid. The village was left to burn.
And yet, the village did not fall completely. Amidst the chaos and despair, one man, a figure cloaked in secrecy and arcane might, stood against the invaders. He was a warlock, an outcast, his magic a whispered legend, now unleashed. He fought with raw, elemental fire that consumed flesh and bone, and shadows that twisted and strangled, moving like a dark phantom. He struck down a dozen of the marauders, their screams abruptly silenced, before he collapsed, bleeding from grievous wounds no mortal medicine could heal, his arcane energies utterly spent. He died a day later, his last breath a rattling sigh in the quiet home.
Few in the village knew his true name. Fewer still knew the painful, complicated truth of his powers, the sacrifices he had made.
But his wife knew. And his young son knew.
The Baron, perhaps finally feeling the subtle shift in public mood—the raw, simmering unrest beginning to boil in the hearts of his exploited populace—rode to the ravaged village days later. He arrived with a retinue of knights, his face carefully composed into an expression of feigned sympathy, his lips forming empty apologies and hollow promises. He pledged reduced taxes, more grain from his own stores, and "support" for rebuilding the charred homes. But then his eyes, sharp and predatory, fell upon her—the warlock's widow. She was young, her beauty radiant even in the pallor of her profound grief. And she was utterly vulnerable.
He extended an invitation to his manor, cloaking his true intentions under the pretense of condolence and compensation for her loss. A private dinner, he insisted. A noble's kindness.
She accepted. Not out of trust, but out of grim necessity. Because refusal meant a direct challenge to the Baron's authority, an unspoken risk that could spell ruin for what little remained of her family. And her child still needed to eat.
She kissed her son goodbye, a lingering touch on his forehead, and promised to return. And she did. But not as she left.
When the Baron's carriage brought her back to the desolate village, she was hollow—a doll with broken strings, her spirit utterly shattered. Her eyes, once pools of warm light, now held no flicker of life, staring into an unseen abyss. Her voice, when she tried to speak, barely formed discernible syllables. Her body moved, a frail, mechanical shell, but her soul was gone, utterly ravaged.
The boy saw it. He saw everything. The vacant eyes, the haunted tremor in her hands, the way she flinched from shadows. He understood with a chilling clarity that transcended his years.
The Baron had done nothing to save his father, letting him die fighting alone. And then, with a calculated, silent cruelty, he had destroyed what little was left of his mother's spirit. And the villagers, his neighbors, his kin—they had stood by, silent and passive, watching it all unfold.
Days later, she took her own life—a desperate, final act of escape. Blood bloomed on the floorboards of their small home, and then, a profound, crushing silence settled.
The boy snapped. Not with a scream, but with a terrifying, absolute silence. No tears blurred his vision. Just an ice-cold resolve that settled deep in his bones, colder than the deepest winter.
He entered the one place forbidden to him: his father's study. The air was thick with the dust of ages, clinging to forgotten scrolls like ancient secrets. There, he found the truth—not in words, but in the lingering smell of old, arcane incense, and the palpable weight of the forbidden books lining the walls. One tome in particular seemed to hum with a dark, resonant energy, calling to him. It was bound in faded, almost crumbling leather, its pages not just inked with symbols, but etched in raw, terrible intent.
A grimoire of forbidden contracts.
It detailed arcane rituals. Intricate circles of power. Terrible, blood-soaked pacts.
With a chilling, methodical precision born of unholy purpose, he gathered the components: a young goat, its bleating soon silenced; fragrant sandalwood incense, its smoke coiling like an invitation; and precisely drawn symbols on the floor—a triangle within a circle, marked by two intersecting lines. Symbols of balance. Of unity. Of bargain.
He recited the chant, his young voice steady, ringing with an unnatural cadence.
The air in the small study shifted dramatically—growing impossibly cold, the very atoms seeming to freeze though no window was open. The shadows in the corners lengthened unnaturally, deepening into swirling abysses. Then came the voice—not one, but many, a chilling chorus of curiosity and predatory hunger, echoing from the burgeoning darkness.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of this ritualistic encounter, child of grief?"
The boy's voice, though outwardly steady, trembled subtly with the immense power now present.
"I beseech thee… grant me your power. All of it."
A profound, stretching pause. Then, a low, guttural amusement that vibrated through the very floorboards.
"You reek of ignorance, boy. But your rage… ah, your rage sings like a siren's call. It is a symphony of vengeance. I will give you a tithe—one-tenth of what I am, a fraction of my immense might. In return, when the debt comes due, you are mine. Utterly. Absolutely."
The boy, without hesitation, without a tremor, uttered the chilling acceptance.
"I accept."
The change was immediate, brutal, and horrifyingly beautiful. His brown eyes, once innocent, turned pitch-black, swallowing all light, twin abysses reflecting nothing. His right hand shriveled, the flesh receding to reveal bone, then crumbled to fine ash, leaving only a stump where his limb had been, a stark, painful void. His hair, once a soft, earthy brown, bleached instantly to the stark white of bone. His skin, once pale from shadows and grief, deepened into a rich, almost metallic bronze hue. He was transformed. He was beautiful. He was terrible.
"I'll be taking what's his now," the chorus of voices echoed, a final, chilling statement of possession, then vanished, leaving only the scent of brimstone and burnt offerings.
And Agnellus—the name he chose for himself, a sharp, cutting edge of identity—was born.
With the influx of this dark, terrifying power came a new, agonizing clarity. His mind could see in all directions, past and future, glimpses of time as if it were a shattered mirror, reflecting disparate fragments of what was and what would be. This newfound ability manifested as a potent telekinesis, allowing him to manipulate objects with his will alone, a silent, invisible force. But the cost was cruel, immediate, and punishing—migraines that split the skull with blinding agony, fevers that cooked the flesh from within, visions that could paralyze him for days, leaving him catatonic, trapped in a maelstrom of horrific imagery.
But he was strong enough. Strong enough to endure the pain. Strong enough to enact his vengeance.
His telekinesis let him crush bone and bend solid steel with a mere thought. His physical strength, augmented by the pact, suddenly outpaced any grown man, any knight, any beast. And so, with a chilling, surgical precision, he began his unholy work.
The villagers were first—those who had stood by while his mother broke, silent witnesses to her demise. He tore them apart with invisible hands, one by one, their cries muffled, their bodies contorting into grotesque shapes, ignoring their pleas. To him, they had already watched one death in silence; they could watch their own.
Then he turned to the Baron's keep. The towering walls, the vigilant knights—none were a match for the vengeance of a broken boy.
The massacre was not swift; it was a symphony of destruction, prolonged and deliberate. The Baron's knights, once trained and blessed, fell like puppets with cut strings, their armor crumpling under unseen force. Walls collapsed with the roar of thunder, showering the grounds in dust and rubble. Blood soaked ancient tapestries, staining them crimson, reflecting the flickering flames of destruction. And when the Baron, stripped of his finery, finally begged on his knees, tears and snot streaking his face, Agnellus whispered, his voice cold and devoid of all humanity:
"You could've helped. You didn't. Now you break."
By the time the Church's elite agents caught wind of the carnage, of the silent, terrible screams that had finally erupted from the Baron's demesne, it was already done. The boy—no, the creature forged in vengeance—had vanished, leaving only devastation in his wake.
Now he runs, a phantom of wrath, hunted tirelessly. A name, scrawled in black ink, on the Inquisitor's most dreaded parchment. A stain to be scrubbed clean from the very fabric of the world.
"Agnellus is in your city," the Inquisitor growled to the King, his voice raw with cold fury, his eyes burning with zeal. "I've been tracking that devil filth for months, following the trail of shattered lives he leaves behind. And he's here. I feel him."
The hunt, chilling and relentless, begins.