The city of Abhorrent had been still alive with its usual cacophony—merchants hawking their wares from rickety stalls, children darting through the crowds with stolen sweets clutched in grubby hands, the ever-present hum of conversation rising like smoke from a hundred different exchanges. The streets were a tapestry of motion and sound, woven together by the rhythms of festive time.
And then—silence.
It started with a single scream. Sharp. Piercing. Cut off abruptly.
Heads turned just in time to see a burly blacksmith lift off the ground, his feet kicking uselessly at the air as an invisible force closed around his throat. Then another—a fishmonger, her mouth still open mid-haggle. Another—a child who had been laughing moments before, now dangling like a marionette with its strings cut.
Panic erupted.
A woman tripped over an unfinished festival decoration—a wooden archway still half-wrapped in crimson cloth—and went down hard, her knees scraping against the cobblestones. She barely had time to scream before she, too, was wrenched upward, her body twisting in the grip of unseen hands.
The crowd surged like a startled flock, limbs flailing, voices rising in a chorus of terror. A young demonoid boy—no older than twelve—leapt over a toppled basket of blood-oranges, his eyes wide with primal fear. Behind him, his mother reached out, her fingers brushing his tunic—
Then she was gone, yanked skyward with the rest.
Those who dared to look back saw her.
She hovered above the city square, a vision of terrible grace. Her wings—vast and leathery, their edges tattered like battle-worn banners—cast a monstrous shadow over the fleeing crowds. Her horns curled like twin scimitars, their polished surfaces catching the light in a way no ordinary demonoid's ever could.
But it was her eyes that froze them in place.
Blood-red.
Not the dull crimson of a common demonoid's irises, but liquid rubies, churning with something ancient and unfathomable. They burned with a light that had no business in this world, a glow that seemed to pierce through skin and bone alike, laying bare every secret, every sin.
The Blood Mother had come.
And she was not pleased.
From the heavens—if any still watched from such a place—the city of Abhorrent would have appeared as a living wound.
A grotesque tableau unfolded below, the kind of catastrophe that seared itself into the retinas, that festered in the mind long after the eyes shut. It was a mercy, then, that no living soul remained to witness it. To see it would be to invite madness in like an old friend, to feel one's very sanity unravel at the seams.
The horror would have crept in first as a physical sensation—skin prickling as if brushed by corpse fingers, the fine hairs on one's arms rising not in gooseflesh but in full revolt against existence itself. Then would come the emptiness, a yawning void where terror should be, as the mind severed itself from comprehension. There were no words for this in any mortal tongue. Only the echo of what was, and the silence of what could never be again.
The Demonoids never stood a chance.
From that cursed vantage, one would have seen them plucked from the streets like ripe fruit, their bodies wrenched upward in a grotesque mockery of ascension. They rose in perfect waves—first a dozen, then a hundred, then a thousand—their limbs dangling uselessly as they were hoisted higher than the tallest spire, higher than the clouds themselves.
The spread was methodical.
Inexorable.
Like a drop of blood in clear water, the corruption pulsed outward in concentric rings. Where it passed, life curdled. Streets once bustling with merchants and children were now forests of suspended bodies, their shadows stitching a monstrous tapestry across the cobblestones. The very air thickened with their collective gasp—the last sound they would ever make.
And at the epicenter of it all, she hovered.
The ripple's source.
The water's poison.
The Blood Mother's wrath was geometric in its precision, artistic in its ruin. Every soul within the city's walls was now a brushstroke in her masterpiece.
And the canvas was almost complete.
The city clock's iron hands—untouched by the carnage, as if Time itself dared not interfere—trembled into alignment.
XII.
The final note.
The last stroke.
A sound like ten thousand bubbles bursting at once shattered the air—not a scream, not a roar, but something horribly delicate. The pop of a child's soap bubble. The snap of a tendon. The collapse of a lung.
Then—silence.
Where a metropolis had pulsed with life moments before, now only a scarlet mist remained, swirling lazily in the absence of victims to paint. Blood fell like warm rain, pattering against empty streets, pooling in the grooves between cobblestones where footsteps would never tread again. The grand bazaar's awnings sagged under the weight of it. The unfinished festival decorations drank it greedily, their crimson ribbons now redundant.
—
In the absolute solitude of these lands, where the maps of men bleached into blankness, lay the cold desert of Jute. This was a land severed from the realms of mortal authority, a vast basin of silence and sand answerable only to the cruel arithmetic of survival. Jute was a haven for the otherfolk—the hulking Beastmen who prowled its dense, thorny jungles and the swift, scaled Lacertians who thrived in all of Jute's terrains.
Humans were a rarity, an anomaly almost bred out by the land's inherent treachery and the impassable fortification of Karrow. Those few who persisted did so far to the north, in meager pockets of resilience, leaving the deep desert to the rule of tooth and claw.
Over fifty percent of Jute was an ocean of arid sand, a barren expanse where life was not absent, but waiting—a patient predator. Civilization existed only in fleeting, precious bursts around a handful of massive oases, where cities of clay and sandstone rose like mirages, their walls guarding reservoirs of fleeting green against the relentless hunger of the dunes.
Through this excruciatingly cold and dark desert, a lone caravan moved, a slow-moving scarab against the moonlit sands. It came to a halt for no apparent reason, its progress stilled in the immense emptiness. The only sound was the restless whisper of wind over dunes.
A figure, shrouded in heavy, travel-worn robes, descended from the lead carriage—a robust vehicle whose strange, wide wheels seemed to defy the sand's grasping pull. He left the safety of his men, a cluster of huddled forms and anxious eyes who watched from the caravan, their hands resting on the pommels of weapons or the hafts of spears.
The hooded man advanced into the nothingness, facing a vista of absolute desolation: sand and star-filled sky, and nothing more. To his men, he was a silhouette against the infinite, a priest at an altar of void. They saw his head bow, and from the distance, they heard only the low, guttural murmur of words not meant for human tongues—an incantation that seemed to make the very air vibrate with wrongness.
He raised his hands, not in prayer, but in command. His gestures were precise, sharp, and deliberate. As his final gesture culminated, a deep, subterranean rumble answered him.
The ground began to tremble. It was not the violent, world-shattering quake of catastrophe, but something far more disquieting: a slow, deliberate awakening. The sand rippled like the skin of a stirring beast, and the men felt the vibration travel up through the soles of their boots.
The sand itself seemed to obey a silent command, sliding away from the hooded figure in a wave of dry, whispering motion. It retreated not like scattered dust, but like a curtain being drawn back from a stage, revealing the floor of some ancient and buried temple. Then, with a deep, grinding roar that shook the very foundations of the desert, it split.
From the depths erupted a structure of a menacing scale, sheathed in stone the color of old blood. It was a monolith, its surfaces a tapestry of strange, spiraling carvings that seemed to writhe in the uncertain light—depictions of winged beings, serpentine patterns, and script that hurt the eyes to follow. At its heart was a single door, massive and seamless, forged from a metal that drank the starlight.
The hooded man reached up and drew back his hood, revealing a face of stern, weathered authority. He was Kastran, the Hero. The cold desert air washed over his bald scalp and the short horns that rose just above his head. He watched, his expression unreadable, as the great door groaned inward without a touch, sliding open to reveal a deeper darkness within.
A sigh escaped him, misting briefly in the chill. "It's a real shame I won't be there to receive the spear," he thought, the calculation running through his mind with practiced ease. "Five days of hard travel… even that isn't enough to reach home for the festival. A pity. But it can't be helped. The grand design demanded sacrifice, even of personal triumphs."
He ran a hand over his smooth head, a habitual gesture of focus.
"We are far", he mused, his eyes fixed on the open doorway, "but closer than ever to achieving the Crest Order's true goal." The thought was a spark of cold fire in the vastness of the desert night.
Without further hesitation, he stepped across the threshold, his caravan following in a hushed, wary procession behind him. The air within was startlingly still and carried the faint, dry scent of ozone and buried stone.
Inside, the space was not the rough-hewn cave one might expect, but a vast, engineered hallway. The walls were smooth and lined with the same intricate carvings, now illuminated by a soft, sourceless light that emanated from the stone itself, casting long, dancing shadows.
A figure emerged from the gloom to greet them—a humanoid creature with scaly skin. It bowed with a precise, formal grace.
"Welcome, Kastran. Official Crest Order representative of the Blood keepers. What a pleasure."
The last wagon had scarcely cleared the threshold when the massive door began its slow, inexorable grind back into place. As it sealed with a final, resonant thud that echoed through the cavernous interior, the entire structure shuddered. With a deep, subterranean groan that vibrated through the soles of their boots, the monolith began its descent. Outside, the sands rushed back in a relentless tide, swallowing the edifice whole until the desert floor was once again a pristine, unbroken expanse of silence under the cold stars. They were now entombed in a secret world.
The being who had greeted Kastran moved with a slithering grace that belied its formidable size. It was a Lacertian, but one profoundly and horrifically transformed. Its scales had hardened into jagged, obsidian plates that clicked softly as it walked. A powerful, muscle-corded tail swept behind it, and its snout had elongated, hinting at a draconic muzzle now lined with razor-sharp teeth. Most striking were its eyes—pools of deep, pitiless crimson that glowed with a faint inner light. It was a living weapon, a testament to the Crest Order's power to reshape flesh to its will.
"Ah yes, what a pleasure," Kastran said, his tone one of casual familiarity, as if greeted by such a creature every day. "Are they waiting for me?"
"They are assembled," the draconic sentinel replied, its voice a low rumble like grinding stone. "The Round Table convenes in the Grand Hall. Your arrival has been anticipated."
As they progressed deeper into the labyrinthine complex, the awe of Kastran's men was palpable. The corridors, hewn from the same dark, blood-hued stone as the exterior, were illuminated by the same eerie, sourceless light that made the intricate carvings—depicting ancient rituals and forgotten wars—seem to writhe and shift if stared at for too long.
One of the demonoids, a younger member of the caravan walking near the rear, finally found his voice. "What is this place?" he whispered to the veteran beside him, his eyes wide as he took in the impossible scale of it all.
"It's my first time here too," the older demonoid replied, though his demeanor was considerably more composed.
"You would think you'd been here before. You've spent far longer a part of the Crest Order than I have."
"Seniority doesn't grant one a map to all our secrets," the veteran said with a faint smile. "But I have heard things. Phile told me this is said to be the birthplace of the Crest Order itself. The very heart from which our purpose first beat."
He lowered his voice further as they passed another of the transformed guardians, a hulking figure whose form suggested a Beastman origin, now twisted into something far more formidable and fearsome. "And these 'grotesques,' as you call them… they are not so different from us."
"How so?" the younger one asked, eyeing the guardian's claws with a mix of fear and fascination.
The veteran brought his fingers together. "Two sides of the same crimson coin. As a race, we demonoids crave blood. It is our sustenance, our strength. And they…" He gestured subtly toward the guardian. "From what Phile said, they feed on it in a different, more profound way. It is the source of their transformation, their power. We both owe our existence to it. We are children of the same vital, sacred essence."
"They seem… different," the younger demonoid pressed, watching as a group of the Order's members turned a corner ahead. Their forms were a unsettling spectrum of metamorphosis—some retained just enough of their Lacertian or Beastmen heritage to be recognizable, while others had ascended—or devolved—into things entirely new, their bodies speaking of rituals that traded former selves for immense power.
"Different is a matter of perspective," the veteran murmured, his own crimson eyes reflecting the haunting glow of the hall. "They have simply walked further down the path than we have. They are a glimpse of what dedication can achieve."
The term "Grotesques" was a label of convenience, not of biology. They were not a unified race or a distinct species, but a brotherhood of the transformed—individuals from every corner of Jute who had willingly shed their original forms in a crucible of blood and power. A Beastman, a Lacertian, even the rare human who found their way into the Order's deepest mysteries could emerge remade into something… more. And something less.
To the demonoids, who still clung to their fundamental shape, they were simply the "Grotesques," a name that acknowledged their terrifying divergence without granting it the dignity of a true taxonomic title.
As Kastran and his retinue proceeded down the grand corridor, they moved under the silent, appraising gazes of the Grotesque guardians. Their silence was a physical weight, broken only by the occasional low, guttural chatter that echoed strangely off the stone.
One guard, a massive figure whose form suggested a canine Beastman origin but had been twisted into something far more savage—with a pronounced muzzle lined with serrated teeth and a thick, spiked hide—watched the procession with open disdain. He crossed his powerful arms over his chest, a low hiss rumbling in his throat.
"So these are the famed demonoids?" he muttered, his voice like grinding gravel. "The chosen children of the so-called Blood Mother? I expected… more."
A fellow guard, a Lacertian whose scales had hardened tougher than iron, glanced over. "First time seeing them in the flesh, Rou?"
The canine Grotesque, Rou, puffed out his chest. "Yeah. Pictured them more feral. More cold-blooded." A derisive smirk twisted his features as he watched a younger demonoid glance around with wide, uncertain eyes. "Heh. Look at them. Some are even scared. They look just like pups facing their alphas for the first time."
Their observation was cut short as the procession entered the Grand Hall. The vast, circular chamber was dominated by a massive round table of polished obsidian. An announcer's voice, resonant and formal, echoed through the space.
"…the Faction of the Night Lurkers, the Faction of the Moon Callers, and finally, the Faction of the Blood Keepers. We are all gathered here today…"
The announcer's words faded into the background as the scene settled on the table's occupants. Kastran took his seat among five other powerful figures. To his right was Zarmon, a trusted demonoid ally who was marked with a noticeable balding pattern.
The other four seats were occupied by the leaders of the Grotesque factions. Most striking was the representative of the Night Lurkers: an eerily pale, handsome young man with a cascade of thick black hair and eyes the color of fresh blood—vermillion pools that held a chilling stillness. Seated beside him was his right-hand man, whose similar features were marked by eyes that burned with a slightly warmer, more orange hue.
The remaining two seats were occupied by the masters of the Faction of Moon Callers. The representative himself was a bull-necked figure whose broad shoulders seemed to strain the fabric of his formal attire. A magnificent, braided beard of tawny gold framed a face set in a permanent, challenging glare, its owner a grotesque evolution of what was once a Lion-man.
Beside him sat his lieutenant, an even more imposing presence whose sheer mass dwarfed his leader. Long, coarse brown hair fell around a face marked by the unmistakable curved horns of an Ox-man, now twisted to a sharper, more weapon-like points.
Their silent, formidable presence completed the circle of power.
The announcer's voice cut through the final introductions. "…and now, may this gathering officially commence." With a deep bow that went unacknowledged by the seated figures, he withdrew. The heavy door sealed behind him with a sound like a tomb closing.
Suddenly, the chamber was locked in a silence so profound it felt like a physical force.