Some Moments before
The meteors came screaming from the torn sky — each one a burning omen, each one a vessel. The heavens bled fire as the fragments fell, tearing through cloud and frost and light, until they struck the frozen plains beyond the fallen city. The shockwave rippled through the bones of the world.
When the smoke thinned, they stood there — fourteen silhouettes born of ruin and divinity.
Demigods.
Half of them gleamed with the holy sheen of Heaven's forge. The rest bore the markings of ancient beasts, scaled or horned or winged in abomination. Their eyes glowed with celestial fire — cold, unfeeling, merciless.
At their head stood one unlike the others — a towering figure with a dragon's visage, horns spiraling backward like blades of obsidian, his golden skin cracked with ember veins. Upon his back rested a trident of godsteel, its tips humming with such condensed mana that the air warped around it.
He said nothing. His breath alone carried judgment.
