The Searing Hunt Era
~980 CE - ~ 1000 CE
The Searing Hunt Era stands as one of the most defining turning points in recorded Sigilbound history.
This was the era when the world first witnessed the birth of an SSS-class Glyphspawn. A creature so vast, so unnatural, it blurred the line between living entity and natural disaster.
And its arrival marked the beginning of a terror the world was never prepared for.
Witnesses described strange lights curling through the air like ribbons and saw patterns in the sky that didn't make sense, accompanied by eerie growling sounds that were heard.
And in the center of it all, something came through.
They called it... Vurn'thaal.
Vurn'thaal wasn't like the other Glyphspawns.
It fed on people's emotions of fear, grief, rage, and regret.
The stronger the emotion, the faster it grew.
But what's terrifying is its power to consume Sigils and use its power...
The more Sigilbearers it killed, the more it grew immense power.
Cities fell and crumbled easily as many Sigilbearers were easily overpowered. Entire towns were emptied by one single abomination walking into them and leaving nothing behind but silence.
Seven Sigilbearers eventually stood against it. Not soldiers in shining armor or heroes from storybooks—at least not at first.
A few were well-known, sure...
High-ranking Sigils, flashy reputations. But there was one exception; her name is Myra of the Thornlight.
She wasn't even considered a real contender at first and wasn't even a part of the heroes' party.
She had an F-rank Sigil that most believed was barely useful in battle.
She even got kicked out of two different orders before she ever saw the battlefield.
Some called her cursed because of her unusual power.
But Myra was the only one who turned the tide...
People called her cursed, or unstable, or just unlucky. But she was forced to the battle anyway since the world needed forces in that dire situation.
And what does her Sigil do?
She had the power to make any living things sneeze uncontrollably...
Yes...
Not exactly what you'd expect in a war against a mountain-sized, emotion-eating monstrosity.
But as it turned out, that one strange F-rank ability made all the difference.
At the height of the battle, when the six High-ranking Sigilbearers were nearing out. Vurn'thaal had gathered enough energy to unleash a destructive beam that could have erased an entire region.
Myra was fleeing away like any other. And on instinct, she used her Sigil on the creature mid-charge since she could activate it at a far range.
And against all odds, it worked. After Vurn'thaal was ready to unleash the devastating beam, it suddenly sneezed—violently and uncontrollably.
Closing its mouth and inhaling the devastating beam...
The beam was sent back to the sender...
The beam never got out...
It redirected inward or inside Vurn'thaal's body...
Vurn'thaal's energy turned back on itself as the creature swallowed the full force of its attack.
What followed was a roar so deep it shook the mountains, and then a sudden collapse as the monster imploded from the inside out.
Its body cracked, fractured, and tried to regenerate itself, but the heroes saw this as an opportunity and finished Vurn'thaal once and for all...
The land called "The Hollowed Steppes" was born from that final moment as a testament to the land warped by its death.
The rocks burned black and smooth. Forests withered into petrified groves. No living creature remained for miles.
Afterward, the others called Myra a hero. Some couldn't believe it. Others did, but refused to talk about how close they came to losing.
Of course, her merits were stolen by the heroes party, but she was still included anyway and was written in history as a reward for her turning the tables against a terrifying monster.
Myra never tried to join another order after that. She vanished a few months later and was never seen again.
This served as a reminder...
That the world's greatest victories came from the things everyone thought were useless and broken.
.....
Still, the battle left more than just scars. The unity of those seven Sigilbearers became a model. People began to organize.
Hero Orders were born, small at first but deeply respected.
These groups weren't bound by governments, as they answered to no throne and existed to watch the skies and listen to the ground, just in case something like Vurn'thaal ever came again.
There's not much left from that time, just old weapons, fragments of journals, and ruins half-swallowed by the Steppes.
But their story endures, passed down more often by word of mouth than written word. Myra, especially, is remembered differently depending on who you ask.
Some say she survived the battle and lived a happy life in that era.
Some say her power was just a stroke of luck that was coincidentally effective on the monster.
While others see her tale as a funny matter of how an SSS-class giant glyphspawn was simply defeated by a sneeze.
.....
Moving on, we will now dive into the history of...
The Shattering Rebellion
~ 1600 CE
The world had been ruled for centuries by the high-ranked ones.
Ruled by B-class and S-class, or way more above. They are those who held unimaginable raw power not just in strength, but in blood, law, and legacy.
Peasants, laborers, and lower-ranked Sigilbearers were pushed to the margins, their abilities dismissed as weak or worthless. And were treated unfairly...
But resentment has a way of growing quietly, which will soon spark a revolution...
From the villages of Europe to the deserts of the Middle East and the scattered provinces of Asia.
It wasn't about borders or flags; it was about the ranks from C-class, D-class, E-class, and even F-class individuals who began rising up against the so-called gifted elite.
These weren't coordinated armies—they were desperate people with little left to lose.
One name stood out in the chaos: The Ashenblade. No one ever confirmed his true identity, but the legends say he was born as a farmer and had a C-rank Sigil that toppled the high-ranked ones—
Oh, you can't be doing this to me again! Young man!
.....
.....
[ Tutor Vanessa: ]
"WAKE UP!!!"
Vanessa exclaimed as she threw a heavy book that slammed against Thaddeus's desk with a thud, narrowly missing his head.
Vanessa stood over him with her arms crossed and eyes blazing.
[ Tutor Vanessa: ]
"Wake up, Thaddeus... You're missing the part where a simple farmer rewrote history."
Thaddeus groaned and sat up, stretching while yawning.
[ Thaddeus: ]
"Alright, alright... Calm down... I already know this part already..."
[ Tutor Vanessa: ]
"Oh, really? Well then... What was the power of his Sigil again? Hm?"
Vanessa exhaled hard through her nose as she confronted Thaddeus, her arms crossed.
[ Thaddeus: ]
"Well... I heard he uhmm... I heard he—"
Vanessa's wristwatch suddenly alarmed.
[ Wristwatch: 12:00 – Thaddeus's Tutoring Dismissed ]
[ Thaddeus: ]
"Finally!"
Thaddeus leapt from his seat as he walked through the exit. Vanessa gave him a half-lidded glare as he made it to the door.
[ Tutor Vanessa: ]
"Make sure to read your history books sometimes! Young man!"
She let out a sharp sigh, brushing a stray hair from her face.
[ Thaddeus: ]
"Alright!"
He waved a lazy hand over his shoulder as he walked off, not even looking back.
.....
[ Tutor Vanessa: ]
"If only your family treated you right... You would've had potential. If only it wasn't just the Ashbourne family..."
Vanessa murmured as she watched Thaddeus walk away. Her eyes softened, and her facial expression softened...
.....
The Ashbourne family was one of the most prestigious bloodlines in the nation, and it was celebrated for producing some of the most powerful Sigilbearers recorded in history.
Their name carried weight in courts and battlefields alike, etched into monuments and whispered in political halls.
From SS-ranked masters to A-ranked wielders of terrifying Sigils, their legacy was one of supernatural might and unshakable pride.
Thaddeus was born with a C-rank Sigil called Martial Prowess, the first of its kind in the family.
However, disappointment settled in before he could even speak.
Like all others, his Sigil awakened at birth. His Sigil wasn't mystical or divine, as it didn't control elementals or distort time.
It simply sharpened his combat instincts, reflexes, perception, endurance, and muscle memory. And made it easy for him to learn various martial arts.
A warrior's Sigil. Nothing more...
To most, a C-rank Sigil was average and useful in the right hands. But to the Ashbournes...
It was a blemish to their lineage that had been cultivated for generations around rare and revered abilities.
A physical type Sigil, especially one so grounded in the body rather than arcane, felt primitive and unworthy of the name.
What's worse is that Thaddeus was an illegitimate child, born from a quiet affair that the family pretended never happened.
His status in the household was already uncertain, and his Sigil only sealed his fate.
He grew up in the quiet shadows of the estate, ignored by his family, relatives, and overlooked by the tutors who focused their efforts on heirs deemed more "promising." Except for one that took pity on him...
He wasn't given training, guidance, or recognition...
He was forced to learn everything by himself...
While the others learned to channel elemental forces or master spatial constructs, Thaddeus watched from the sidelines as he studied their movements, listened in secret to lectures he wasn't allowed to attend, and practiced on his own in empty courtyards long after midnight.
There was no celebration when he sparred, no applause when he improved, not a single recognition...
But still, he kept going.
The power of his Sigil wasn't something flashy but demanded discipline, rewarding repetition.
His Sigil grew through grit and failure.
And so he pushed his body to its limits day after day, knowing that every drop of sweat brought him closer to mastery.
He didn't train to prove something to his family. He knew their opinion of him would never change.
He trained because it was all he had. If they wouldn't give him purpose, he would forge his own.
While the Ashbournes worshipped Sigils that could level cities or continents, Thaddeus learned to control every inch of his own body.
He made his strikes cleaner, his footwork faster, his senses sharper. He studied forms lost in time from their library, which he at least had access to.
Still, even with his progress, he couldn't match his siblings as they had awakened S-rank and A-rank Sigils that gave them raw, unrestrained power.
No amount of discipline could stop a storm if all you had were your fists.
And yet, he kept training...
Because even if he couldn't match their scale, he could still sharpen what was his.
And whether the Ashbournes liked it or not, he still kept going.
He was nicknamed "The Failure of the Ashbourne." his name is... Thaddeus Ashbourne.