The sky was burning.
Not with color or beauty, but with ruin.
Flames poured from the heavens like bleeding light, devouring towers of marble and glass. Bells tolled through the smoke, one by one, until even prayer choked on ash.
Ardyn Vale stood at the center of the cathedral square, blood running down his wrists. The holy sigils carved into his skin glowed faintly beneath the soot. Chains bit into his arms, silver-hot and forged in divine flame.
Above him, six wings unfurled, not human, not angelic, but something far colder.
A Seraph descended. Its face was hidden behind a halo of blinding light. The air trembled with its presence, heavy enough to crush breath itself.
"You defied the decree of Heaven," the Seraph's voice thundered across the ruins. "You spoke against the Word. You shed the blood of the faithful."
Ardyn's cracked lips formed a faint, bitter smile. "Faithful?"
He raised his head, eyes hollow yet steady. "You mean the ones who burned children in your name."
The Seraph's wings stretched wide, blotting out the stars. "You blaspheme still."
"I only speak what I saw."
Silence fell, thick, heavy, final.
Then the Seraph raised its blade. It was not metal but light itself, pure and merciless.
"Ardyn Vale, heretic of the Light, you are condemned."
Ardyn didn't flinch. The world around him was already dying, temples collapsing, the ground splitting open, screams echoing from streets he once blessed.
Maybe this was mercy.
He closed his eyes.
The sword fell.
Light consumed everything.
When Ardyn opened his eyes again, there was no sky. Only darkness.
Cold. Endless. Breathing darkness.
He floated, weightless, surrounded by whispers. The air, or whatever it was, hummed with ancient voices. Some prayed. Some cursed. Some wept.
He couldn't tell which ones belonged to him.
"Do you regret it," a voice asked from the void. It was neither male nor female, both young and old, echoing softly.
"Who are you," Ardyn said.
"Regret is sacred," the voice murmured. "You carried it like a weapon."
"Answer me."
"You defied Heaven not because you hated it," the voice continued, "but because you understood it too well."
Threads of faint light coiled around his arms, holding him still. They pulsed like veins made of dying stars.
"What do you want from me," Ardyn whispered.
"Nothing. You've already given enough."
The darkness shifted.
A thousand visions erupted, flames, dying cities, faces turned upward in despair, gods turning their backs. Amid them shone a single flicker of light, faint yet stubborn.
A child's hand.
A prayer never answered.
A promise never kept.
Ardyn reached toward it.
The light sank into his chest, burning deeper than any blade.
The voice spoke once more, fading like the last echo of a hymn.
"The light has fallen. But fragments remain. Carry it, heretic. Carry it to the world Heaven abandoned."
Then the void collapsed.
He woke to the sound of wind.
Rough, dry, bitter wind.
When Ardyn opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the sky, gray and cracked, as if someone had taken a blade to it.
He lay in the middle of a dead plain. Black sand stretched endlessly around him. The air smelled of burnt iron. In the distance, mountains rose like hollow bones.
He pushed himself up. His body ached. His wrists still bore faint marks from the chains, glowing briefly before fading into scars.
His clothes were torn, scorched by divine fire. The sigil on his chest, once a priest's mark, had turned black.
This was not the world he had died in.
When he stood, the ground beneath his boots cracked. Strange shapes jutted from the earth, half-buried statues, angelic faces eroded beyond recognition.
And on one shattered pedestal lay a sword.
His sword.
The same blade the Seraph had broken before his death.
He approached it slowly. The weapon was dull and lifeless, but when his fingers brushed the hilt, warmth surged through the metal.
Light flickered.
A whisper stirred in his mind.
Remnant identified.
Initializing.
Ardyn froze.
Golden script appeared before his eyes, hanging in the air like divine letters.
Remnant System awakening.
Bearer: Ardyn Vale.
Designation: Heretic of the First Light.
Authority Level: Fragmented.
He exhaled sharply. The world was already mad, one more miracle made no difference.
The letters shifted again.
Objective: Reclaim the Fragments of Divinity.
Warning: Each fragment consumed erodes the bearer's humanity.
Proceed.
Ardyn's lips curved faintly.
"Humanity," he muttered.
He looked around at the lifeless plains, at the bones of gods, at the silence that once was Heaven.
"There's nothing human left in this world."
He wrapped his hand around the sword's hilt.
"Proceed."
Light erupted, fractured like glass. The earth trembled. The broken statues turned, hollow eyes burning faintly. The wind screamed like dying prayers.
For the first time since his execution, Ardyn felt something stir within him. Not power. Not pain. But purpose.
The kind that comes only when everything else has been taken away.
When the storm faded, silence returned.
A lone figure stood in the wasteland, cloak torn, eyes gleaming with broken light.
The man who had once defied Heaven now walked beneath its corpse.
Each step left a faint glow in the sand, brief, fading, like memory.
Above, something vast and winged moved behind the clouds.
And far beyond the horizon, whispers began to spread through the ruins of forgotten temples.
A heretic had returned.
The Godslayer walked again.