The skies ripped asunder in a blinding shattering—a rift bleeding light and darkness across the firmament. It was not thunder, not lightning, but something older, something more evil: the Soulforge awakening.
Sparks that shone like stars fell from the broken sky, both hot and cold simultaneously. Where they touched, the earth whispered of change—of fates pounded into existence before birth, of curses carved in blood.
In the quiet village of Eiren's Hollow, a child cried beneath the shattered sky. On his forearm, a gentle hum pulsed—a mark invisible to the majority but known to few: a Soulbrand. It was a sigil of power, but also a prison, and a portent.
The elders spoke of rankings—nine of them—cutting the world's chosen from the weaklings. Rank one was power beyond ordinary men, and rank six was whispered in awe as a god's domain, to be dreaded and near impossible to achieve. And past that was nothing—lost to all but the oldest myths.
But beneath the terror and the awe, a darker darkness seethed. Beings born of shattered spirits, twisted by guilt and evil, stalked the wilderness. The Wretched. Theirs was an endless hunger, their touch unclean. Every death left a shard, a fragment of stolen sorrow—power for those desperate enough to pay it.
No one knew the true cost.
No one knew the horrors that lurked beyond even the uppermost echelons.
And no one was aware that the weak and broken boy would eventually unearth secrets so terrible they would disassemble the fabric of fate.
This was a new beginning.