⚔️ Chapter 1:
---
Page 1 — Silence Before the Storm
Wind drags the smell of iron through the air.
Corpses hang from broken crosses — men, women, children — all still beneath the bleeding sky.
Among them, a boy walks barefoot.
Kael, no more than eighteen, eyes hollow, hands trembling.
His world has already ended, but the gods still demand his prayers.
---
Page 2 — The Divine Patrol
Golden armor glimmers in the distance.
Seraphina, a goddess of purity, rides through the mud on a white beast.
Behind her — chains dragging, villagers crawling.
> Seraphina: "Kneel. The pure do not stand before divinity."
Kael's father does not kneel.
He stares up at her, jaw clenched.
> Father: "We kneel for no one."
The goddess smiles.
Her hand lifts — and light burns through his chest.
Kael's scream tears the air apart.
---
Page 3 — The Weight of Power
His mother rushes forward — light cuts again.
Ashes scatter like snow.
Kael's knees hit the dirt, fingers clawing into blood and mud.
He looks up.
He sees not a goddess — but a monster.
Something in him breaks.
Not anger. Not grief.
Something darker.
---
Page 4 — The Flicker
The ground trembles.
The shadows behind Kael move before he does.
His vision turns red.
Every heartbeat feels like a hammer cracking bone.
The goddess flinches — a moment of unease in her divine calm.
> Seraphina (softly): "So… one of you carries the taint."
A black pulse bursts from Kael's chest — faint, but wrong.
The soil decays. The air hums.
And then, silence again.
He collapses, body smoking.
---
Page 5 — The Aftermath
When he wakes, the village is gone.
Just ash and bones.
His parents' faces — burned into his memory like scars that will never fade.
He digs their graves with his hands.
His knuckles split, his breath broken.
He doesn't cry.
> Kael (thinking): "If gods live in the sky… then I'll crawl from the dirt and drag them down myself."
He presses his bleeding hand to the ground.
The shadows answer — faint, trembling.
A curse has chosen its vessel.
→ End of Chapter 1